International Space Station (Updates)

6,181 · August 10, 2015

NASA International Space Station On-Orbit Status 7 August 2015

File photo: In the International Space Station's Kibo laboratory, NASA astronaut Mike Hopkins, Expedition 38 flight engineer, holds a plastic container partially filled with green-colored water which will be used in a new experiment using the soccer-ball-sized, free-flying satellites known as Synchronized Position Hold, Engage, Reorient, Experimental Satellites, or SPHERES, which are already on the station. For the SPHERES-Slosh experiment, two SPHERES robots are attached to opposite ends of a metal frame holding the plastic tank with the green-colored water. The new hardware for the SPHERES-Slosh study was delivered to the station aboard Orbital Sciences' Cygnus cargo craft on Jan. 12. Credit NASA.

One-Year crew member Scott Kelly set up free-floating microsatellites for the long-runningSPHERES-Slosh experiment which observes how liquids such as rocket fuel behave in space. New station residents Kjell Lindgren and Kimiya Yui explored vision changes in space as they scanned each other's eyes with an ultrasound and measured their blood pressure for theOcular Health study.

Spacewalkers Gennady Padalka and Mikhail Kornienko tested their spacesuits Friday. The cosmonauts will spend 6-1/2 hours upgrading hardware, retrieving an external experiment and photographing the exterior condition of the Russian modules.

In Russia, three new Soyuz crew members completed a series of mission simulations ahead of their departure to the Baikonur Cosmodrome launch site in Kazakhstan. Veteran cosmonaut Sergei Volkov will command the Soyuz TMA-18M spacecraft when he launches Sept. 2 with fellow crew members Andres Mogensen and Aidyn Aimbetov. Volkov will swap places with Padalka who will return to Earth Sept. 12 with Mogensen and Aimbetov.

Observation Analysis of Smectic Islands in Space (OASIS) Hard Drive Exchange: Kornienko swapped the Hard Drives for the OASIS experiment and stowed for return on a later flight. OASIS studies the unique behavior of liquid crystals in microgravity, including their overall motion and the merging of crystal layers known as smectic islands. Liquid crystals are used for display screens in televisions and clocks, and they also occur in soaps and in cell membranes. The experiment allows detailed studies of the behavior of these structures, and how microgravity affects their unique ability to act like both a liquid and a solid crystal.

Russian Segment (RS) Extravehicular Activity (EVA) #41 Preparations: Padalka and Kornienko performed a suited dry run today. This activity completes preparations for Monday's planned EVA.

Sabatier Jumper Install: Kelly installed a transfer hose from Oxygen Generation System (OGS) waste water to Water Recovery System (WRS) waste water in Node 3. With the Sabatier product water being sent to the WPA Wastewater Tank instead of the LAB Condensate Tank we will save crew time (less condensate tank offloads / water pumping into WPA) and reduce the amount of stowed iodinated water that must be used to support nominal water usage until new MF Beds are installed into WPA and the TOC issue is resolved.

Three-Day Look Ahead:
Saturday, 08/11: Crew off duty, housekeeping, Earth Rim Observations
Sunday, 08/12: Crew off duty
Monday, 08/10: Russian EVA #41, Body Measures, VEG-01

QUICK ISS Status - Environmental Control Group:

Component - Status
Elektron - Off
Vozdukh - Manual
[СКВ] 1 - SM Air Conditioner System ("SKV1") - On
[СКВ] 2 - SM Air Conditioner System ("SKV2") - Off
Carbon Dioxide Removal Assembly (CDRA) Lab - Standby
Carbon Dioxide Removal Assembly (CDRA) Node 3 - Operate
Major Constituent Analyzer (MCA) Lab - Shutdown
Major Constituent Analyzer (MCA) Node 3 - Operate
Oxygen Generation Assembly (OGA) - Process
Urine Processing Assembly (UPA) - Process
Trace Contaminant Control System (TCCS) Lab - Off
Trace Contaminant Control System (TCCS) Node 3 - Full Up

http://spaceref.com/international-space-station/nasa-international-space-station-on-orbit-status-7-august-2015.html

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Spacewalking Cosmonauts Give Space Station Window a Shine

On Aug, 10, 2015, 2 cosmonauts worked outside the International Space Station in orbit around Earth, seen far below.
Credit: NASA TV

Yes, they do windows, even in space: Two cosmonauts scrubbed a window, documented the International Space Station exterior, collected an experiment and battled cold fingers during a speedy spacewalk Monday, August 10.

The Russian residents of the space station are experienced spacewalkers: it was flight engineer Mikhail Kornienko's second spacewalk and Expedition 44 commander Gennady Padalka's 10th. Padalkla is the most experienced spacewalker in history, with over 35 hours under his belt — his first was in September 1998, when he repaired damaged cables on Russia's Mir space station. This was the 188th spacewalk of all station astronauts, which add up to 1,177 hours of spacewalking total (49 days).

The spacewalk began at 10:20 am ET and stretched for 5 hours 31 minutes, an hour shorter than the scheduled mission time. While they were out, Scott Kelly and Kjell Lindgren of NASA, along with Kimiya Yui of the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency, sampled NASA's very first space-grown produce.

On Aug, 10, 2015, 2 cosmonauts worked outside the International Space Station (bottom of image) in orbit around Earth.

One of the cosmonauts' first tasks was to clean off Window 2 on the service module, which had become smudged from a nearby thruster. That was Kornienko's challenge: "It's all on your shoulders," Padalka told him. And then, victory: "It's like a whole new window."

Mikhail Kornienko works outside the International Space Station on the August 10 spacewalk.
Credit: NASA TV

Throughout the spacewalk, they photographed the outside of the Russian module to check for wear and tear near the thrusters, and they took the opportunity to grab panoramic shots of Earth — identifying Australia, and seeing the city Brisbane beneath them just as they dropped out of communication for a few minutes as they switched between communications satellites.

On Aug. 10, 2015, a cosmonaut floats (upside down just below and left of center) outside the International Space Station during Russian EVA 41.
Credit: NASA

On Aug. 10, 2015, 2 cosmonauts completed Russian EVA 41 outside the International Space Station. Cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko is seen inside the hatch (at left), while the hands of cosmonaut Gennady Padalka have just jettisoned an old cable.

The cosmonauts also cut free an old communications antenna, WALL 6, which they held onto to jettison near the end of the flight. Later, as Kornienko adjusted the orientation of a module investigating thruster plumes, Padalka posed in front of a viewport for the astronauts inside to photograph, and even filmed from the outside looking in.

Finally, the two cosmonauts headed inside the hatch, where they'd stay as they slowly repressurized. Padalka took a moment during Earth sunrise, now that the orientation was right, to hurl the disconnected antenna away from the station into space — it joined two towels, used to dry off the cosmonauts' suits at the beginning of the mission.

http://www.space.com/30212-spacewalking-cosmonauts-clean-station-window.html

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Expedition 44 Crew Members Sample Leafy Greens Grown on Space Station

Veggie plant growth system on ISS

Scott Kelly and Kjell Lindgren of NASA, along with Kimiya Yui of the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency, sampled NASA's very first space-grown produce.

The Veggie system was developed by Orbital Technologies Corp. (ORBITEC) in Madison, Wisconsin, and tested at Kennedy before flight. Veggie, along with two sets of pillows containing the romaine seeds and one set of zinnias, was delivered to the station on the third cargo resupply mission by SpaceX in April 2014.

NASA plans to grow food on future spacecraft and on other planets as a food supplement for astronauts. Fresh food, such as vegetables, provide essential vitamins and nutrients that will help enable sustainable deep space pioneering. Credits: NASA

The collapsible and expandable Veggie unit features a flat panel light bank that includes red, blue and green LEDs for plant growth and crew observation. Using LED lights to grow plants was an idea that originated with NASA as far back as the late 1990s, according to Dr. Ray Wheeler, lead for Advanced Life Support activities in the Exploration Research and Technology Programs Office at Kennedy.

Wheeler worked with engineers and collaborators to help develop the Veggie unit from a Small Business Innovative Research project with ORBITEC. Dr. Gioia Massa is the NASA payload scientist for Veggie at Kennedy. Massa and others worked to get the flight unit developed and certified for use on the space station. The purple/pinkish hue surrounding the plants in Veggie is the result of a combination of the red and blue lights, which by design emit more light than the green LEDs. Green LEDS were added so the plants look like edible food rather than weird purple plants.

"Blue and red wavelengths are the minimum needed to get good plant growth," Wheeler said. "They are probably the most efficient in terms of electrical power conversion. The green LEDs help to enhance the human visual perception of the plants, but they don't put out as much light as the reds and blues."

http://spaceref.com/nasa-hack-space/expedition-44-crew-members-sample-leafy-greens-grown-on-space-station.html

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NASA Opens New CubeSat Opportunities for Low-Cost Space Exploration

Space enthusiasts have an opportunity to contribute to NASA's exploration goals through the next round of the agency's CubeSat Launch Initiative.

Applicants must submit their proposals electronically by 4:30 p.m. EST, Nov. 24.

The CubeSat Launch Initiative provides access to space for CubeSats developed by NASA centers, accredited educational institutions and non-profit organizations, giving CubeSat developers access to a low-cost pathway to conduct research in the areas of science, exploration, technology development, education or operations consistent with NASA's Strategic Plan. NASA does not provide funding for the development of the small satellites.

NASA plans to select the payloads by Feb. 19, 2016, but selection does not guarantee a launch opportunity. Selected experiments will fly as auxiliary payloads on agency rocket launches or be deployed from the International Space Station beginning in 2016 and running through 2019. To date, NASA has selected 105 CubeSats from 30 states. Thirty-seven CubeSats have been launched, and 16 more are scheduled to go into space in the next 12 months.

The agency has made progress on a goal established during the White House Maker Faire last year to launch a small satellite from at least one participant in each state over the next five years. For this round, NASA is focusing on gaining participation in the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and 20 states not previously selected for the CubeSat Launch Initiative. These states are: Arkansas, Delaware, Georgia, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Minnesota, Mississippi, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Carolina, South Dakota, Washington and Wyoming.

CubeSats are in a class of research spacecraft called nanosatellites. The base CubeSat dimensions are 10x10x11 centimeters (about 4x4x4 inches), which equals one Cube, or 1U. CubeSats supported by this launch effort include volumes of 1U, 2U, 3U and 6U. CubeSats of 1U, 2U and 3U size typically have a mass of 1.33 kilograms (about three pounds) per 1U. A 6U CubeSat typically has a mass of 12 to 14 kilograms (26.5 to 30.9 pounds). The CubeSat's final mass depends on the selected deployment method.

For additional information about NASA's CubeSat Launch Initiative, visit:http://www.nasa.gov/directorates/heo/home/CubeSats_initiative

http://spaceref.com/nasa-hack-space/nasa-opens-new-cubesat-opportunities-for-low-cost-space-exploration.html

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NASA Astronauts Speak with Challenger Center Conference from Space Station

WASHINGTON, Aug. 10, 2015 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Students, members of the public and attendees at the Challenger Center's International Conference will speak with Expedition 44 crew members aboard the International Space Station at 9 a.m. EDT Thursday, Aug. 13.

The 20-minute Earth-to-space call will be broadcast live on NASA Television and the agency's website.

Media interested in covering the event must contact Lisa Vernal at 412- 337-3880 orlvernal@challenger.org. The event will be held in the McAllister Auditorium at San Antonio College located at 1300 San Pedro Ave. in San Antonio. The time of the call is subject to change depending on real-time operations.

Students will have the opportunity to speak live with NASA astronauts Kjell Lindgrenand Scott Kelly. Lindgren arrived on July 23 for his first six-month mission aboard the space station. Kelly is four months into a yearlong mission. During the mission, Lindgren, Kelly and other crew members will conduct more than 250 science investigations in fields, such as biology, Earth science, human research, physical sciences, and technology development.

Attendees also will hear from current and former NASA astronauts, including Kent Rominger, Joe Acaba and Scott Kelly's brother, Mark, along with Dr. Graham Scott, chief scientist for the National Space Biomedical Research Institute (NSBRI).

This in-flight education downlink is an integral component of the NASA Education Office to improve science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) teaching and learning in the United States. Linking students directly to astronauts aboard the space station provides them with an authentic, live experience of space exploration, space study and the scientific components of space travel and possibilities of life in space.

For NASA TV streaming video, schedule and downlink information, visit:

http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/prnewswire-space-news.html?doc=201508101549PR_NEWS_USPR_____DC76299&showRelease=1&dir=0&categories=AEROSPACE-AND-SPACE-EXPLORATION&andorquestion=OR&&passDir=0,1,2,3,4,5,6,15,17,34

Cheers.......

6,181 · August 10, 2015

News from the 29th Small Satellite Conference

Small satellites are a big deal in Logan, Utah. The city hosts the 29th Annual AIAA/USU Conference on Small Satellites on the campus of Utah State University Aug. 8-13, attracting more than 1,000 people for several days of technical sessions and networking events to discuss satellites weighing from a few hundred kilograms down to just one kilogram.This year’s event begins Aug. 8 with a two-day pre-conference symposium on the smallest of small satellites, cubesats, with presentations from academia, industry, and government on missions and technologies.The conference starts in earnest Aug. 10 with a keynote address by Gen. John E. Hyten, commander of Air Force Space Command. That’s followed by sessions on smallsat missions, launch services, technologies, and related topics, as well as a student competition.

It’s not all work, though: there are receptions and parties, some sponsored by companies like Orbital ATK, Spaceflight Industries, and SpaceX — and, of course, late night discussions at the local watering hole, the White Owl.

Hyten: Military Will Follow, Not Lead, On Smallsat Systems

LOGAN, Utah — The head of Air Force Space Command said Aug. 10 that while he sees clear benefits to small satellite systems, he expects the military to follow the lead of commercial developments.

Air Force Gen. John E. Hyten, in his keynote presentation at the Conference on Small Satellites at Utah State University, said that while he was interested in the potential of constellations of small satellites to provide new capabilities, as well as resilience against attack, the military would move relatively slowly to adopt those systems compared to industry.

“I guarantee you that the nature of the military is that we will walk into that slowly,” he said. “But when the commercial sector starts investing money and starts proving capabilities, just like in the launch business, we’re going to walk into that with eyes wide open and figure out how to take advantage of those capabilities.”

That approach, he said, was similar to how the Air Force has taken into account changes in the launch market with the private-sector development of new launch vehicles, most notable by SpaceX. “There were entrepreneurs out there pushing the envelope to go in a new way,” he said of the launch industry. “You have amazing investment coming into that world. The United States Air Force, at some point, looked at that and said, ‘We’re idiots if we don’t reach out and take advantage of that.’”

Hyten also said that the Air Force’s adoption of small satellite systems is hindered by its own bureaucracy. He noted that last year the Air Force looked at the requirements for a next-generation weather satellite and determined that a small satellite could meet them, and handed the task over to the Operationally Responsive Space (ORS) Office.

“We haven’t started yet because we’re still going through the approval process of getting started,” he said. “If we’re going to have an Operationally Responsive Space Office that is actually operationally responsive, when we give them a task we have to figure out a way to get them started. We can’t continue to analyze and study.”

http://spacenews.com/news-from-the-29th-small-satellite-conference/

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NASA troubleshoots radar outage on new SMAP satellite

Artist’s concept of the Soil Moisture Active Passive spacecraft in orbit. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Engineers have so far been unable to restart a balky radar aboard NASA’s Soil Moisture Active Passive environmental satellite launched in January, robbing scientists of the most detailed maps of how much water is locked up in the top layers of Earth’s land masses.

Engineers have not given up on recovering the radar, which stopped functioning July 7. But Michael Freilich, head of NASA’s Earth science division, said the likely source of the problem is in the radar’s high-power amplifier.

A status update posted on NASA’s website Aug. 5 specified the amplifier’s low-voltage power supply as the specific cause of the radar failure. That component that has no backup aboard the SMAP satellite, according to Freilich.

The Soil Moisture Active Passive mission includes a pair of instruments to collect measurements of the moisture embedded in soils around the world.

The active L-band synthetic aperture radar works by transmitting radar beams toward Earth and collecting reflections scattered off Earth’s surface. The high-power amplifier increases the energy in the radar waves to allow a receiver aboard the satellite to collect the pulses bounced off the ground, where the radar pulses penetrate a few inches into the soil and returns with a signature of the dirt’s wetness.

“The team identified several candidate faults within the low-voltage power supply that could fit the observed telemetry behavior,” officials wrote in the status report.

A unique spinning antenna and a passive radiometer sensor aboard the $916 million SMAP mission continue operating, collecting coarser measurements of soil moisture. The radiometer receives natural microwave emissions from Earth’s surface.

These maps of global soil moisture were created using data from the radiometer instrument on NASA’s Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) observatory. Each image is a composite of three days of SMAP radiometer data, centered on April 15, 18 and 22, 2015. The images show the volumetric water content in the top 2 inches (5 centimeters) of soil. Wetter areas are blue and drier areas are yellow. White areas indicate snow, ice or frozen ground. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/GSFC

SMAP launched Jan. 31 on a planned three-year mission and unfurled a rotating 6-meter (19.7-foot) diameter mesh antenna. The critical deployment occurred without a hitch, and SMAP began regular science observations in May, operating as designed for two months before the radar glitch.

Speaking to members of the NASA Advisory Council on July 28, Freilich said the radar — which makes up the “active” portion of the SMAP science payload — stopped working “rather abruptly” on July 7.

“We’re going very slowly and deliberately to try and determine what happened to the radar instrument, and how and whether it might be (recovered),” Freilich said.

Without the radar, SMAP’s radiometer is gathering soil moisture measurements with a resolution of about 35 kilometers, or 22 miles, Freilich said. Designers intended to combine SMAP’s radar and radiometer data to map moisture content in blocks of soil 10 kilometers, or 6 miles, across.

http://spaceflightnow.com/2015/08/10/nasa-troubleshoots-radar-outage-on-new-smap-satellite/

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Ad Astra Rocket Company and NASA move to execution phase of NextSTEP VASIMR partnership

Ad Astra Rocket Company and NASA have successfully completed contract negotiations on the company's Next Space Technology Exploration Partnerships (NextSTEP) award, announced on March 31, 2015, and now enter the execution phase of the project.

The parties executed the contract, a three-year, fixed price agreement, on August 7, 2015 for a total value of just over $9 million. The agreement is structured as a one-year contract with two additional one-year extensions based on the accomplishment of mutually agreed upon progress milestones.

NASA's Advanced Exploration Systems Program sponsors NextSTEP awards in a 50/50 cost partnership with industry. Under this award, Ad Astra will conduct a long duration, high power test of an upgraded version of the VX-200TM VASIMR prototype, the VX-200SSTM (for steady state), for a minimum of 100 hours continuously at a power level of 100 kW. These experiments aim to demonstrate the engine's new proprietary core design and thermal control subsystem and to better estimate component lifetime. The tests will be conducted in Ad Astra's large, state-of-the-art vacuum chamber in the company's Texas facility.

Since its inception in 2005, Ad Astra has continued to advance the technology readiness level (TRL) of the VASIMR engine almost exclusively with private funding. This funding enabled the company to complete more than 10,000 successful high power firings, demonstrating the engine's excellent reliability and performance (6 N thrust, 5000 sec Isp at greater than 70% efficiency) with no measurable signs of engine wear.
To optimize company resources, these tests were of short duration (less than 1 minute), but sufficiently long to reliably establish the rocket's performance and measure thermal loads. Now, a longer duration test is needed to validate the new rocket core design for extended operation in space. Going forward in partnership with NASA under the NextSTEP award, Ad Astra continues the technology maturation of the VASIMR to a TRL level greater than 5, a step closer to flight.

http://spaceref.com/news/viewpr.html?pid=46574

The Variable Specific Impulse Magnetoplasma Rocket (VASIMR) is an electromagnetic thruster for spacecraft propulsion. It uses radio waves to ionize and heat a propellant, and magnetic fields to accelerate the resultingplasma to generate thrust. It is one of several types of spacecraft electric propulsion systems.

The method of heating plasma used in VASIMR was originally developed as a result of research into nuclear fusion. VASIMR is intended to bridge the gap between high-thrust, low-specific impulse propulsion systems and low-thrust, high-specific impulse systems. VASIMR is capable of functioning in either mode. Costa Rican–born American scientist and former NASA astronaut Franklin Chang Díaz created the VASIMR concept and has been working on its development since 1977.^[1]

VASIMRs are manufactured by the Ad Astra Rocket Company, headquartered in the city of Houston, Texas, United States.

Artist's impression of multi-megawatt VASIMR spacecraft

The Variable Specific Impulse Magnetoplasma Rocket, sometimes referred to as the Electro-thermal Plasma Thruster or Electro-thermal Magnetoplasma Rocket, uses radio waves^[3] to ionize and heat propellant, which generates plasma that is accelerated using magnetic fields to generate thrust. This type of engine is electrodeless and as such belongs to the same electric propulsion family (while differing in the method of plasma acceleration) as the electrodeless plasma thruster, the microwave arcjet, or the pulsed inductive thruster class. It can also be seen as an electrodeless version of an arcjet, able to reach higher propellant temperature by limiting the heat flux from the plasma to the structure. Neither type of engine has any electrodes. This is advantageous in that it eliminates problems with electrode erosion that cause rival designs of ion thrusters to have relatively shorter life expectancy. Furthermore, since every part of a VASIMR engine is magnetically shielded and does not come into direct contact with plasma, the potential durability of this engine design is greater than other ion/plasma engine designs.^[1]

VASIMR

VASIMR can be most basically thought of as a convergent-divergent nozzle for ions and electrons. The propellant (a neutral gas such as argon or xenon) is first injected into a hollow cylinder surfaced with electromagnets. Upon entry into the engine, the gas is first heated to a “cold plasma” by a helicon RF antenna (also known as a “coupler”) which bombards the gas with electromagnetic waves, stripping electrons off the argon or xenon atoms and leaving plasma consisting of ions and loose electrons to continue down the engine compartment. By varying the amount of energy dedicated to RF heating and the amount of propellant delivered for plasma generation VASIMR is capable of generating either low-thrust, high–specific impulse exhaust or relatively high-thrust, low–specific impulse exhaust.^[4] The second phase is a strong electromagnet positioned to compress the ionized plasma in a similar fashion to a convergent-divergent nozzle that compresses gas in traditional rocket engines.

A second coupler, known as the Ion Cyclotron Heating (ICH) section, emits electromagnetic waves in resonance with the orbits of ions and electrons as they travel through the engine. Resonance of the waves and plasma is achieved through a reduction of the magnetic field in this portion of the engine which slows down the orbital motion of the plasma particles. This section further heats the plasma to temperatures upwards of 1,000,000 kelvin—about 173 times the temperature of the Sun’s surface.^[5]

Motion of ions and electrons through the engine can be approximated by lines parallel to the engine walls; however, the particles actually orbit those lines at the same time that they are traveling linearly through the engine. The final, diverging, section of the engine contains a steadily expanding magnetic field which forces the ions and electrons into steadily lengthening spiral orbits in order to eject from the engine parallel and opposite to the direction of motion at speeds of up to 50,000 m/s, propelling the rocket forward through space

VX-200 plasma engine at full power, employing both stages with full magnetic field

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variable_Specific_Impulse_Magnetoplasma_Rocket

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NASA Earth Observatory: Greater Denver and the Front Range

Greater Denver and the Front Range.

Astronauts on the International Space Station recognize the smooth, broad bend that separates mountains and plains as the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains. This sudden break between plains and mountains makes Denver one of the most spectacular cities in the United States.

Canyons cut through the snow-covered mountains. Boulder Canyon provides water to the city of Boulder, while tourists exploring the Rocky Mountains pass through Idaho Springs in the Clear Creek valley.

The plains fronting the mountains are now heavily populated. The cities and urban counties centered on Denver have an estimated population of 2.7 million people. The rectangular plot of highways and main roads gives the cityscape a blocky appearance--a pattern that has spread southward more than 40 kilometers (25 miles) to the wooded hills south of the town of Parker.

Rich farmland competes with urban land uses areas in the fertile Platte River valley (bottom right of the image) and surrounding plains north of Denver. This intensively farmed area appears from space as a pattern of numerous smaller plots. Less intensive land-use areas (such as spring and winter wheat) are marked by much larger plots of land, as seen around Denver's international airport.

http://spaceref.com/earth/nasa-earth-observatory-greater-denver-and-the-front-range.html

Cheers......

6,181 · August 11, 2015

Asteroid Impact Early-Warning System's 1st Telescope Up and Running

The first Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System telescope is now in operation on Haleakala – on the Hawaiian island of Maui.

Known as ATLAS, the telescope is part of an asteroid impact early-warning system being developed by the University of Hawaii and funded by NASA. Once completed in 2015, ATLAS will consist of two telescopes 100 miles (62 kilometers) apart that will automatically scan the whole sky several times every night looking for moving objects.

The promise of ATLAS is that it can provide one day's warning for a 30-kiloton "town killer," a week for a 5-megaton "city killer" and three weeks for a 100-megaton "county killer."

he first Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System telescope, or ATLAS 1, has been completed atop Maui's Haleakala volcano in Hawaii. The ATLAS telescope is one of two planned to search for potentially dangerous asteroids that might pose a threat to Earth.
Credit: Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System Team

The mount for the Haleakala observatory is lifted into the dome.
Credit: ATLAS Team

The telescope is located on Maui's Haleakala volcano and "is working well and producing useful images," according to a post on the ATLAS website. "We anticipate full resolution after some adjustments are made to the Schmidt corrector. The mount also performs well though it will require some fine-tuning to achieve ATLAS' stringent tracking specifications."

"All aspects of this whole system are very much under development right now. However, the existing system on Haleakala can survey the entire sky in a little more than one night, and we have begun accumulating images," ATLAS representatives added in a July 30 update.

ATLAS Telescope #2 is to be situated on Mauna Loa, a volcano located on the main island of Hawaii. This month, the ATLAS team was expected to meet with representatives from NASA and South Africa during theInternational Astronomical Union meeting in Honolulu. Discussions are to focus on the possibility of a third ATLAS unit in South Africa.

TLAS#1 telescope gently lowered into Haleakala observatory.
Credit: ATLAS Team

http://www.space.com/30191-asteroid-impact-early-warning-system-first-telescope.html

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Russia to conduct simulated flight program to Moon, Mars over 4 years

Russia will conduct a series of international experiments with simulated flights to the Moon, Mars and other planets between 2016 and 2020, the first deputy head of the Institute of Biomedical Problems told RIA Novosti on Thursday.

Oleg Orlov said that the new experiments would include a mixture of sexes for the crews, as opposed to the previous Mars-500 and Luna-2015 simulations.

"After the Luna-2015 program with a crew of six female volunteers ends in 2015, we plan to begin a whole series of projects on simulated space flights between 14 days and 12 months with volunteers from Russia, the United States, Europe, and Japan," Oleg Orlov said.

According to the institute's plans, two 14-day experiments will be conducted in 2016-2017, as well as a 4-month simulated flight in 2017. An 8-month experiment will be held in 2018, and in 2019-2020, there will be a 12-month experimental simulated flight.

"The IBMP's Earth module that was used earlier in the Mars-500 project will be reequipped with a new block of virtual reality with more capabilities. Moreover, a separate segment in the module will be designated for the creation of a housing with a lowered magnetic field that is particularly important for simulating the conditions of space flights," Orlov said.

http://www.space-travel.com/reports/Russia_to_Conduct_Series_of_Simulated_Flights_to_Moon_Mars_in_2016_2020_999.html

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US, Russia, China to Explore Benefits of Outer Space for ASEAN

The United States will co-chair a workshop together with Russia, China and Laos to review the outer space benefits and security for the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) members, US State Department said in a statement on Thursday.

The workshop will also address "current issues facing the space environment, and assess approaches to space security to ensure the benefits for future generations," according to the State Department.

"The United States, China, Russia, and Laos plan to co-chair a follow-on workshop to explore the benefits of outer space for ASEAN Member States," the statement read.

ASEAN members that potentially can benefit from the workshop also include Cambodia, Indonesia and Vietnam.

The State Department has previously stated that many countries and organizations were utilizing the benefits of outer space, and the United States had to work with its partners around the world to make sure the space environment was sustainable long-term.

In the 2016 US defense and intelligence budgets, approximately $5 billion was shifted to prioritize space security.

US military leaders have expressed increasing concern over the vulnerability of US space assets. Technologically advanced nations, including Russia and China, have developed sophisticated counter space, and counter satellite capabilities that could potentially jeopardize critical US space-based defenses, according to the US military.

http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/US_Russia_China_to_Explore_Benefits_of_Outer_Space_for_ASEAN_999.html

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Memorable Space Walks

First spacewalk, 18 March 1965

Venturing out into space wearing nothing but a spacesuit is a daring act in itself. But over hundreds of spacewalks since 1965, there are a few that stand out because of their length, or what the astronauts did during those times “outside” the spacecraft. Here are a few of the more memorable ones.

Alexei Leonov was the first person to perform a spacewalk. The Soviet Union cosmonaut was outside for about 20 minutes and then encountered a problem getting back into the hatch because his suit had expanded. Leonov bled out some of his air to return. "It was the alpha and the omega: the first, and very nearly Leonov's last, spacewalk," said Nicholas de Monchaux, an associate design professor at the University of California, Berkeley who wrote a book called Spacesuit: Fashioning Apollo.

First US space walk, 3 June 1965

Three months after the Soviet Union, NASA's Ed White did the first U.S. spacewalk and also spent about 20 minutes moving in space with the help of a gas gun. de Monchaux added that the image of a person floating alone in space was a sought-after icon for propagandists who wanted to evoke ideas of angels. As such, the White spacewalk "was also illustrative of the way in which the visual iconography of space travel was part of the battle of the Cold War."

Furthest space walks, 1971 to 1972

One astronaut on each of the Apollo 15, 16 and 17 missions dared to venture outside while the crews were on their way back to Earth – making them the furthest-flung EVAs ever performed by humans. What also was unique about these spacewalks is the role of a second crew member that acted as an observer, said Jim Oberg, a space historian who frequently comments for NBC. "On each one, a second crewman was standing up in the hatch with time to look out over the entire universe," he told Space.com.

Most dangerous Russian spacewalk, 17 July 1990

One of the spacewalks most deserving of "needing some respect" came during a spacewalk on space station Mir with cosmonauts Anatoly Solovyev and Aleksandr Balandin, according to Oberg. The 1990 spacewalk to repair insulation on a damaged Soyuz spacecraft turned dangerous when Mir's hatch wouldn't close when the work was completed. The cosmonauts were forced to use a backup hatch at the Kvant-2 module. "Probably the closest case we know of a near-death Russian spacewalk," Oberg said.

Most dangerous US spacewalk, 13 July 1990

Minutes after European Space Agency astronaut Luca Parmitano left the hatch for an International Space Station Expedition 36 spacewalk in July 1990, hefelt water pooling at the back of his helmet. Once NASA realized the leak couldn't be contained, it ordered Parmitano and his crewmate, Chris Cassidy, back inside. By the time Parmitano was back inside the station, the water was in his ears and eyes. The leak was later traced to a problem in the backpack. Spacewalks were suspended for months while NASA investigated the situation and made changes to the suit.

Most Daring Space Station Repair (Skylab and ISS)

There have been two difficult space station repairs that astronauts accomplished during spacewalks. One series took place in May and June 1973 when astronauts on the first Skylab mission did repairs to their station, which was damaged during launch. Among their substantial work, they deployed a solar shade to keep the overheating station cool. A second daring spacewalk, on Nov. 3, 2007, saw NASA STS-120 astronaut Scott Parazynski ride a robotic arm to an International Space Station solar array – an array that was damaged during unfurling – to do tricky repairs while the array was still powered.

http://www.space.com/29858-most-memorable-spacewalks-gallery.html

Cheers......

6,181 · August 11, 2015

Few extra's from updates....

Astronauts munch on space-grown lettuce

Amid a Russian spacewalk to carry out routine maintenance and inspections outside the International Space Station, two NASA astronauts and a Japanese crewmate staged a culinary first in orbit — harvesting and eating a few leaves of leafy, space-grown red romaine lettuce.

Astronaut Scott Kelly later tweeted the snack represented “one small bite for man, one giant leap” for future flights to Mars.

http://spaceflightnow.com/2015/08/10/astronauts-munch-on-space-grown-lettuce/

Short munchie video....(15 seconds)

Spacewalk Video's

Porthole cleaning...(1:04 min)

Short version of spacewalk repairs....(3:01 min)

Full NASA televised spacewalk......(6:43:24)

Cheers......

6,181 · August 12, 2015

Space Station Cargo Ship Departure to Air on NASA TV

WASHINGTON, Aug. 11, 2015 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- NASA Television will broadcast live the departure of an unpiloted Russian cargo spacecraft from the International Space Station (ISS) on Friday, Aug. 14.

ISS Progress 58 arrived at the orbiting laboratory in February and will undock from the rear port of the Zvezda Service Module at 6:19 a.m. EDT. NASA TV coverage of the undocking will begin at 6 a.m.

Several hours after it undocks, the Progress will be deorbited by Russian flight controllers to burn up in the atmosphere over the Pacific Ocean.

Progress 58 launched to the station on Feb. 17, and arrived six hours later carrying more than three tons of food, fuel and supplies for the station residents.

The undocking will clear the Zvezda docking port for the relocation of the Soyuz TMA-16M spacecraft on Aug. 28. Expedition 44 Commander Gennady Padalka of the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos), Flight Engineers Scott Kelly of NASA and Mikhail Kornienko of Roscosmos will move their Soyuz from the Poisk module to the Zvezda docking port. The relocation will enable delivery of a new Soyuz to the station on Sept. 2, which will bring Kelly and Kornienko home next March to conclude their one-year mission.

The next Russian Progress resupply ship will launch to the station on Oct. 1.

For NASA TV streaming video, schedule and downlink information, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov/nasatv

http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/prnewswire-space-news.html?doc=201508111156PR_NEWS_USPR_____DC77014&showRelease=1&dir=0&categories=AEROSPACE-AND-SPACE-EXPLORATION&andorquestion=OR&&passDir=0,1,2,3,4,5,6,15,17,34

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NEWS ROSCOSMOS

Roscosmos: Launch Schedule for August – October, 2015, Confirmed

Roscosmos has considered and confirmed the schedule of launches from Baikonur cosmodrome and Guiana Space Centre for the next three months.

Launches of Soyuz carrier rockets, ISS programme:

Soyuz TMA-18M manned transport spacecraft – September 2, 2015;
Progress M-29M cargo transport spacecraft – October 1, 2015.

Launches of Soyuz-ST carrier rocket with spacecraft of Kourou cosmodrome (Guiana Space Centre):

Galileo – September 11, 2015.

Roscosmos press service

http://www.tsenki.com/en/news/news_russian_space_agency/?ELEMENT_ID=127672

The Progress launch on October 1st, 2015, will be the first of the new Progress MS series.....

The upgraded Progress-MS cargo spacecraft will start performing flights to the International Space Station in 2015. The improvements are implemented step by step and are tested using Progress-M spacecraft, RIA Novosti reports with reference to deputy head of S.P. Korolev Rocket and Space Corporation “Energiya”, Nikolai Bryukhanov.

"The launch of first Progress-MS is scheduled for the second half of 2015. Roscosmos has approved performance specifications and specified the list of required improvements", — Bryukhanov said.

According to him, the important changes will be made in design of many devices that showed good results onboard Progress-M cargo spacecraft.

"In particular onboard radio-technical system Kvant-V with antenna-feeder devices will be replaced by a new single downlink TM system EKTS. In addition, the existing Kurs-A rendezvous and docking system will be replaced by the new one – Kurs-NA allowing using of advanced hardware components and launching production of the components in Russia", — he said.

The upgraded spacecraft will also be fitted with additional protection from space debris and micrometeorites. In order to increase fault-tolerance of the docking mechanism and docking interface sealing the spacecraft will be fitted with backup electric motors.

Progress-MS will be equipped with a new headlight with light-emitting diodes. State-of-the-art satellite navigation system will be used instead of orbit radio monitoring system (part of guidance, navigation and control system).

http://www.ruaviation.com/news/2014/1/24/2145/

Progress-MS modernized cargo vehicles will fly to the ISS since 2015. The improvements and introduced gradually and already being practiced on Progress-M, – RSC Energia Head Deputy Nickolay Bryukhanov reported.

“Progress-MS launch is planned for the second half of 2015. Roscosmos approved technical requirements and specified all necessary improvements”, – Bryukhanov stated.
According to him important changes will be added to many instruments that have proved themselves earlier onboard Progress-M vehicles.

Particularly Kvant-V onboard radio technical system with antenna feeder units is to be replaced with new integrated control telemetry ECTS system. Besides new Kurs-NA rendezvous system will be installed instead of the previous Kurs-A system, thus enabling to change for new element base with the organization of production in Russia, – RSC Energia Head deputy pointed out.

Cargo module of modernized vehicle also will be better protected from space debris and micrometeorites. Redundant electric motors will be added to docking mechanism and docking interface sealing to increase fault-tolerance capability as well.

Progress-MS will be equipped with new light emitting diode head-lamp and instead of orbit-track ground facilities data used today the new generation satellite navigational one will be applied in motion control system.

http://russianspacenews.com/russia-to-launch-progress-ms-upgraded-cargo-vehicle-in-2015/

The new Progress MS arrived at Baikonur on 10th August, 2015.....here are a couple of photo's, courtesy of Roscosmos...

http://www.tsenki.com/en/news/news_tsenki/?ELEMENT_ID=128142

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First Use of ISS Astronaut Pictures for Light Pollution Studies

Milan at night NASA

Scientists are tapping into photographs taken by astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS) to reliably measure the amount of light pollution worldwide.

This study not only includes the well-known signatures of cities and streets, but also the effects of faint indirectly scattered light, which up to now had not been measured quantitatively. The new results confirm that this diffuse glow, which is seen from space, is scattered light from streetlights and buildings. This is the component responsible for the brightening of the night skies in and around cities, which drastically limits the visibility of faint stars and the Milky Way. The team also concludes that European countries and cities with a higher public debt also have higher energy consumption for street lighting per inhabitant, and that the total cost of the energy consumption for street lights is 6,300 million euros/year in the European Union. The findings were presented today at the IAU XXIX General Assembly in Honolulu, Hawaii..

In a remarkable new study, scientists from the Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Spain and the Cgep de Sherbrooke in Canada, together with members of the public, have worked on a project called Cities at Night . The aim is to produce a global color map of the Earth [1] at night from pictures taken by astronauts on the International Space Station using a standard digital camera.

Starting in July 2014, this huge project required the cataloging of over 130,000 images -- the ISS's entire high-resolution archive -- and geo-referencing them to place them on a map. The images were also calibrated using the stars in the background sky over the ISS, as well as ground-based measurements of the night sky brightness [2].

After gaining the initial support of multiple institutions [5] and thousands of volunteers, the next phase of the Cities at Night project aims to gather funding to keep the project running, so it can extend its color map of the night side of the Earth.

http://spaceref.com/earth/first-use-of-iss-astronaut-pictures-for-light-pollution-studies.html

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Made In Space and NanoRacks Take First Steps Towards On-Orbit Satellite Manufacturing, Assembly and Deployment

Made In Space, the space manufacturing company, and NanoRacks, the premier provider of commercial low-Earth orbit services, are partnering to provide a transformative new service for CubeSat developers: the Stash & Deploy satellite deployment service. The Stash & Deploy service will leverage NanoRacks’ heritage in CubeSat deployment and Made In Space’s in-space additive manufacturing capabilities to deliver on-demand satellite manufacturing, assembly, and deployment to the space environment. A variety of standard and customer-specific satellite components will be cached aboard a satellite deployment platform, such as the International Space Station. These components are “stashed” for rapid manufacture of CubeSats. Made In Space’s Additive Manufacturing Facility will be used to create custom structure, optimized for both the space environment and customer need.

“This is a fundamental shift for satellite production,” says Andrew Rush, president of Made In Space. “In the near future, we envision that satellites will be manufactured quickly and to the customer’s exact needs, without being overbuilt to survive launch or have to wait for the next launch.”

As envisioned, customers will easily and quickly design their satellite or request a satellite be designed based on their requirements. Once designed, the optimized structure is created on orbit and the necessary components are integrated. The satellite will then be deployed into low Earth orbit. The entire assembly and deployment process will occur in a fraction of the time necessary to build, manifest, launch and deploy satellites from the ground, For the first time, incredibly valuable responsiveness will be available to satellite operators. “Stash and deploy opens a new chapter in space utilization,” believes Jeffrey Manber, CEO of NanoRacks. “Looking out a few years this option may be more desirable than launch and deploy.”

The Stash & Deploy service makes on-orbit assembly and deployment of small satellites a powerful option for operators looking to push the envelope of modern space development and deploy hardware faster than traditional CubeSat deployment. "Made In Space was founded with the belief that one day entire spacecraft will be manufactured in space. With Stash & Deloy, NanoRacks and Made In Space make the first step towards this goal,” says Made In Space’s CTO and Co-Founder, Jason Dunn.

The first steps of the Stash & Deploy service will be available Q1 2016. To explore further the Stash & Deploy service, contact rpournelle@nanoracks.com and business@madeinspace.us

http://spaceref.com/news/viewpr.html?pid=46585

This will start at the ISS, but I can see this going to a new Commercial space station in the near future. This will be a "Cubes 'R' ISS" outlet initially, but I am sure this will become popular.....no individual worries about launch providers, future scheduling or orbit placement.....

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Peanut-Shaped Asteroid Zooms Past Earth in Incredible Video

Two giant radio telescopes teamed up to image a peanut-shaped asteroid that zoomed by Earth late last month.

The resulting radar images, which researchers combined into an asteroid flyby video, show that the asteroid, known as 1999 JD6, is a "contact binary" consisting of two lobes joined together.

NASA scientists collected this collage of radar images of near-Earth asteroid 1999 JD6 on July 25, 2015.

"Radar imaging has shown that about 15 percent of near-Earth asteroidslarger than 600 feet [about 180 meters], including 1999 JD6, have this sort of lobed, peanut shape," Lance Benner, of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, who leads NASA's asteroid radar research program, said in a statement.

The asteroid 1999 JD6 flew within 4.5 million miles (7.2 million kilometers) of Earth — about 19 times the distance between our planet and the moon — in the early-morning hours of July 25. 1999 JD6 won't come that close to Earth again until 2054, NASA officials said.

That same day, scientists used NASA's 230-foot-wide (70 m) Deep Space Network antenna at the Goldstone Complex in California to bounce radar signals off the asteroid. Reflections from those signals were then received by the 330-foot (100 m) National Science Foundation Green Bank Telescope in West Virginia, NASA officials said.

This two-telescope strategy allowed the research team to observe features as small as 25 feet (7.5 m) wide on the asteroid.

Previous research had already shown that 1999 JD6 rotates once every 7.5 hours. The video compiled from the new radar images spans 7 hours and 40 minutes.

http://www.space.com/30211-peanut-shaped-asteroid-1999jd6-flyby-video.html

Cheers......

6,181 · August 13, 2015

NASA International Space Station On-Orbit Status 10 August 2015

NASA International Space Station On-Orbit Status 10 August 2015.

NanoRacks Platform 3: Kelly performed troubleshooting to resolve Platform 3's communication issues. He installed a new USB data cable, uploaded software and installed adapter drivers from a USB flash drive to set the IP address. Video of the troubleshooting was downlinked for specialist review. Preliminary indications are that the troubleshooting resolved the communication issues. Ground teams are evaluating the data.

Circadian Rhythm: Over the weekend, Lindgren completed his 36 hour data take. Today, he completed data transfer from the armband to the European Physiology Module (EPM) laptop. The main objective of the experiment is to get a basic understanding of alterations in circadian rhythms in humans during long-term space flights. This data will provide important insights into the adaptations of the human autonomic nervous system in space over time, but also has significant practical implications by helping to improve physical exercise, rest- and work shifts as well as fostering adequate workplace illumination in the sense of occupational healthcare in future space missions.

Ground Activities
All activities were completed unless otherwise noted.

VEG-01 harvest
Body Measures
RS EVA video
Solar Array Feathering for photos

Three-Day Look Ahead:
Tuesday, 08/11: SPRINT setup, Capillary Beverage, OGA H2 Sensor R&R, Orlan EVA tool stow
Wednesday, 08/12: SPRINT VO2 ops, JPM1F2 Cleanout, EVA PGT TAK Data Gather
Thursday, 08/13: SPRINT VO2 ops, SPHERES ZR setup, OBT HTV offset grapple

QUICK ISS Status - Environmental Control Group:

Component - Status
Elektron - Off
Vozdukh - Manual
[СКВ] 1 - SM Air Conditioner System ("SKV1") - Off
[СКВ] 2 - SM Air Conditioner System ("SKV2") - Off
Carbon Dioxide Removal Assembly (CDRA) Lab - Standby
Carbon Dioxide Removal Assembly (CDRA) Node 3 - Operate
Major Constituent Analyzer (MCA) Lab - Shutdown
Major Constituent Analyzer (MCA) Node 3 - Operate
Oxygen Generation Assembly (OGA) - Shutdown
Urine Processing Assembly (UPA) - Standby
Trace Contaminant Control System (TCCS) Lab - Off
Trace Contaminant Control System (TCCS) Node 3 - Full Up

http://spaceref.com/international-space-station/nasa-international-space-station-on-orbit-status-10-august-2015.html

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NASA International Space Station On-Orbit Status 11 August 2015

Oxygen Generation Assembly (OGA) Hydrogen Sensor Remove and Replace (R&R): Last Thursday's Velocicalc reading of the air flow rate into the OGS Rack AAA showed it to be below 450 ft/min versus the expected range of 900 ft/min. Sufficient air flow through the OGS Rack serves as a hazard mitigation against oxygen (O2) concentrations forming within the rack should an O2 leak develop. Following discussions within the engineering and operations community, a short term recommendation was made to continue running the OGA to retain O2 production but increase the AAA fan speed to help increase air mixing within the rack. Over the weekend the crew took another reading and found the flow to still be less than 450 ft/min. The team decide to power off the OGS rack after the crew day on Sunday. Today Lindgren R&Rd the OGS Hydrogen Sensor Orbital Replacement Unit (ORU), as well as AAA cleaning and inlet inspection to recover OGA functionality. The team is currently reactivating the OGA and the crew will perform velocicalc readings on Thursday.

Water Recovery System (WRS) Separator Plumbing Assembly (SPA) Vent Line Build: For several months, ground teams have suspected the SPA vent hose is restricted due to microbial growth. There is no microbial control in the purge lines and no designated way to clean them if growth occurs. Since there are no spare SPA vent hose onboard, today Kelly built an alternate SPA Vent Line by removing the end fittings from an existing Iodine Removal Hose. Later this week the crew will install this hose to eliminate the restriction and return the Urine Processing Assembly (UPA) to nominal operations.

Space Station Remote Manipulator System (SSRMS) Operations: Today, the Robotics Ground Controllers powered up the Mobile Serving System (MSS) and maneuvered the SSRMS to stow the Special Purpose Dexterous Manipulator (SPDM) on the Lab Power Data Grapple Fixture (PDGF). SSRMS Latching End Effector B (LEE-B) was then released from the SPDM PDGF and the SSRMS was maneuvered into position for the start of the ISS Crew H-II Transfer Vehicle 5 (HTV5) Offset Grapples Practice on GMT 225 (13 Aug 15). The Robotics Ground Controllers also performed MSS Checkouts in preparation for HTV5 capture on GMT 232 (20 Aug 15). MSS performance today was nominal.

Ground Activities
All activities were completed unless otherwise noted.

Capillary Beverage video
SPDM stow on Lab
OGA Activation [In Work]

Three-Day Look Ahead:
Wednesday, 08/12: SPRINT VO2 ops, JPM1F2 Cleanout, N3 deck starboard IMV cleaning, HTV Robotics Training, PGT TAK Data Gather
Thursday, 08/13: SPRINT VO2 ops, SPHERES ZR setup, OBT HTV offset grapple, SPA Vent hose install
Friday, 08/14: 58P undock, SPHERES ZR ops, EMU 3003 and 3010 Loop Scrub, HAPTICS-2 ops

QUICK ISS Status - Environmental Control Group:

Component - Status
Elektron - On
Vozdukh - Manual
[СКВ] 1 - SM Air Conditioner System ("SKV1") - On
[СКВ] 2 - SM Air Conditioner System ("SKV2") - Off
Carbon Dioxide Removal Assembly (CDRA) Lab - Standby
Carbon Dioxide Removal Assembly (CDRA) Node 3 - Operate
Major Constituent Analyzer (MCA) Lab - Shutdown
Major Constituent Analyzer (MCA) Node 3 - Operate
Oxygen Generation Assembly (OGA) - Shutdown
Urine Processing Assembly (UPA) - Standby
Trace Contaminant Control System (TCCS) Lab - Off
Trace Contaminant Control System (TCCS) Node 3 - Full Up

http://spaceref.com/international-space-station/nasa-international-space-station-on-orbit-status-11-august-2015.html

Published on Aug 11, 2015

Expedition 45 Soyuz Commander Sergei Volkov of the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos) and visiting crew members Andreas Mogensen of the European Space Agency (ESA) and Aidyn Aimbetov of the Kazakh Space Agency (Kazcosmos), and their backups, Oleg Skripochka and Sergei Prokopyev of Roscosmos and Thomas Pesquet of ESA visited the Gagarin Museum in Star City, Russia July 8, where they viewed historic space artifacts, then traveled to Red Square in Moscow to lay flowers at the Kremlin Wall where Russian space icons are interred. Volkov, Mogensen and Aimbetov are scheduled to launch on Sept. 2, Kazakh time, in the Soyuz TMA-18M spacecraft to the International Space Station.

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Name Exo Worlds Contest Opens for Public Voting

Exoplanets waiting for names

Astronomy clubs and non-profit organizations from 45 countries submitted 247 proposals for the names of the 20 ExoWorlds. These proposals can now be voted on at the NameExoWorldswebsite. A full list of the ExoWorlds can be found at http://nameexoworlds.iau.org/exoworlds, which includes both single and multiple-planet systems. The names of the planets in each system, as well as their host stars, are open to public voting -- excluding the five stars in the list that already have historical names [1].

Explanations for the names of the 20 host stars, in addition to personal messages from some of the scientists who discovered them, are available athttp://nameexoworlds.iau.org/exoworlds. No registration is required to participate, though each device (computer or smartphone) can only vote once for each of the 20 systems. A full set of instructions on how to vote can be viewed at http://nameexoworlds.iau.org/exoworldsvote

http://spaceref.com/astronomy/nameexoworlds-contest-opens-for-public-voting.html

Background info on the Exoplanets.....

http://nameexoworlds.iau.org/exoworlds

Here is where you vote.......

Note...."Security set" browsers may get kicked, mine did.....I had to use IE just to do the voting....

20 nameable systems, 2 columns of 10....select the vote box.....scroll down to choose the name(s) you vote for......at top "tick off" not a robot...wait a few seconds and a series of pictures will show and a question, such as choose the canoe pictures, select then enter...if right, you will be directed back to page to vote for next system......do this 20 times, took me 1/2 hour.......some of the names are icons, scifi authors and of course Neil (Armstrong) and Apollonis for Apollo....have fun.....vote here...

http://nameexoworlds.iau.org/exoworldsvote

Cheers....

6,181 · August 14, 2015

NASA International Space Station On-Orbit Status 12 August 2015

NASA astronaut Scott Kelly (left) assists Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) astronaut Kimiya Yui (right) with measurements for the ongoing Ocular Health study. Credit NASA.

The International Space Station experienced a temporary power loss Tuesday night while backup systems maintained power to critical systems. Power was restored quickly and there were no impacts to station operations and the six-member crew was always safe.

Astronauts Kjell Lindgren and Kimiya Yui are training for the robotic capture next week of Japan's fifth "Kounotori" HTV cargo ship (HTV-5). The HTV-5 will launch from Japan's Tanegashima Space Center Sunday morning and take a four day trip to the station. The duo will be inside the cupola Aug. 20 to capture the HTV-5 with the Canadarm2. Lindgren also checked on U.S. spacewalk tools while Yui cleaned and inventoried gear inside the Japanese Kibo lab module.

Cosmonauts Gennady Padalka and Mikhail Kornienko are cleaning up after Tuesday's 5-hour, 31-minute spacewalk. The cosmonauts also talked to Russian spacewalk specialists on the ground Wednesday about the previous day's external activities.

Direct Current Switching Unit (DCSU) 4A Power On Reset (POR): Tuesday evening at 6:10 pm CDT DCSU-4A experienced a POR. Power was lost to 3 downstream Direct Current-to-Direct Current Converter Units (DDCUs) plus the DDCU on the P4 Integrated Equipment Assembly (IEA). Service Module voltage and current stabilizers [CHT]s 23 and 24 also lost power but [CHT]s 21 and 22 were still available resulting in only a small power deficit to the Russian segment. Of the 3 DDCUs, all were in paralleled pairs, but Parallel Input Undervoltage Protection (PIUV) was enabled for the Node 3 pair, meaning the 1B4A bus lost all power. The loads that lost power included: 4A Pump Flow and Control Subsystem (PFCS), Permanent Multipurpose Module (PMM), Treadmill 2, Hub Control Zone 1 Multiplexer/Demultiplexer (HCZ-1 MDM), Node3-1 MDM, Oxygen Generator System (OGS), Node3 Common Cabin Air Assembly (CCAA), Node3 Moderate Temperature Loop (MTL), Node3 Carbon Dioxide Removal Assembly (CDRA), and [CHT]s 23 and 24. The crew was woken up and, with the loss of the CCAA, were prime for smoke detection in Node 3 and the PMM. Ground teams review the DCSU 4A data and found no indications of hardware problems. Ground teams are still in the process of recovering and reconfiguring Environmental Control and Life Support Systems (ECLSS). Teams have had some issues recovering the Node 3 CDRA. Lab CDRA has been activated in the interim while teams continue troubleshooting.

Japanese Experiment Module (JEM) Pressurized Module (JPM)1F2 Activities: In preparation for the Multi-purpose Small Payload Rack (MSPR) arriving on HTV5 and subsequent installation, Lindgren relocated items stowed in the JPM1F2. Then Yui removed the hard dummy panel and JEM blue stowage rack, replaced the Active Rack Isolation System (ARIS) pivot fitting bottom and installed a soft dummy panel.

Mobile Servicing System (MSS) Operations: Today, the Robotics Ground Controllers powered up the Mobile Serving System (MSS) and translated the Mobile Transporter (MT) from Worksite 4 (WS4) to WS5. Prior to the translation they continued the MSS Checkouts in preparation for HTV5 capture on GMT 232 (20 Aug 15). MSS performance today was nominal.

Ground Activities
All activities were completed unless otherwise noted.

SPRINT ops
OASIS video
Mobile Transporter (MT) Translation
DCSU 4A POR Recovery

Three-Day Look Ahead:
Thursday, 08/13: SPRINT VO2 ops, SPHERES ZR setup, OBT HTV offset grapple, SPA Vent hose install
Friday, 08/14: 58P undock, SPHERES ZR ops, EMU 3003 and 3010 Loop Scrub, HAPTICS-2 ops
Saturday, 08/15: Removal of non-trash items from N2 forward endcone

QUICK ISS Status - Environmental Control Group:

Component - Status
Elektron - On
Vozdukh - Manual
[СКВ] 1 - SM Air Conditioner System ("SKV1") - On
[СКВ] 2 - SM Air Conditioner System ("SKV2") - Off
Carbon Dioxide Removal Assembly (CDRA) Lab - Operate
Carbon Dioxide Removal Assembly (CDRA) Node 3 - Inoperable
Major Constituent Analyzer (MCA) Lab - Shutdown
Major Constituent Analyzer (MCA) Node 3 - Activation In Work
Oxygen Generation Assembly (OGA) - Process
Urine Processing Assembly (UPA) - Standby
Trace Contaminant Control System (TCCS) Lab - Off
Trace Contaminant Control System (TCCS) Node 3 - Warm Up

http://spaceref.com/international-space-station/nasa-international-space-station-on-orbit-status-12-august-2015.html

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NASA TV Coverage Set for Japanese Cargo Craft Launch to Space Station

WASHINGTON, Aug. 13, 2015 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The launch of a Japanese cargo spacecraft to the International Space Station will be broadcast live on NASA Television on Sunday, Aug. 16, followed by live coverage of its arrival at the orbiting laboratory Thursday, Aug. 20.

The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) will launch its H-II Transport Vehicle (HTV)-5 at 8:58 a.m. EDT (9:58 p.m. local time in Japan) from the Tanegashima Space Center in southern Japan. NASA TV coverage of the launch will begin at 8:15 a.m.

Loaded with more than 4.5 tons of supplies, including water, spare parts and experiment hardware for the six-person space station crew, the unpiloted cargo craft, named Kounotori, Japanese for "white stork," will blast off for a four-day journey to the station.

On Aug. 20, the HTV-5 will approach the station from below and slowly inch its way toward the orbital complex. Expedition 44 Flight Engineers Kimiya Yui of JAXA andKjell Lindgren of NASA will operate the station's Canadarm2 robotic arm to reach out and grapple the 12-ton spacecraft and install it on the Earth-facing side of the Harmony module, where it will spend five weeks. Flight Engineer Scott Kelly of NASA will monitor HTV-5 systems during the rendezvous and grapple.

NASA TV coverage of the rendezvous and grapple of the HTV-5 on Aug. 20 will begin at 5:30 a.m. Capture is scheduled for approximately 7:10 a.m. Coverage of the final installation of the cargo craft to Harmony will resume at 9:30 a.m.

For NASA TV streaming video, schedule and downlink information, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/nasatv

For more information about the International Space Station and its crew, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/station

http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/prnewswire-space-news.html?doc=201508130915PR_NEWS_USPR_____DC78902&showRelease=1&dir=0&categories=AEROSPACE-AND-SPACE-EXPLORATION&andorquestion=OR&&passDir=0,1,2,3,4,5,6,15,17,34

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Best Meteor Shower in Years': Perseids Put on a Spectacular Show

The moon posed no obstacle as the Perseid meteor shower peaked last night, giving some skywatchers the best views of shooting stars in years — even in areas that usually have too much light for skywatchers to see anything. And the show will be back on tonight, although there will be fewer meteors falling per minute.

Photographer Ruslan Merzlyakov captured this spectacular photograph of the Perseid meteor shower filling the Danish sky in the early morning of Aug. 13. "I have been outside for about 3 hours, and the results are bloody fantastic!" he said. The sky was clear the entire time: "Lots of Perseids and Northern Lights had just exploded in the sky right over my hometown. For now, I am not going to argue with Danish weather, because I am 200 percent happy!"
Credit: Ruslan Merzlyakov

Photographer Chris Bakley captured this spectacular photo of a Perseid meteor streaking over Cape May, New Jersey during the Perseid meteor shower's peak on Aug. 12, 2015.
Credit: Chris Bakley / Chris Bakley Photography

This amazing view of a Perseid meteor was captured by amateur astronomers Stojan Stojanovski, Kristijan Gjoreski and Igor Nastoski of the Ohrid Astronomy Association in Ohrid, Macedonia during the peak of the Perseid meteor shower on Aug. 12-13, 2015.
Credit: Stojan Stojanovski, Kristijan Gjoreski, Igor Nastoski / Ohrid Astronomy Association

http://www.space.com/30247-perseid-meteor-shower-best-in-years.html

Generic Infographic.......

http://www.space.com/18507-meteor-showers-shooting-stars-infographic.html

Here are some annual meteor showers and the parent bodies that they are associated with:

Quadrantids (Jan. 2-4), Asteroid 2003 EH1

Lyrids (April 21-23), Comet Thatcher

Eta Aquarids (May 4-6), Comet Halley

June Lyrids (June 15-16), unknown

Delta Aquarids (July 27-29), parent of comets Macholtz, Marsden and Kracht

Capricornids (July 29-30), Comet 169P/NEAT

Perseids (Aug. 11-14), Comet Swift-Tuttle

Draconids (Oct. 8-9), Comet Giacobini-Zinner

Orionids (Oct. 20-22), Comet Halley

Taurids (Nov. 5-12), Comet Encke

Leonids (Nov. 16-18), Comet Tempel-Tuttle

Geminids (Dec. 12-14), Asteroid 3200 Phaethon

http://www.space.com/18507-meteor-showers-shooting-stars-infographic.html

Cheers.....

6,181 · August 14, 2015

Progress 58 Undocks From ISS

Russia’s ISS Progress 58 resupply ship flies away from the International Space Station after undocking on time Friday morning. Credit: NASA TV

The Russian ISS Progress 58 cargo spacecraft separated from the International Space Station at 6:19 a.m. EDT while the spacecraft were flying 250 miles over northwestern China.

The Progress spacecraft will now move away from the orbiting laboratory to a safe location where it will remain until Russian flight engineers command it to reenter Earth’s atmosphere. The intense heat of reentry will cause the vehicle to burn up over the Pacific Ocean.

The departure of the Progress 58 vehicle will clear the Zvezda docking port for the relocation of the Soyuz TMA-16M spacecraft on August 28. Expedition 44 Commander Gennady Padalka of the Russian Federal space Agency (Roscosmos), Flight Engineers Scott Kelly of NASA and Mikhail Kornienko of Roscocmos will move their Soyuz from the Poisk module to the Zvedzda docking port. The relocation will enable delivery of a new Soyuz to the station on Sept. 2, which will then bring Kelly and Kornienko home next March to conclude their one-year mission.

The International Space Station is seen from the cameras of the ISS Progress 58 cargo craft shortly after it undocked. Credit: NASA TV

https://blogs.nasa.gov/spacestation/

Time lapse video...at 10X...video approx 2 minutes...

Cheers....

6,181 · August 16, 2015

Foul Weather Forecast Delays Launch of Japanese Cargo Ship to Space Station

WASHINGTON, Aug. 14, 2015 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) has pushed the launch of its H-II Transport Vehicle (HTV)-5 to the International Space Station to 8:35 a.m. EDT on Monday, Aug. 17. NASA Television will carry live coverage of the event beginning at 7:45 a.m.

JAXA is delaying the launch from the Tanegashima Space Center in southern Japandue to an unfavorable weather forecast for the original launch date of Sunday, Aug. 16.

Loaded with more than 4.5 tons of supplies, including water, spare parts and experiment hardware for the six-person space station crew, the unpiloted cargo craft, named Kounotori, Japanese for "white stork," will travel four days to reach the station.

Rendezvous and grapple of the HTV-5 now is scheduled for approximately 7:55 a.m.on Aug. 21. NASA TV coverage will begin at 6:15 a.m. Installation coverage now will begin at 10:15 a.m., with installation occurring at approximately 10:45 a.m.

For NASA TV streaming video, schedule and downlink information, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov/nasatv

http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/prnewswire-space-news.html?doc=201508141608PR_NEWS_USPR_____DC80129&showRelease=1&dir=0&categories=AEROSPACE-AND-SPACE-EXPLORATION&andorquestion=OR&&passDir=0,1,2,3,4,5,6,15,17,34

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NASA International Space Station On-Orbit Status 13 August 2015

Space weather forecast from @space_station: Moonless with a chance of #Perseid meteors! #YearInSpace. Credit: NASA/Scott Kelly.

Earlier, cosmonaut Oleg Kononenko joined Yui to set up free-floating SPHERES microsatellites for a competition that introduces students to programming vehicles to fly in space. One-Year Crew member Scott Kelly worked on plumbing tasks in the station's Water Recovery System.

Cosmonauts Gennady Padalka and Mikhail Kornienko are still cleaning up after Monday's spacewalk. They stowed the tools and hardware used to rig new equipment and photograph the external condition of the station's Russian segment.

AAA Inlet Flow Measurements in OGS, Water Recovery System (WRS)1 Racks: Following last week's low Velocicalc reading of the air flow rate into the OGS Rack AAA inlet, on Tuesday the crew cleaned the OGS AAA. Today the crew performed new Velocicalc measurements to confirm the flow rate after the cleaning. Results from the OGS Rack AAA inlet readings are now within acceptable limits. The crew also took measurements of the air flow rate going into the WRS-1 Rack AAA Inlet. The WRS-1 air flow rate is lower than expected, ground teams are evaluating the data to determine if any additional actions are required.

Water Recovery System (WRS) Separator Plumbing Assembly (SPA) Vent Line Build: For several months, ground teams have suspected the SPA vent hose is restricted due to microbial growth. There is no microbial control in the purge lines and no designated way to clean them if growth occurs. Since there are no spare SPA vent hose onboard, earlier this week Kelly built an alternate SPA Vent Line by removing the end fittings from an existing Iodine Removal Hose. Today he installed this hose to eliminate the restriction and return the Urine Processing Assembly (UPA) to nominal operations.

Internal Thermal Control System (ITCS) Sample Collection: Lindgren conducted ITCS fluid sampling from N2 Low Temperature Loop (LTL) and N3 sample ports. This maintenance is performed periodically to monitor the quality of the water in the ITCS loops.

Ground Activities
All activities were completed unless otherwise noted.

SPRINT ops
SPHERES ops
MSS powerup
SSRMS maneuver to high hover
MSS powerdown

Three-Day Look Ahead:

Friday, 08/14: 58P undock, SPHERES ZR ops, EMU 3003 and 3010 Loop Scrub, HAPTICS-2 ops
Saturday, 08/15: Housekeeping and crew off duty
Sunday, 08/16: Crew off duty

QUICK ISS Status - Environmental Control Group:

Component - Status
Elektron - On
Vozdukh - Manual
[СКВ] 1 - SM Air Conditioner System ("SKV1") - On
[СКВ] 2 - SM Air Conditioner System ("SKV2") - Off
Carbon Dioxide Removal Assembly (CDRA) Lab - Standby
Carbon Dioxide Removal Assembly (CDRA) Node 3 - Operate
Major Constituent Analyzer (MCA) Lab - Shutdown
Major Constituent Analyzer (MCA) Node 3 - Operate
Oxygen Generation Assembly (OGA) - Process
Urine Processing Assembly (UPA) - Process
Trace Contaminant Control System (TCCS) Lab - Off
Trace Contaminant Control System (TCCS) Node 3 - Full Up

Space Station Live...(3:00 min)

http://spaceref.com/international-space-station/nasa-international-space-station-on-orbit-status-13-august-2015.html

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NASA ISS Space to Ground Weekly Report - 14 August 2015

NASA ISS Space to Ground Weekly Report - 14 August 2015.

NASA's Space to Ground is your weekly update on what's happening aboard the International Space Station.

Got a question or comment? Use #spacetoground to talk to us.

http://spaceref.com/international-space-station/nasa-iss-space-to-ground-weekly-report---14-august-2015.html

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Wow! Ocean Glows an Ethereal Blue Under Milky Way's Starlight (Photo)

Photographer Jeffrey Berkes took this image from Cannon Beach in Oregon around the Haystack Rock Bird Sanctuary in July.

A magnificent blue glow lights up this skywatching image of the Milky Way and crashing waves.

Photographer Jeffrey Berkes took this image from Cannon Beach in Oregon around the Haystack Rock Bird Sanctuary in July. The blue bioluminescent glow in the coastal waters of the Pacific Ocean serves as a stunning earthly counterpart to the stars of the Milky Way shining brilliantly overhead.

"On my previous trips I never saw any sign bioluminescence in the waters, but nature likes to surprise you some times and let me tell you I was in awe!" Berkes wrote to Space.com.

http://www.space.com/30188-ocean-glows-blue-milky-way-photo.html

Cheers....

6,181 · August 17, 2015

HTV Launch Delay

Bad Weather Again Delays Launch of Japanese Cargo Ship to Space Station

WASHINGTON, Aug. 16, 2015 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) has postponed the launch of its H-II Transport Vehicle (HTV)-5 to the International Space Station to 7:50 a.m. EDT on Wednesday, Aug. 19. NASA Television will carry live coverage of the event beginning at 7 a.m.

JAXA is delaying the launch from the Tanegashima Space Center in southern Japandue to an unfavorable weather forecast at the launch site for the next two days, which may delay the launch date further.

Loaded with more than 4.5 tons of supplies, including water, spare parts and experiment hardware for the six-person space station crew, the unpiloted cargo craft, named Kounotori, Japanese for "white stork," will travel five days to reach the station.

Rendezvous and grapple of the HTV-5 now is scheduled for approximately 6:55 a.m.on Monday, Aug. 24. NASA TV coverage will begin at 5:15 a.m. Installation coverage will now begin at 9:15 a.m. for installation at approximately 9:45 a.m.

For NASA TV streaming video, schedule and downlink information, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov/nasatv

For more information about the International Space Station and its crew, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov/station

Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20081007/38461LOGO

To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/bad-weather-again-delays-launch-of-japanese-cargo-ship-to-space-station-300129030.html

SOURCE NASA

http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/prnewswire-space-news.html?doc=201508161153PR_NEWS_USPR_____DC80362&showRelease=1&dir=0&categories=AEROSPACE-AND-SPACE-EXPLORATION&andorquestion=OR&&passDir=0,1,2,3,4,5,6,15,17,34

Cheers.....

6,181 · August 17, 2015

JAXA Postpones Launch of Cargo to Space Station

The JAXA H-2 Transfer Vehicle berthing with the International Space Station in an earlier mission. Credit: NASA

WASHINGTON — The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency and prime contractor Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Corp. have rescheduled the launch of a cargo resupply mission to the International Space Station aboard an H-2B rocket for Aug. 19 after bad weather at the country’s Tanegashima Space Center forced the postponement of attempts Aug. 16 and Aug. 17, JAXA said.

The upcoming launch attempt of the H-2 Transfer Vehicle-5, or HTV-5, carrying 4.5 tons of station-bound cargo, will take place at about 8:50 p.m. local time, JAXA said. However, the agency warned that the Aug. 19 attempt also could be postponed due to weather at the southern Japan launch site.

http://spacenews.com/jaxa-postpones-launch-of-cargo-to-space-station/

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Misc goodies.....

Neon Found in the Moon's Atmosphere

LADEE NASA

The moon's thin atmosphere contains neon, a gas commonly used in electric signs on Earth because of its intense glow.

While scientists have speculated on the presence of neon in the lunar atmosphere for decades, NASA's Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE) spacecraft has confirmed its existence for the first time.

"The presence of neon in the exosphere of the moon has been a subject of speculation since the Apollo missions, but no credible detections were made," said Mehdi Benna of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland and the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. "We were very pleased to not only finally confirm its presence, but to show that it is relatively abundant." Benna is lead author of a paper describing observations from LADEE's Neutral Mass Spectrometer (NMS) instrument published May 28 in Geophysical Research Letters.

There's not enough neon to make the moon visibly glow because the moon's atmosphere is extremely tenuous, about 100 trillion times less dense than Earth's atmosphere at sea level. A dense atmosphere like Earth's is relatively rare in our solar system because an object has to be sufficiently massive to have enough gravity to hold onto it.

The behavior of a dense atmosphere is driven by collisions between its atoms and molecules. However, the moon's atmosphere is technically referred to as an exosphere because it's so thin, its atoms rarely collide. Exospheres are the most common type of atmosphere in our solar system, so scientists are interested in learning more about them. "It's critical to learn about the lunar exosphere before sustained human exploration substantially alters it," Benna said. Since the moon's atmosphere is so thin, rocket exhaust and outgassing from spacecraft could easily change its composition.

Most of the moon's exosphere comes from the solar wind, a thin stream of electrically conducting gas blown from the surface of the sun into space at around a million miles per hour. Most of the solar wind is hydrogen and helium, but it contains many other elements in small amounts, including neon. All these elements impact the moon, but only helium, neon, and argon are volatile enough to be returned back to space. The rest of the elements will stick indefinitely to the moon's surface.

The LADEE NMS instrument confirms that the moon's exosphere is made up of mostly helium, argon, and neon. Their relative abundance is dependent on the time of day on the moon--argon peaks at sunrise, with neon at 4 a.m. and helium at 1 a.m. The instrument conducted systematic measurements of these gases for seven months, which allowed the team to understand how these gases are supplied to the exosphere, and how they are ultimately lost.

While most of the lunar exosphere comes from the solar wind, NMS showed that some gas comes from lunar rocks. Argon-40 results from the decay of naturally occurring radioactive potassium-40, found in the rocks of all the terrestrial planets as a leftover from their formation.

"We were also surprised to find that argon-40 creates a local bulge above an unusual part of the moon's surface, the region containing Mare Imbrium and Oceanus Procellarum," said Benna. Although the reason for this local enhancement is not yet understood, "One could not help to notice that this region happens to be the place where potassium-40 is most abundant on the surface. So there may be a connection between the atmospheric argon, the surface potassium and deep interior sources," said Benna.

A second surprising behavior of argon was that the overall amount in the lunar exosphere was not constant over time. Instead, it increased and then decreased by about 25 percent during the course of the LADEE mission. According to Benna, this transient source of argon may be the result of enhanced outgassing from the surface that is triggered by tidal stress on the moon.

NMS also revealed an unexpected source of some of the helium in the lunar exosphere. "About 20 percent of the helium is coming from the moon itself, most likely as the result from the decay of radioactive thorium and uranium, also found in lunar rocks," said Benna. This helium is being produced at a rate equivalent to about seven liters per second at standard atmospheric pressure.

"The data collected by the NMS addresses the long-standing questions related to the sources and sinks of exospheric helium and argon that have remained unanswered for four decades," said Benna. "These discoveries highlight the limitations of current exospheric models, and the need for more sophisticated ones in the future."

Launched in September 2013 from NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia, LADEE began orbiting the moon Oct. 6 and gathering science data Nov. 10. The spacecraft entered its science orbit around the moon's equator on Nov. 20, and in March 2014, LADEE extended its mission operations following a highly successful 100-day primary science phase. LADEE lacked fuel to maintain a long-term lunar orbit or continue science operations and was intentionally sent into the lunar surface, impacting the moon on April 17, 2014. The spacecraft's orbit naturally decayed following the mission's final low-altitude science phase.

For more information about the LADEE mission, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/ladee

http://spaceref.com/moon/neon-found-in-the-moons-atmosphere.html

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Neil Armstrong shortlisted in public vote for exoplanet names

Neil Armstrong is in the running to have a planet named after him (Image: NASA)

Neil Armstrong could be one of first people to have a planet named after them – and you get to decide. The International Astronomical Union, which oversees the naming of cosmic objects, has opened a public vote on the names of 32 exoplanets and 15 of their host stars.

The name “Neil” is one of 11 in the running for the exoplanet currently known as 51 Pegasi b, which was the first ever discovered around a sun-like star.

It was spotted in 1995 and revealed a new class of planet not seen in our solar system – hot-Jupiters, which are gas giants that orbit very close to their star. Other proposed names for this planet include “Carousel Hell b”, “Hydrogen” and “Yamasachi”, a character from Japanese mythology.

Names for each planet and star were put forward by astronomy clubs around the world and then whittled down by the IAU to create a shortlist for the public vote. Strict rules banned names of living individuals or those protected by copyright, which is why “Obama” or “Spider-Man” aren’t on the list.

Skirting the rules

At least one proposed name skirts pretty close to that rule, however: “Jaenerys”, after the Game of Thrones character Daenerys, has been suggested for the exoplanet HD 149026 b.

The surnames of science fiction authors Jules Verne, Robert A. Heinlein, Arthur C. Clarke and Isaac Asimov are also in the running for other exoplanets, and names from ancient mythologies around the world are popular.

There are a large number of Japanese names and words on the shortlist. New Scientist predicted this would be the case back in January, when we noticed that around a third of the astronomy clubs signed up the IAU were Japanese.

https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn28038-neil-armstrong-shortlisted-in-public-vote-for-exoplanet-names/

A few posts ago, I made a post about voting for exoplanet names. The voting is still open, instructions are on the prior post as well as here...

http://nameexoworlds.iau.org/

Jules Verne, Robert A. Heinlein, Arthur C. Clarke and Isaac Asimov are all covered under one vote, as well as Neil and Apollonis as a vote for a system.

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Gecko Feet Inspire Climbing Space Robots

NASA robots may climb the walls of the International Space Station one day using grippers inspired by the super-adhesive feet of geckoes.

Scientists at the space agency's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California, are developing a "gecko gripper" system that could help robots inspect and repair the space station's exterior, and perhaps conduct a wide range of activities in Earth orbit. NASA released a video describing the gecko space robot concept Wednesday (Aug. 12).

"We might eventually grab satellites to repair them, service them, and we also could grab space garbage and try to clear it out of the way," JPL engineer Aaron Parness said in a statement.

This artist's concept shows how a future robot called LEMUR (Limbed Excursion Mechanical Utility Robot) could inspect and maintain installations on the International Space Station. The robot would stick to the outside using a gecko-inspired gripping system.

Gecko feet aren't sticky in the same way that tape is. Rather, the lizards rely on millions of tiny hairlike protrusions that become powerfully adhesive when bent due to a phenomenon called van der Waals forces.

Because the electrons orbiting a molecule's nucleus aren't evenly spaced, even a neutral (uncharged) molecule has a positive side and a negative side. The positive side of one molecule attracts the negative side of neighboring molecules, and vice versa, generating the "stickiness" that allows geckoes to scuttle up walls and across ceilings with ease.

The lizards can turn this adhesive force on by pushing their feet down and bending the tiny "hairs," Parness said.

"This is how the gecko does it, by weighting its feet," he said.

The JPL team's gecko gripper works in pretty much the same way. Parness and his colleagues created a material studded with synthetic hairs, each of them much smaller than a human hair. When this material is pushed against a surface, it adheres.

The latest generation of grippers can support more than 150 Newtons of force, which is the equivalent of 35 lbs. (16 kilograms), researchers said.

The gripping system doesn't lose its stickiness over time the way tape does, researchers added, and it should work well in all environments — even those featuring extreme temperatures, pressures and/or radiation conditions.

Parness and the team have already started testing out the gecko gripper in the microgravity environment, using the technology to grab and manipulate objects during parabolic airplane flights.

The researchers have also affixed gecko-gripper feet to a climbing robot called Lemur 3, which can clamber over simulated solar panels and other spacecraft parts as a result.

http://www.space.com/30258-nasa-gecko-space-robot-sticky-feet.html

Cheers....

6,181 · August 18, 2015

NASA status updates are a little behind...they should catch up soon....

NASA International Space Station On-Orbit Status 14 August 2015

Russia’s ISS Progress 58 resupply ship flies away from the International Space Station after undocking on time Friday morning. Credit: NASA.

The departure of the Progress 58 vehicle will clear the Zvezda docking port for the relocation of the Soyuz TMA-16M spacecraft on August 28. Expedition 44 Commander Gennady Padalka of the Russian Federal space Agency (Roscosmos), Flight Engineers Scott Kelly of NASA and Mikhail Kornienko of Roscocmos will move their Soyuz from the Poisk module to the Zvedzda docking port. The relocation will enable delivery of a new Soyuz to the station on Sept. 2, which will then bring Kelly and Kornienko home next March to conclude their one-year mission.

Synchronized Position Hold, Engage, Reorient, Experimental Satellites (SPHERES) Zero Robotics: Kelly, Kononenko, and Yui conducted a conference with the SPHERES Principal Investigator, then configured the satellites for the Zero Robotics competition. The SPHERES Zero-Robotics investigation establishes an opportunity for middle school students to design research for the ISS. As part of a competition, students write algorithms for the SPHERES satellites to accomplish tasks relevant to future space missions. The algorithms are tested by the SPHERES team and the best designs are selected for the competition to operate the SPHERES satellites on board the ISS. Each season begins with the unveiling of a game motivated by a challenging problem of interest to NASA and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). During the competition, each team must complete a set of pre-determined tasks. During all phases, the students are challenged not only with programming, but with the development of documentation and presentations to add to their engineering and communication skills.

Russian Joint Research (RJR) Sampling: Padalka completed Microbial Air Sampling (MAS) and took surface samples using both microbial and fungal Surface Sample Kits (SSKs). The samples will be incubated and analyzed on Tuesday, April 21. The investigation refines locations and surfaces prone to microbial contamination throughout the ISS, share monitoring technologies and data between NASA and Roscosmos, and provides a scientific basis for decisions about future microbial monitoring, both on ISS through its extended life, and on other future human exploration spacecraft.

Extravehicular Activity Mobility Unit (EMU) 3003, 3010 Maintenance: Lindgren completed a partial water dump and fill for EMU 3003 and a full water dump and fill for EMU 3010 followed by loop scrubs and water sampling on both suits. Following these activities he completed a dryout on both suits.

Ground Activities
All activities were completed unless otherwise noted.

EVA EMU ops
SPHERES ZR ops
ISS Server 1 reload [In Work]
N2 CBCS checkout
Three-Day Look Ahead:

Saturday, 08/15: Housekeeping, Crew Provisions Consolidation, Lab ITCS Sampling
Sunday, 08/16: Crew off duty
Monday, 08/17: HTV5 launch, Robonaut ops, Ocular Health
QUICK ISS Status - Environmental Control Group:

Component - Status
Elektron - On
Vozdukh - Manual
[СКВ] 1 - SM Air Conditioner System ("SKV1") - On
[СКВ] 2 - SM Air Conditioner System ("SKV2") - Off
Carbon Dioxide Removal Assembly (CDRA) Lab - Standby
Carbon Dioxide Removal Assembly (CDRA) Node 3 - Operate
Major Constituent Analyzer (MCA) Lab - Shutdown
Major Constituent Analyzer (MCA) Node 3 - Operate
Oxygen Generation Assembly (OGA) - Process
Urine Processing Assembly (UPA) - Shutdown
Trace Contaminant Control System (TCCS) Lab - Off
Trace Contaminant Control System (TCCS) Node 3 - Full Up

Video...(6:41)

http://spaceref.com/international-space-station/nasa-international-space-station-on-orbit-status-14-august-2015.html

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Kelly urges funding for commercial crew program

NASA astronaut Scott Kelly is pictured inside the International Space Station’s Unity module in this photo from April 2015. Credit: NASA

Astronaut Scott Kelly, 143 days into a planned 341-day stay aboard the International Space Station, urged lawmakers Monday to restore full funding to NASA’s commercial crew program to avoid expected launch delays and continued sole reliance on Russia for transportation to and from the International Space Station.

In an interview with CBS News, Kelly said the commercial crew program “is very important to us” and while “I hope we’ll get there with the current funding, I don’t think we’ll get there on the current schedule, obviously, or the schedule we would have liked.”

“But it is very important, and hopefully people will recognize this and give NASA the support we need to get it done,” he said.

Closer to home, Kelly and his crewmates are standing by for the launch Wednesday of a Japanese H-2B rocket carrying an automated HTV cargo ship loaded with 4.5 tons of supplies and equipment. Liftoff from the Tanegashima Space Center in southern Japan is targeted for 7:50 a.m. EDT, weather permitting, with arrival at the space station early Monday.

The flight is especially important given the back-to-back failures of a Russian Progress supply ship last April and the loss of a SpaceX Dragon cargo ship in June. Russian Progress flights resumed July 3 and two more flights are planned before the end of the year.

But a successful HTV launch and berthing is needed to avoid shortfalls that otherwise could be expected this fall.

“We’re in good shape right now, but if for some reason HTV didn’t get here, we get pretty low on certain consumables probably in late September, early October timeframe,” Kelly said. “I’m sure we would figure out ways to bridge the gap on those things. … But if for some reason HTV gets delayed for a significant amount of time or something else happens, we do run into some issues.

“We’ve been pretty good about dealing with those things, and I’m sure we will, we would figure out a way around it, but it is a very important launch for us coming up.”

In the wake of the Bush administration’s decision to retire the shuttle, NASA funded development of commercial cargo ships to replace the lost capability of its winged orbiters and a separate program to develop commercially managed crew ferry ships.

Boeing and SpaceX won a combined $6.8 billion in NASA contracts in 2014 to develop crew capsules to carry U.S. and partner astronauts to and from the space station. Initial test flights are targeted for 2017, two years later than initially planned because of earlier budget shortfalls.

The current 2017 launch targets assume NASA gets $1.2 billion in funding in fiscal 2016 as requested. As it currently stands, draft legislation in the House would cut that to $1 billion while the Senate has earmarked $900 million.

As a result, NASA recently extended its contract with Roscosmos, the Russian federal space agency, informing Congress that it plans to spend another $490 million to secure six more Soyuz seats for U.S. and partner astronauts through 2018 and landing support into 2019. That’s on top of a $458 million contract last year for six seats through the end of 2017.

The average cost per seat under the latest contract extension is nearly $82 million.

A view inside a mock-up of SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spacecraft. Credit: NASA

In a letter to Congress Aug. 5, NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said “for five years now, the Congress, while incrementally increasing annual funding, has not adequately funded the commercial crew program to return human spaceflight launches to American soil this year, as planned.”

“This has resulted in continued sole reliance on the Russian Soyuz spacecraft as our crew transport vehicle for American and international partner crews to the ISS,” he wrote.

He said the proposed 2016 budget “would result in NASA’s inability to fund several planned (contract) milestones in FY 2016 and would likely result in funds running out for both contractors during the spring/summer of FY 2016.”

“If this occurs,” he said, “the existing fixed-price contracts may need to be renegotiated, likely resulting in further schedule slippage and increased cost.”

Asked if the funding shortfall might force NASA to proceed with a single contractor at some point, Kelly agreed “that would be a concern.”

“I would imagine that would eat into some of your margin for success,” he said. “If you have two vehicles being built and one of them doesn’t work out, you’ve still got the other one and down selecting earlier than we’d like would probably make that … less of a likelihood we’d get the vehicle we want in the time that we would want.”

Space has not yet been widely discussed by presidential candidates, but Kelly urged them consider the program’s value and support the necessary funding to keep it on track.

“What we get from building a space station, the economic return, the science return is very, very important to our nation, to our economy,” he said. “I would like to see all the candidates, really, support us, and I think they probably do in some regard, but also support a bigger budget with the commercial crew (program) and being able to build that vehicle on the time frame that we need to to support our … future missions.

“We need to be able to put that money into the U.S. economy and U.S. companies versus sending it overseas,” he said. “So I hope they would see that.”

http://spaceflightnow.com/2015/08/17/kelly-urges-funding-for-commercial-crew-program/

Well Done..............and a "thank you" to Scott Kelly.......

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NASA Extracting Tanks from Retired Shuttle Endeavour for Use on Space Station

Photo showing the potable and waste water storage tanks on the lower deck of the space shuttle. The California Science Center is letting NASA remove the tanks from inside the shuttle Endeavour for use aboard the International Space Station.
Credit: National Archives via collectSPACE.com

NASA's space shuttle Endeavour, retired and on exhibit in Los Angeles for the past three years, has been called back into service — or rather, parts of it have — for the benefit of the International Space Station.

A NASA team working this week at the California Science Center willremove four tanks from deep inside the winged orbiter to comprise a water storage system for the space station. The reactivated artifacts are intended to help free more crew time for science operations onboard the orbiting outpost by reducing the astronauts' involvement in refilling their water reserves.

"The ISS [International Space Station] program has been steadily increasing the amount of crew time dedicated to science and technology development [onboard the station] through initiatives like the water storage system," NASA told Endeavour's curators at the California Science Center, according to information shared exclusively with collectSPACE.com.

Reusing the orbiter's tanks, rather than manufacturing new hardware, will "reduce the overall cost of building the water storage system," NASA said.

When space shuttle Endeavour was still flying, the same tanks were used not only to provide drinking water for the orbiter's crew but to also fill storage bags to provide water for the space station's crew. Similar duffle-like, soft bags are still in use today to hold the water processed through the orbiting outpost's recycling system, which purifies the crew's urine, perspiration and other waste water so that it is drinkable again.

But refilling those bags is more time consuming than if the station were to have a more capable reserve. Endeavour's water tanks can hold a total of 300 liters, enough for about 25 to 27 days.

Taking out the tanks

Each of Endeavour's potable water tanks measures 3 feet long by 1.3 feet wide (0.9 by 0.4 m) and weighs 40 pounds empty (18 kg). Together with a single waste water tank of similar dimensions, they are located underneath the crew cabin's lower living space called the mid-deck. [Space Shuttle Endeavour: 6 Surprising Facts]

Workers will enter the orbiter, which is exhibited inside the science center'sSamuel Oschin Display Pavilion, through the same hatch that was used by the astronauts to enter and exit the space shuttle before launch and after landing. The hatch is normally kept closed as the center's visitors are not allowed to tour inside the vehicle.

Using a lift to reach the hatch, the NASA workers will gain access the tanks through the mid-deck's floor. Under the seats where mission specialists sat for launch and landing is a locker that held the lithium hydroxide (LiOH) canisters used to clean the orbiter's air of carbon dioxide. Unbolting and lifting out that container offers a pathway to drop down below the deck.

From there, it is the relatively simple task of detaching the plumbing and electrical connectors that lead to each tank and unbolting the four tanks themselves from the rails that held them in place.

The pavilion will remain open to science center visitors as the work completed, which is expected by Friday. The four tanks will then be shipped to the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

How and when the new water storage system will be flown to the space station was not specified.

Preservation vs. program

In 2011, at the end of its 30-year shuttle program, NASA handed over Endeavour to the California Science Center. The L.A. museum and educational complex is working to exhibit the orbiter standing upright, mounted as it was for launch with the last remaining external tank built for flight and a pair of solid rocket boosters.

The exhibit, which will stand in the science center's yet-to-be-built Samuel Oschin Air and Space Center, is expected to open in 2018.

Before delivering Endeavour to California, NASA prepared the orbiter to be safe for public exhibit and removed some of its parts, like the shuttle's three main engines, for future use with its heavy-lift rocket, the Space Launch System. But the agency needed the science center's permission to remove the four water tanks, as the space shuttle is now the museum's property. [NASA's Space Shuttle from Top to Bottom (Infographic)]

"Since the Smithsonian keeps the reference copy of the orbiter – Discovery is more intact than either Atlantis or Endeavour, we are okay with giving up things that serve a useful purpose to NASA that don't affect the appearance or function of the vehicle," stated Dennis Jenkins, project manager for Endeavour's display.

"Supporting an active program [like the station] seems like a worthy cause," he added.

Discovery, at the National Air and Space Museum Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Virginia, will be retaining its water tanks. Atlantis, which is still NASA property, recently had its tanks extracted from its display at theKennedy Space Center Visitor Complex to support the same station water storage system.

Space shuttle Endeavour, as currently exhibited by the California Science Center, will donate its four water tanks to support the International Space Station.

It is not without precedent for NASA to retrieve its former parts from museums to support its on-going programs, but it is rare.

In 2013, for example, the space agency borrowed from the Smithsonian a gas generator out of an Apollo Saturn V F-1 engine and fired up another retrieved from an F-1 engine displayed at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama, in support of developing a new engine.

NASA also temporarily removed parts from the prototype orbiter Enterprise, now on display at the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum in New York City, to help in its tests following the loss of the space shuttle Columbia in 2003.

http://www.space.com/30271-nasa-removes-space-shuttle-endeavour-tanks.html

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Electric Solar Sail Concept Introduction

Electric Solar Sail Concept NASA

The NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) Program recently selected several concepts for further study including the Heliopause Electrostatic Rapid Transit System (HERTS), an electric solar sail concept.

The concept is led by Bruce Wiegmann of NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center.

Here's how he describes the mission.

"Our Electric Sail (E-sail) propulsion team is excited to propose to the 2015 NAIC Phase II solicitation. Our international team includes: the inventor and patent holder of the E-Sail propulsion system (Dr. Pekka Janhunen of the Finnish Meteorological Institute (FMI), the Principal Investigator for NASA's previous Tether Satellite System experiments that were flown on the Space Shuttle (Dr. Nobie Stone), fellow NASA NAIC former and present Fellow Dr. Rob Hoyt of Tethers Unlimited, Inc. (TUI), and Utah State University team lead by Dr. Robert Schunk. Our proposal builds upon our teams technical findings in Phase 1 - "that an E-Sail propelled spacecraft can travel 100 AU in less than 10 years or to the Heliopause (120 - 150 AU) in < 15 years". In addition to the Heliopause missions, our team member - Dr. Pekka Janhunen of the Finnish Meteorological Institute (FMI) - has examined a number of missions of scientific discovery where the E-Sail propulsion system will provide rapid transits so various researchers could begin to get data back from outer planetary missions within 1 to 2 years of launch."

http://spaceref.com/missions-and-programs/nasa/electric-solar-sail-concept-inftoduction.html

Cheers.......

6,181 · August 18, 2015

NASA International Space Station On-Orbit Status 17 August 2015

@StationCDRKelly: Woke up to the snows of #Kilimanjaro. #GoodMorning from @Space_Station. Credit: NASA/Scott Kelly.

Japan has set Wednesday at 7:50 a.m. (11:50 a.m. UTC) as the launch time for its fifth "Kounotori" cargo mission to the International Space Station. Meanwhile, the six orbiting crew members focused on advanced microgravity research today.

Japan's fifth H-II Transfer Vehicle (HTV-5) will take a five day trip to the station after its launch. It will arrive early Monday morning when it will be captured with the Canadarm2 and berthed to the Harmony module.

The HTV-5 will deliver more than 4.5 tons of research and supplies, including water, spare parts and experiment hardware. Japanese astronaut Kimiya Yui continued robotics training for the HTV-5 arrival next week.

The crew also participated in examinations for the ongoing Ocular Health study. Robonaut, the experimental humanoid robot, was powered up today so the crew could observe its mobility operations.

Robonaut: Lindgren viewed an On-Board Training (OBT) video, and encountered communication issues with the robot. The team was able to resolve the communication problems and proceeded with further Robonaut troubleshooting of recent signatures indicating power being removed from the robot's main processors. Lindgren removed the torso cover and swapped out the power supply card on the computer chassis. After applying power to the robot, the new power supply showed a green LED indicating good power to the supply, but the red fault LED was lit and no power was flowing to the rest of the chassis. Due to time constraints, further troubleshooting could not be done. Robonaut is a project under a Space Act agreement with General Motors, which plans to use Robonaut-related technology in future vehicle safety systems and manufacturing applications. Robonaut helps to advance development of robotic assistant and manufacturing technologies that improve worker health and safety inside factories. As part of the demonstration, Robonaut is also involved in several education and public outreach activities, connecting robotics and the space program to students and the general public on Earth.

Node 3 (N3) Inter-Module Ventilation (IMV) Cleaning: Yui cleaned the N3 Deck Forward IMV fan. This activity is expected to restore normal ventilation air flow in the Cupola and reduce noise produced by the IMV fan.

On-Board Training (OBT) Robotics On-Board Trainer (ROBoT): In preparation for HTV5 capture and berthing, the 3 USOS crew members completed another session of this training. In addition to self-study, they practiced a 30 meter approach and 2 Capture Point (CP)-hold runs.

Internal Thermal Control System (ITCS) Sampling: On Saturday, Lindgren collected an ITCS fluid sample from the Lab. Its Ortho-phthalaldehyde (OPA) biocide concentration was nominal. Today, Kelly collected an ITCS fluid sample from the JEM. Its OPA concentration was also nominal.

Extravehicular Mobility Unit (EMU) Water Conductivity Test: Today, Kelly tested the conductivity of water samples obtained from EMUs 3003 and 3010.

Ground Activities
All activities were completed unless otherwise noted.

Ocular Health support
Robonaut ops
HTV OBT support
HTV Camera Calibration [In Work]
Three-Day Look Ahead:

Tuesday, 08/18: SPRINT Ultrasound, HMS Fundoscope, HTV OBT
Wednesday, 08/19: HTV5 launch, SPHERES Vertigo ops, MDCA h/w replace, Radin handover
Thursday, 08/20: Neuro Mapping, COL ITCS Sample, MDCA Hardware Replace
QUICK ISS Status - Environmental Control Group:

Component - Status
Elektron - On
Vozdukh - Manual
[СКВ] 1 - SM Air Conditioner System ("SKV1") - On
[СКВ] 2 - SM Air Conditioner System ("SKV2") - Off
Carbon Dioxide Removal Assembly (CDRA) Lab - Standby
Carbon Dioxide Removal Assembly (CDRA) Node 3 - Operate
Major Constituent Analyzer (MCA) Lab - Shutdown
Major Constituent Analyzer (MCA) Node 3 - Operate
Oxygen Generation Assembly (OGA) - Process
Urine Processing Assembly (UPA) - Standby
Trace Contaminant Control System (TCCS) Lab - Off
Trace Contaminant Control System (TCCS) Node 3 - Full Up

http://spaceref.com/international-space-station/nasa-international-space-station-on-orbit-status-17-august-2015.html

Video...(20:29)

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Research, Cargo and Crews

The six-member Expedition 44 crew participated in a wide array of science today as Japan counts down to Wednesday morning’s launch of its fifth resupply mission. Meanwhile, three new Soyuz taxi crew members flew to the launch site at the Baikonur Cosmodrome to finalize their mission preparations.

The majority of the station crew members had their blood pressure and vision checked today for the long-running Ocular Health study. Japanese astronaut Kimiya Yui had his legs scanned with an ultrasound for the SPRINT exercise study. NASA astronaut Kjell Lindgren explored fluid physics and surface tension for the Capillary Beverage experiment.

Back on Earth, veteran station cosmonaut Sergei Volkov and first time Soyuz Flight Engineers Andreas Mogensen and Aidyn Aimbetov are getting ready for their 10-day mission to the International Space Station. The trio will launch Sept. 2 inside the Soyuz TMA-18M spacecraft from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Volkov will stay in space until next year. Mogensen and Aimbetov will return Sept. 11 with Gennady Padalka who has been in space since March.

The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) is getting ready to roll out its H-IIB rocket this afternoon at the Tanegashima Space Center. JAXA is scheduled to launch the “Kounotori” HTV-5 cargo craft at 7:50 a.m. EDT (11:50 a.m. UTC) Wednesday for a five day trip to the space station. The HTV-5 will deliver more than 4.5 tons of research and supplies, including water, spare parts and experiment hardware.

https://blogs.nasa.gov/spacestation/

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Student Satellite Headed To International Space Station

AAUSat-5 ESA

A very special week is about to begin for approximately 30 students from Aalborg University, in Denmark, as their satellite - AAUSAT5 - waits to be launched to the International Space Station.

A few weeks later, AAUSAT5 will be deployed into orbit around Earth, marking the first ESA student CubeSat mission ever launched from the ISS: the pilot project of ESA's 'Fly Your Satellite from the ISS!' education programme.

AAUSAT5, a CubeSat satellite entirely built by a university team with ESA's support, will reach the ISS aboard the Japanese HTV-5 cargo vehicle, planned to lift off from the Tanegashima Space Center in Japan. It will be accompanied by GomX-3, another ESA CubeSat, designed by Danish professionals.

There may be a possibility, to be confirmed at a later stage, that AAUSAT5 and GomX-3, both Danish satellites, are released to orbit in conjunction with the mission to the ISS of ESA astronaut Andreas Mogensen, the first Danish astronaut ever. Andreas will be on the station for 2 weeks, starting on 2 September.

After deployment, AAUSAT5 will start its technical mission: test, in orbit, an improved version of an automated positioning system. This system is designed to track and identify ships transiting away from coastal areas and in remote areas, thereby creating potential for safer use of new shipping lanes.

"It is by going through the whole process of setting objectives for a space mission, and then designing, building, testing, and operating a spacecraft that can achieve these objectives, that the students acquire an powerful experience in the space sector, while still completing their studies," said Piero Galeone, Head of the Tertiary Education Unit at ESA. "Our mentoring efforts are all aimed at helping the students become more competent and mature for the labour market when the time comes."

Updates regarding the exact HTV-5 launch time will be made available on this website as soon as they are known. Watch the launch on NASA TV and follow the AAUSAT5 mission with us on the ESA Education portal!

Fly Your Satellite! and AAUSAT5

'Fly Your Satellite!', ESA's most thorough educational CubeSat initiative to date, is a programme aimed at offering university student teams the opportunity to gain exemplary engineering and project management experience in designing, building, testing, launching, and operating a small satellite a CubeSat indeed from cradle to grave.

With AAUSAT5, the ESA Education Office is piloting the opportunity to use the International Space Station as a possible means, in addition to conventional rockets, to recurrently deploy student CubeSats into low Earth orbit; this would represent 'Fly Your Satellite from the ISS!', as an extension of the 'Fly Your Satellite!' programme.

ESA is providing the AAUSAT5 team with the launch opportunity on board the HTV-5 launch vehicle and the deployment from the International Space Station free of charge, as well as technical and financial support for the pre-launch activities (for satellite integration and testing, and for the delivery to Houston, US, where the satellite has been integrated with the NanoRacks CubeSat Deployer (NRCSD).

http://spaceref.com/nasa-hack-space/student-satellite-headed-to-international-space-station.html

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Inflatable Habitats: From the Space Station to the Moon and Mars?

This image shows how Bigelow Aerospace's Bigelow Expandable Activity Module (BEAM) will look after its arrival at the International Space Station in 2015.
Credit: Bigelow Aerospace

The upcoming launch of a private inflatable module toward the International Space Station could help pave the way for colonies on the moon and Mars.

Bigelow Aerospace's Bigelow Expandable Activity Module (BEAM) will blast off on SpaceX's next robotic cargo mission to the space station for NASA. That flight was originally scheduled for September, but the disintegration of SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket during the company's last cargo run in late June will likely delay it.

Whenever BEAM ends up reaching orbit, the module's addition to theInternational Space Station (ISS) will be a big milestone for inflatable spacecraft in general and Bigelow Aerospace in particular, company representatives said. [Bigelow's Inflatable Space Station Idea in Photos]

"This will give us the opportunity to demonstrate expandable-habitat technology as part of a crewed system for the very first time," said Michael Gold, director of Washington, D.C., operations and business growth for Bigelow Aerospace. "This will be a very big step."

Bigelow aims to provide expandable habitats in low Earth orbit and, eventually, on the surface of the moon and Mars, for use by governments, private companies, academic institutions and other customers.

This early concept art shows a lunar base as envisioned by Bigelow Aerospace, which builds expandable space habitats.
Credit: Bigelow Aerospace

Commercial space stations, the moon and Mars

Bigelow is dreaming much bigger than BEAM. The company is also developing a module it calls the B330, because the craft offers 330 cubic meters (11,650 cubic feet) of internal space. One 31-foot-long (9.45 m) B330 can support a crew of six astronauts, company representatives say.

Bigelow envisons the B330 — or multiple B330s joined together, as the habitats are designed with modular expansion in mind — serving as a self-contained commercial space station that could enable and support a variety of activities in orbit, from microgravity research and manufacturing to space tourism.

The timetable for the first B330 deployment is uncertain at the moment, since it's tied to the development of private astronaut taxis that can get people to orbit, Gold said.

In September 2014, NASA awarded $2.6 billion to SpaceX to finish its work on the manned Dragon capsule and $4.2 billion to Boeing for its CST-100 capsule. The agency hopes one or both of those spacecraft will be able to start ferrying astronauts to and from orbit by 2017.

"We'll be ready when they are," Gold said.

Furthermore, with a few minor variations, the B330 could also serve as the living quarters for astronauts during the long journey to Mars, as well as colonists' homes on the surface of the moon, Mars or other worlds, Gold said.

"It's a very versatile system," hesaid. "We like to think of ourselves as using the B330 in the same way that Southwest Airlines uses the [Boeing] 737 [jet] — that it's a standard module that could become the backbone in terms of future habitation."

http://www.space.com/30277-bigelow-aerospace-private-space-station.html

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Russia to Send First Ever Robot-Cosmonaut to ISS

A team of experts at the Russian Academy of Sciences' Space Research Institute are working on the prototype of a robot cosmonaut to help ISS crews during spacewalks.

Russia is a world leader where it comes to designing all kinds of space innovations. Including the Dynamic Albedo of Neutrons (DAN) instrument mounted on the Mars Science Laboratory's Curiosity rover.

It is a pulsed sealed-tube neutron source and detector used to measure hydrogen or ice and water at or near the Martian surface.

The Americans spent around $2 billion on their 2011 mission to the Red Planet, and they made ample use of Russian innovations to make the whole project happening.

The study of the chemical composition of the Martian surface is a key item of the planet's exploration, especially including the search for water.

Since 2001 this study has been performed by the Gamma Ray Spectrometer (GRS), which includes DAN's predecessor - the Russian-made High Energy Neutron Detector (HEND) for detection of high-energy neutrons.

Russian-designed space exploration instruments are widely used by NASA in its study of the Moon and its glaciers.

As a Russian crew is now preparing for a planned landing on the lunar surface in 2018, scientists are certain that by using their instruments the cosmonauts will make a wealth of discoveries to facilitate Man's exploration of the Universe for years to come.

http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/Russia_to_Send_First_Ever_Robot_Cosmonaut_to_ISS_999.html

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Equatorial regions are prone to disruptive space weather, new study finds

The equatorial electrojet is a naturally occurring flow of current approximately 100 kilometers (60 miles) above the surface of the Earth. New findings raise the issue of increasing power grid safeguards in regions previously thought to be less prone to space weather than high-latitude regions. Image courtesy Brett A. Carter.

Extreme space weather has long been seen as a threat to electrical grids in high-latitude regions of the northern and southern hemispheres. A new study finds that smaller space weather effects are amplified near the Earth's equator, putting power grids at risk in regions long considered safe from bad space weather.

Massive space weather events have crashed power grids across North America and Europe, but the new report warns that smaller events strike - often with little warning - in equatorial regions with greater frequency than previously known, according to Brett Carter, a visiting scholar at Boston College's Institute for Scientific Research in Massachusetts, and lead author of the article recently accepted for publication in Geophysical Research Letters, an American Geophysical Union journal.

These equatorial electrical disruptions - fueled by geomagnetically induced currents - pose a threat to power grids in countries where shielding electricity infrastructure from space shocks has not been a recognized priority, according to the study.

"These disturbances affect what's happening in the equatorial region, which has largely been overlooked," said Carter, a space physicist who is also affiliated with RMIT University's SPACE Research Centre in Australia. "What the historical data also show is that we don't need huge geomagnetic storms to experience the effects. They can also take place during what we might otherwise classify as 'quiet' periods of space weather."

In other words, electrical disruptions in the equatorial region do not require severe geomagnetic storms, similar in scale to events that have crashed power grids in the past, most notably in Quebec in 1989 and in Sweden in 2003, according to the study.

Analyzing 14 years of data collected in space and on Earth, the team found that geomagnetically induced currents are amplified by the equatorial electrojet, a naturally occurring flow of current approximately 100 kilometers (60 miles) above the surface of the Earth. Wending its way through the Earth's ionosphere along the magnetic equator, the electrojet travels above large swaths of Africa, South America, Southeast Asia and the southern tip of India.

In their report, Carter and his team, including researchers from RMIT and Dartmouth College, examined the effects of interplanetary shocks in the solar wind, which is the stream of charged particles that flows out of the sun. Massive explosions on the sun's surface can cause these shocks, but many are created through far less violent means.

The arrival of these shocks at Earth causes complex phenomena in the Earth's magnetosphere and ionosphere, which provokes spikes in current at the Earth's surface, said Carter.

"The Earth's magnetic field does the job of shielding the Earth from the solar wind and when it gets hit by these shocks, you get a global magnetic signature at the ground," Carter said. "This magnetic signature becomes locally amplified by rapid changes in the equatorial electrojet, which increases the induced current levels in the ground near the equator."

While not the "doomsday" scenarios posed by extreme space weather events, these smaller episodes can damage unprotected power infrastructure and even cause fluctuations in wholesale electricity pricing, as surges in induced current at the Earth's surface effectively confuse systems monitoring rates of supply and demand, according to the study.

Carter said the realization that the Earth's equatorial regions are far more susceptible to disruptive space weather should prompt scientists to examine the implications on regional infrastructure and economies near the equator.

"I think this is cause for a new way of looking at the impact of adverse space weather in a largely unstudied region, where health and economic well-being are increasingly reliant on dependable power infrastructure," added Carter.

http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/Equatorial_regions_are_prone_to_disruptive_space_weather_new_study_finds_999.html

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Viking Aurora: Northern Lights Wow Photographer in Newfoundland

Astrophotographer Adam Woodworth took this image of an aurora from Norstead, a Viking village replica.
Credit: Adam Woodworth | Adam Woodworth Photography

This stunning image of an aurora was taken was taken in Norstead, a Viking village replica.

The Norstead Viking Village in L'anse aux Meadows, Newfoundland is the only confirmed Viking site in North America. Astrophotographer Adam Woodworth took the image on June 22 while visiting the area.

"The aurora was coming from all directions it seemed like, this was the first time I'd witnessed a strong aurora display so far north. L'anse aux Meadows is near the northern most tip of Newfoundland, certainly the farthest north I've ever been. An experience I'll never forget!” Woodworth wrote in an email to Space.com.

The image also shows Viking building replicas made out of sod and wood. Woodworth's image is a blend of two exposures for depth of field. He used a Nikon D810A, Nikon 14-24mm f/2.8 lens. The sky view was created with a single shot set at ISO 3200, 14mm, f/2.8, with a 1-second exposure. The foreground was then taken as a single shot at ISO 1600, 14mm, f/5.6, with a 2-minute exposure.

Auroras occur when charged particles from the sun's solar wind interact with Earth's upper atmosphere (at altitudes above 50 miles, or 80 km), causing a glow. The particles are funneled to Earth's polar regions by the planet's magnetic field. The auroras over the North Pole are known as the aurora borealis, or the northern lights. The lights over the South Pole are dubbed the aurora australis, or southern lights.

To see more amazing night sky photos submitted by SPACE.com readers, visit our astrophotography archive.

http://www.space.com/30175-viking-aurora-northern-lights-photo.html

Cheers......

6,181 · August 19, 2015

NASA International Space Station On-Orbit Status 18 August 2015

The six-member Expedition 44 crew participated in a wide array of science today as Japan counts down to Wednesday morning's launch of its fifth resupply mission. Meanwhile, three new Soyuz taxi crew members flew to the launch site at the Baikonur Cosmodrome to finalize their mission preparations.

The majority of the station crew members had their blood pressure and vision checked today for the long-running Ocular Health study. Japanese astronaut Kimiya Yui had his legs scanned with an ultrasound for the SPRINT exercise study. NASA astronaut Kjell Lindgren explored fluid physics and surface tension for the Capillary Beverage experiment.

Back on Earth, veteran station cosmonaut Sergei Volkov and first time Soyuz Flight Engineers Andreas Mogensen and Aidyn Aimbetov are getting ready for their 10-day mission to the International Space Station. The trio will launch Sept. 2 inside the Soyuz TMA-18M spacecraft from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Volkov will stay in space until next year. Mogensen and Aimbetov will return Sept. 11 with Gennady Padalka who has been in space since March.

NanoRack Cubesat Deployer (NRCSD) #5 Imagery: Kelly retracted the JEM Airlock (JEMAL) Slide Table (ST) into the cabin and took pictures of the NRCSD doors and latch configurations. The images were downlinked for specialists to evaluate prior to NRCSD #6 activities and the ST was extended back into the JEMAL.

Synchronized Position Hold, Engage, Reorient, Experimental Satellites (SPHERES) Vertigo: Kelly performed a procedure review and conference with the ground team prior to the SPHERES Vertigo run scheduled for Wednesday. This investigation uses SPHERES free-flying satellites and is designed to demonstrate and test enhanced technologies and techniques related to visual inspection and navigation. This effort incorporates hardware and software that enables multiple SPHERES to construct 3D models of a target object. Additionally, this investigation explores how well the SPHERES free-flyers then perform relative navigation solely by reference to these 3D models.

On-Board Training (OBT) Robotics On-Board Trainer (ROBoT): In preparation for capture and berthing of HTV5 currently planned for next Monday, August 24, the crew completed a session of this training where they practiced a 30 meter approach and two Capture Point (CP) hold runs.

Three-Day Look Ahead:

Wednesday, 08/19: HTV5 launch, SPHERES Vertigo ops, MDCA h/w replace prep, Radin handover, OH
Thursday, 08/20: Neuro Mapping, OH, MDCA hardware replace, N3 RPCM R&R, COL ITCS sample
Friday, 08/21: OH cardiac ops, HMS Fundoscope, HTV OBT, HTV Transfer Conf, EVA PGT TAL Cal, JAXA Try Zero-G
QUICK ISS Status - Environmental Control Group:

Component - Status
Elektron - On
Vozdukh - Manual
[СКВ] 1 - SM Air Conditioner System ("SKV1") - Off
[СКВ] 2 - SM Air Conditioner System ("SKV2") - On
Carbon Dioxide Removal Assembly (CDRA) Lab - Standby
Carbon Dioxide Removal Assembly (CDRA) Node 3 - Operate
Major Constituent Analyzer (MCA) Lab - Shutdown
Major Constituent Analyzer (MCA) Node 3 - Operate
Oxygen Generation Assembly (OGA) - Process
Urine Processing Assembly (UPA) - Standby
Trace Contaminant Control System (TCCS) Lab - Off
Trace Contaminant Control System (TCCS) Node 3 - Full Up

http://spaceref.com/international-space-station/nasa-international-space-station-on-orbit-status-18-august-2015.html

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H-2B rocket launch sends supply shipment to space station

A cache of critical cargo stowed inside a solar-powered Japanese resupply freighter is speeding toward a rendezvous with the International Space Station after a successful launch Wednesday.

Among the supplies inside Japan’s fifth H-2 Transfer Vehicle are spare parts for the space station’s water filtration system, spacesuit components and medical gear to replace items lost during a SpaceX rocket failure in June.

While the space station has weathered recent cargo launch failures without sacrificing the crew’s health or scientific objectives, Wednesday’s flight took on extra importance because it is the last resupply run expected to fly to the U.S. segment of the complex until at least December.

“We need to fly HTV to continue to operate on-board, so it’s of significant need,” said Mike Suffredini, NASA’s space station program manager. “We’ve got resources, I think, into November right now, so (HTV) give us resources into the next year.”

A commercial Cygnus freighter owned by Orbital ATK is scheduled to launch from Cape Canaveral on Dec. 3 aboard a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket. It will be Orbital ATK’s first space station flight since an Antares rocket crashed seconds after liftoff in October 2014, grounding the privately-developed booster.

NASA officials do not expect the next SpaceX supply mission to fly before December, Suffredini said. He added that NASA has asked SpaceX not to put the next Dragon cargo flight to the space station first in line when the Falcon 9 returns to flight after a June 28 mishap traced to a weakened bracket in the rocket’s second stage.

The 33-foot-long HTV cargo delivery craft blasted off at 1150:49 GMT (7:50:49 a.m. EDT) Wednesday, roughly the moment Earth’s rotation aligned the Tanegashima Space Center with the path of the high-flying research lab’s orbit.

After a smooth countdown, the 186-foot-tall H-2B rocket lit two hydrogen-burning LE-7A main engines and four powerful solid rocket boosters and climbed away from Launch Pad No. 2 at Tanegashima’s Yoshinobu launch complex nestled on an island in southern Japan.

Lighting up its surroundings with a pyrotechnic display of brilliant orange exhaust, the rocket raced into the night sky over the launch base, where it was 8:50 p.m. local time Wednesday.

The four strap-on boosters jettisoned to call into the Pacific Ocean about two minutes after liftoff, followed by release of the two-part payload fairing enshrouding the HTV supply ship. A second stage engine took over the launch sequence and fired more than eight minutes to propel the HTV into orbit about 14 minutes after liftoff.

The HTV cargo craft, shaped like a soda can and covered in power-generating solar cells, separated from the rocket’s second stage moments later, kicking off a five-day pursuit of the space station set to conclude Monday.

Japan’s fifth HTV resupply spacecraft is pictured here before launch. Credit: JAXA

Nicknamed Kounotori 5, the Japanese word for white stork, the HTV will guide itself to the space station with a series of engine burns, then acquire the huge 450-ton research lab with a suite of laser navigation sensors for the final rendezvous profile.

Approaching from underneath the station, the Japanese cargo craft will slow its speed and hold about 30 feet from the complex, close enough to grapple the free-floating spaceship with the outpost’s robotic arm. Japanese flight engineer Kimiya Yui will control the robot arm during the maneuver to capture the HTV.

Once the supply vessel is bolted to the space station’s Harmony module, the astronauts will unpack more than 8,000 pounds of cargo packed inside the HTV’s pressurized cabin.

The breakdown of the supply load includes 3,101 pounds of crew supplies, such as food, clothing and items to restock the space station’s pantries. Another 2,753 pounds of gear will support the space station’s research regimen, focusing on how the human body responds to extended stays in orbit and the behavior of super-hot melts in microgravity.

The experimental hardware includes a high-temperature furnace and a platform made by NanoRacks to host commercial payloads on an exposed facility outside the space station.

A package of CubeSats strapped inside the HTV will be ejected from a special deployer mounted on the end of the station’s Japanese robot arm in the coming months.

A refrigerator-sized rack designed to host future small plug-and-play research payloads will also be transferred over to the space station from the HTV’s cargo compartment.

The HTV is carrying 172 pounds of spacewalk equipment and 119 pounds of computers, printers, batteries and chargers.

The remaining 1,915 pounds of cargo inside the HTV’s internal cabin are parts to maintain and improve the space station, including a new galley conceived to be a one-stop location to help crew members prepare meals.

“A lot of times the ISS is described as a four-bedroom house or a five-bedroom house, and that’s very true, but the one thing the ISS doesn’t have is a kitchen,” said Royce Renfrew, NASA’s lead flight director for the HTV 5 mission. “It has the ability for the crew to get water out of a potable water dispenser in the lab. There are suitcase-sized food warmers that are scattered around, there are a couple of what are called MERLINs, which are refrigerators where they can keep their food cold when they want it cold. But it’s not all consolidated in one space.

“So we’re going to get a kitchen — a galley rack — that’s going to go in the (Unity) module,” Renfrew said. “We’ll move the potable water dispenser there. It comes up with its own little refrigerators called MERLINs, and it has its own food warmers. so it has water, it has a refrigerator, and it has a stove, if you want to think of it that way. That will all be in one place in (Unity), and I’m sure the crew will appreciate having that.”

An astrophysics sensor designed to search for elusive evidence of dark matter is latched inside the HTV’s external cargo hold. The station’s robotics systems will transfer the dark matter instrument to a port on the Japanese Kibo laboratory’s exposed experiment platform shortly after the HTV’s arrival.

Led by Japanese scientists, the Calorimetric Electron Telescope, or CALET, instrument will search for sources of high-energy cosmic rays in local regions of the Milky Way galaxy. Researchers hope data from the sensor will include signatures of dark matter, the unexplained material that makes up more than one-quarter of the universe.

“To ascertain the existence of dark matter, electromagnetic waves flying about in space, as well as cosmic rays and high energy gamma rays (both rays hold energy with much higher than these of ultraviolet rays and X-rays) should be closely examined,” explains an overview of the CALET experiment on JAXA’s website.

Scientists expect the cosmic ray detector to operate between two and five years.

The resupply ship will turn into a trash collector at the end of its mission, when astronauts will replace the items brought to the space station with garbage. The HTV will depart from the station in late September and plunge back into Earth’s atmosphere for a destructive re-entry over the South Pacific Ocean.

Japanese engineers are constructing at least four more HTV spacecraft for launch through 2020. The Japanese delivery craft is the space station’s largest resupply ship currently in service, and NASA is negotiating with the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency to procure more HTVs for flights in the 2020s, Suffredini said.

NASA has committed to continue the space station program until at least 2024.

“It’s got a very large volume inside so we utilize it quite a bit for up-mass, but also for trash,” Suffredini said of the HTV design. “We fill it and we stuff it when we’re done, and when we close the hatch, it’s completely full all the way to the hatch, so it’s very, very good in terms of taking off trash.”

The next HTV mission is set for late 2016, followed by flights about once per year through the rest of the decade.

“HTV is on the larger side for a resupply vehicle, which is good,” Suffredini said. “You don’t fly as many flights with a larger vehicle, so that’s significant. It’s pressurized volume is very big. It will be the only vehicle that will carry racks to orbit, so that’s a unique role that it will have for us in the future. We intend to retain that capability because nobody else can do it.”

http://spaceflightnow.com/2015/08/19/h-2b-rocket-launch-sends-supply-shipment-to-space-station/

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Live coverage: Critical station resupply flight blasts off

1206 GMT (8:06 a.m. EDT)
Spacecraft separation! The H-2 Transfer Vehicle has been deployed from the H-2B rocket's upper stage, setting the stage for the ship's rendezvous and arrival at the International Space Station Monday at 1055 GMT (6:55 a.m. EDT) with grapple by the lab's robotic arm.

1204 GMT (8:04 a.m. EDT)
T+plus 14 minutes, 30 seconds. The second stage engine has shut down as planned as the rocket flies northeast of the island of New Guinea.
Spacecraft separation should occur at T+plus 15 minutes, 11 seconds.

1204 GMT (8:04 a.m. EDT)
T+plus 13 minutes, 30 seconds. The second stage's single LE-5B engine will turn off at T+plus 14 minutes, 20 seconds to wrap up the powered phase of today's launch.
The rocket is shooting for an orbit with an apogee of 186 miles, a perigee of 124 miles, and an inclination of about 51.6 degrees.

1202 GMT (8:02 a.m. EDT)
T+plus 12 minutes. The rocket is flying over the far western Pacific Ocean and now out of range of a ground station at the Tanegashima Space Center. A downrange station in Guam is now tracking the rocket.
The current altitude is 289 kilometers.

1159 GMT (7:59 a.m. EDT)
T+plus 9 minutes. The second stage continues firing. This is a planned 8-minute, 19-second burn to inject the HTV into orbit.
The rocket is currently traveling at a velocity of 5.6 kilometers per second.

1157 GMT (7:57 a.m. EDT)
The LE-7A main engines have shut down on time and the spent first stage has separated from the second stage. And the upper stage LE-5B engine has ignited to propel the rocket the rest of the way to orbit.

1154:49 GMT (7:54:49 a.m. EDT)
T+plus 4 minutes. The H-2B rocket's LE-7A main engines continue firing and everything is reported to be normal aboard the rocket.

1154:40 GMT (7:54:40 a.m. EDT)
JAXA confirms the two-piece payload fairing has been released from the rocket after it has traversed the dense lower layers of the atmosphere.

1153:49 GMT (7:53:49 a.m. EDT)
The first stage is burning well three minutes into flight. Attitude control, flight trajectory and combustion inside the two LE-7A first stage engines are all normal, JAXA reports.

1153:05 GMT (7:53:05 a.m. EDT)
The rocket's four strap-on boosters have burned out and jettisoned in two pairs.

1151:49 GMT (7:51:49 a.m. EDT)
T+plus 1 minute. The H-2B rocket has already broken the sound barrier as it flies southeast from the launch site.

1150:49 GMT (7:50:49 a.m. EDT)
Liftoff of Japan's H-2B rocket with the fifth HTV supply ship bound for the International Space Station.

1149:49 GMT (7:49:49 a.m. EDT)
T-minus 60 seconds and counting. Thousands of gallons of water are now being poured over the launch platform to cushion the structure from intense acoustic vibrations at launch. In the countdown's final minute, the rocket will be armed and the guidance system will start.
The ignition sequence of the two first stage engines begins 5.2 seconds before liftoff.

1149:19 GMT (7:49:19 a.m. EDT)
T-minus 90 seconds. The first and second stage propellant systems have been readied for launch.

1148:49 GMT (7:48:49 a.m. EDT)
T-minus 2 minutes and counting.

1147:49 GMT (7:47:49 a.m. EDT)
T-minus 3 minutes and counting. The H-2B rocket should be transitioning to internal power at this time. Everything remains set for liftoff at 1150:49 GMT.

http://spaceflightnow.com/2015/08/19/htv-5-mission-status-center/

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Japan Launches Vital Supplies (and Mice) Toward International Space Station

If all goes according to plan, the cargo ship will arrive at the space station early Monday morning (Aug. 24). Astronauts aboard the orbiting lab can then begin offloading HTV-5's 6 tons (5.5 metric tons) of food, water, scientific gear and other supplies.

While HTV-5 is unmanned, it is carrying some live passengers — a dozen mice, whose experiences aboard the space station will help researchers better understand the effects of microgravity on the bodies of mammals.

Other scientific payloads include equipment for the ongoing "twins study" in which NASA astronaut brothers Scott and Mark Kelly are participating. Scott Kelly and Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko are about five months into an unprecedented yearlong mission aboard the orbiting lab that is investigating how long-duration spaceflight affects astronauts psychologically, physiologically and genetically.

Mark Kelly is here on terra firma, serving as a control against which Scott can be compared. The two are identical twins, so they share the same genetic code.

A Japanese H-IIB rocket launches into space carrying the HTV-5 cargo ship on a mission to deliver 4.5 tons of supplies to astronauts on the International Space Station. Liftoff occurred at 7:50 am ET on Aug. 19, 2015 from the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency's Tanegashima Space Center.

http://www.space.com/30300-japan-launches-space-station-cargo-ship.html

Cheers.......

6,181 · August 20, 2015

The Nile - At Night - As Seen From Orbit

The Nile river in Africa sparkles in this night observation taken by NASA astronaut Scott Kelly on July 27, 2015.

http://spaceref.com/onorbit/the-nile---at-night---as-seen-from-orbit.html

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Airbus Defence and Space Designs Payload Platform for US Space Company NanoRacks

NanoRacks External Payload Platform.

Airbus Defence and Space has designed and built a payload platform for the International Space Station (ISS) for NanoRacks LLC, a privately-owned US space company. The platform will be installed outside of the ISS, and will be used to carry out multiple experiments to be carried out with a wide variety of payloads in zero gravity conditions.

Airbus Defence and Space, the second-largest space company in the world, will be responsible for integrating the payload as well as for operating the payload platform. Airbus Defence and Space plans to work with NanoRacks LLC to market the system globally. The first NanoRacks External Payload Platform (NREP) is expected to be launched on Aug. 19, 2015 from the Tanegashima Space Center in Japan. It will be carried aloft on the Japanese HTV 5 supply transporter to the ISS.

As part of the commercially run NREP programme, NanoRacks LLC of the U.S. awarded Space Systems in Bremen the contract to design and build the payload platform, to carry out the analytical integration of the payload and to operate the system. The astronauts will then be responsible for integrating the payload into the ISS. "NREP offers customers who, for example, develop technology for commercial and scientific satellites the possibility to test and mitigate risk before launching satellites for missions," explained Uwe Pape, NREP Programme Manager at Space Systems.

The plan calls for the NREP to be fitted with the first payloads in the ISS by the astronauts in mid-2016, after which it will be attached to the exterior of the Japanese KIBO-EF module by the robot arm of the ISS. Once the experiments have been completed, the platfrom, together with the payloads, will re-enter the space station, where it will be fitted with new payloads for future missions.

Thanks to the NREP developed by Space Systems, scientists on the ground can control the ISS's payload, check its current status and collect scientific data via Wi-Fi.

http://spaceref.biz/company/airbus-defence-and-space-designs-payload-platform-for-us-space-company-nanoracks.html

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NanoRacks External Platform, CubeSats, Launched to ISS on Japanese HTV-5

Posted: Wednesday, August 19, 2015

The NanoRacks External Payload Platform (NREP), manufactured by Airbus DS, and 16 customer CubeSats, were successfully launched to the International Space Station on Wednesday, August 19 via the fifth H-II Transfer Vehicle (HTV) Commercial Resupply Mission.

The External Payload Platform offers new mission opportunities for small size hosted payloads in the extreme environment of space. This commercial gateway will be ideally located for Earth and deep space observation, sensor development, and testing for advanced electronics and materials.

NREP is able to accommodate up to 9 4U CubeSat-size payloads outside of station with a standard mission duration of 15 weeks. The Platform continues to allow for NanoRacks’ end-to-end mission services that are offered across all of The Company’s space station opportunities. “The first customers are signed and deep into development of their NREP payloads. And now, for the first time, these exposed payloads can be brought back to Earth” says NanoRacks Chief Designer Michael Johnson. “We are excited for our customers and to see the interesting science results they return.”

NREP is expected to be operational starting early spring 2016.

Also on board HTV-5 were 16 CubeSats, which include 14 Planet Labs Doves Flock- 2B, the University of Aalborg’s AAU-SatX-5 and Gomspace’s GOMX-3.

http://spaceref.com/news/viewpr.html?pid=46644

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Space Xtra..........

Epic Trailer for 'The Martian' Questions the Value of a Human Life in Space

In the new movie "The Martian," a group of astronauts must decide if they should rescue their stranded crewmate from the surface of Mars.

An epic new trailer for the movie "The Martian" looks even more intense than the last one, and it raises some intriguing questions about the value of human life in space exploration.

Set to the howling Jimi Hendrix song "All Along the Watchtower," the new trailer for "The Martian," directed by Ridley Scott, features some thrilling (and stressful) clips of astronauts braving Martian storms, rocket launchethes and other near-death experiences. The film focuses on astronaut Mark Watney (played by Matt Damon), who is mistakenly presumed dead by his fellow Mars explorers and is left behind on the Red Planet.

When NASA officials discover that Watney is alive, they must decide whether to rescue him and, in doing so, risk the lives of the other six crewmembers. At one point in the trailer, the director of NASA (played by Jeff Daniels) grapples with the decision, stating, "It's bigger than one person," to which another character replies, "No. It's not." The film raises the question: If a person willingly embraces the risks of space exploration, should he or she be rescued at all costs?

http://www.space.com/30313-the-martian-new-trailer-human-life.html

Cheers.....

8,882 · August 20, 2015

Im sure similar questions were thought when initial traverses of the great Oceans were under way, though in Space exploration we have still to meet the curious and possible angry native yet.This said I would have thought a lot of talk has gone on over what happens if a probe meets intelligent life........

6,181 · August 20, 2015

Im sure similar questions were thought when initial traverses of the great Oceans were under way, though in Space exploration we have still to meet the curious and possible angry native yet.This said I would have thought a lot of talk has gone on over what happens if a probe meets intelligent life........

Good point, If we ask 100 people, we get 100 variations .......From my experience and background, I know what "I signed up for".....and never leave a man behind.

On a lighter note, Capt Jack shows the proper way to disembark a ship.....

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Crowdfunding raises $720,000 to restore Neil Armstrong spacesuit

The Smithsonian's first shot at online crowdfunding ended Wednesday after raising a hefty $719,779 to restore the spacesuit that Neil Armstrong wore when he walked on the moon.

A total of 9,477 people contributed to the month-long Kickstarter "Reboot the Suit" campaign, which surpassed its $500,000 goal on July 24.

The windfall means the Smithsonian will have money to spare to preserve and display a second spacesuit used by Alan Shepard, the first American in space.

"It is mind-blowing," Yoonhyung Lee, the Smithsonian's director of digital philanthropy, told AFP in an interview at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in downtown Washington.

"We did not really expect to both hit our goal so quickly and also to exceed our goal so dramatically. This was a huge triumph for us."

It was the first time the Smithsonian has turned to crowdfunding to help cover the cost of preserving its most valuable artifacts from the ravages of time.

The campaign lifted off on July 20, the 46th anniversary of the historic Apollo 11 lunar landing. Its conclusion coincided with National Aviation Day.

With cash in hand, the Smithsonian is now aiming to have Armstrong's white spacesuit and helmet ready for public viewing by the 50th anniversary in 2019.

"The suit is pretty fragile," Lisa Young, the Smithsonian curator tasked with overseeing its three-year restoration project, told AFP.

"It's reaching about its 50-year lifespan right now. A lot of its materials were made for temporary use -- to get to the moon and back," she said.

- Getting brittle -

"We see the rubber getting a little bit brittle. The interior portions that the public doesn't see are what's really the most fragile."

Layers of polymers were used to create the suit, but back in the 1960s scientists had no clear idea how long they would last, Young explained.

"Natural materials tend to last longer," she said.

The US government pays for the upkeep of the Smithsonian's network of 19 museums and galleries as well as the cost of safeguarding their collections.

But exhibitions and restorations depend largely on private donations.

Depending on how much they put in, backers of the Kickstarter appeal got rewards ranging from a NASA space mission patch to a printed 3D copy of Armstrong's space glove.

Nine people who each put in the maximum contribution of $10,000 will be invited to see the moon suit at the Smithsonian's aerospace conservation lab.

For Americans, such contributions are tax-deductible.

Going forward, the Smithsonian is planning more crowdfunding projects this year under a partnership with Kickstarter.

However, it has yet to decide what exactly those projects will be.

Armstrong died in his native Ohio three years ago this month at the age of 82.

But the Apollo 11 capsule in which he and two fellow astronauts traveled to the moon endures as a centerpiece of the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum along the National Mall in downtown Washington.

- Early space traveler -

Shepard became the second person ever to travel into space, and the first American, in 1961 as an astronaut in NASA's pathbreaking Mercury program.

In 1971 he became the fifth and oldest person to walk on the moon as commander of the Apollo 14 mission. He died in California in 1998 at the age of 74.

The most successful Kickstarter campaign of all time raised more than $20 million for Pebble, a Taiwan-made smartwatch that went on sale this month, competing against the Apple Watch.

But perhaps the best known was a 2013 effort to bankroll a feature film version of the cult US detective mystery TV series "Veronica Mars."

It met its $2 million goal within 10 hours and ultimately reached $5.7 million.

With an annex alongside Dulles International Airport outside Washington, the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum holds the world's biggest collection of historic aircraft and spacecraft.

http://www.space-travel.com/reports/Crowdfunding_raises_720000_to_restore_Neil_Armstrong_spacesuit_999.html

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ISS astronauts developing near real-time osteoporosis and bone cancer test

A new test for offers the possibility of near real time monitoring of bone diseases, such as osteoporosis and multiple myeloma. The functionality of the test, which measures changes in calcium isotope ratios, has been validated on blood samples from NASA space shuttle astronauts.

Our bones are largely built of calcium, and the turnover of calcium can indicate the development of bone diseases such as osteoporosis and the cancer multiple myeloma. Geochemists have developed extremely accurate ways of measuring calcium isotope ratios, for example for the study of sea shell deposits in sedimentary rocks.

Now a group of US geochemists, biologists and clinicians, from Arizona State University and the Mayo Clinic, have worked with NASA to put these techniques together to develop a new, rapid test of bone health.

These methods, using mass spectrometry, can discern the relative ratios of the calcium isotopes 42Ca and 44Ca in bone. The researchers found that lighter calcium isotopes, such as 42Ca, are absorbed from the blood into the bone during bone formation. Conversely, these light isotopes tend to be released into the bloodstream when bones break down. By measuring the ratios of the two isotopes in blood or urine scientists can calculate the rate of change of bone mass

According to lead researcher, Ariel Anbar(Arizona State University): "The big advantage of these measurements is that they show what is happening in the bone, whereas traditional bone health measurements, such as DXA scans, show what has happened. This means that we can have a real near-time view of what is happening in the bone, rather than comparing before and after, when damage may have already been done".

"Our goal is that these measurements will allow us to see bone breakdown in osteoporosis, but also can show us the progress of certain bone cancers, such as multiple myeloma".

The research was piloted in bed-bound subjects (who lose bone mass), but the best way for the researchers to test whether the system worked was in an ambient and less controlled population who are known to experience rapid bone loss.

In space, because of zero gravity conditions, astronauts experience very rapid bone loss. Working with NASA, the researchers measured calcium isotope ratios in urine from 30 shuttle astronauts, before, during, and after the flights. This allowed them to confirm that the test worked at high sensitivity (NASA partly funded the research).

http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/ISS_astronauts_developing_near_real_time_osteoporosis_and_bone_cancer_test_999.html

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Sierra Nevada Expands Solar Array Design, Test and Production Capability

Sierra Nevada Corporation's (SNC) Space Systems continues to expand its Space Technologies product line, by growing its capability in solar array design, production and verification, which includes a broad portfolio of flight-proven mechanisms, components and complex subsystems.

As announced in late 2014, SNC was awarded a contract to develop and build a next-generation science and technology demonstration satellite known as STPSat-5 for the Department of Defense's (DOD) Space Test Program. In addition to being the prime contractor for the satellite, SNC is also designing, manufacturing and testing the solar arrays and positioning mechanisms that will provide power to the satellite upon orbit insertion.

SNC will provide a complete turnkey system to be integrated into the STPSat-5 satellite that will include the solar array wings, hinges, hold-down mechanisms, solar array drive and integrated slip ring - allowing for 360 degrees of continuous rotation, maximizing available power to the spacecraft. This turnkey power system builds on SNC's successful heritage and years of experience in manufacturing individual components, which includes over 45,000 hours of combined on-orbit performance of six 600-Watt solar arrays as a part of the ORBCOMM Generation 2 (OG2) constellation.

SNC's Space Systems, based in Louisville, Colorado, houses state-of-the-art test facilities, including the recently commissioned Large Area Pulsed Solar Simulator (LAPSS) used to verify solar array performance. This large-scale testing zone simulates the sun to obtain accurate electrical performance measurements of solar panels up to 3.5 m2.

"With the addition of this instrument, SNC can provide fully-optimized turnkey solutions for solar arrays," said John Roth, vice president of business development for SNC's Space Systems. "We improve efficiency and reduce risk by designing a system that integrates with the satellite from the start, and then we validate that with system level performance verification, rather than individual component testing. These efficiencies provide overall cost savings which we pass on directly to the customer."

The Louisville facility also houses thermal vacuum chambers, a radio frequency anechoic chamber, vibration table, shock table and dimensional inspection lab, among other satellite test and production equipment. In SNC's Space Systems 25-plus-year history, it has provided thousands of components on hundreds of missions.

http://spaceref.biz/company/sierra-nevada-expands-solar-array-design-test-and-production-capability.html

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Dextre surfs on the roof

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Saturn's Weirdest Ring Explained: Ancient Collision Caused It

Saturn and its dazzling rings take center stage in this photo by NASA's Cassini spacecraft. Saturn's weird F ring is located just outside the planet's main rings.
Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute

The mystery behind the origin of what may be Saturn's oddest ring and its two companion moons may finally be solved: They came from an ancient, catastrophic collision, researchers say.

The rings of Saturn are the most outstanding features of the gas-giant planet. In 1979, NASA's Pioneer 11 probe discovered that about 2,100 miles (3,400 kilometers) beyond the outer edge of Saturn's main A, B and C rings exists what some astronomers call Saturn's weirdest ring, the F ring. This constantly shifting band of icy material possesses an extraordinary level of complexity, with bends, kinks and bright clumps that can give it the illusion of being braided. Prior estimates suggest the F ring is several million years old. [Video: Saturn's Strange F Ring Explained]

Prometheus and Pandora, two of Saturn's more than 60 moons, flank the F ring on either side, weaving inside and outside the ring. These moons apparently act like shepherds, herding the flock of icy particles making up the F ring into a narrow band about 60 miles (100 km) wide. However, the way in which this chaperoning arose was a mystery.

As Saturn's rings evolved, icy particles clumped together to form moonlets, piles of rubble that eventually spiraled outward and slammed into each other, forming Saturn's largest moons. Past research suggested the collision between two of these fragile moonlets created the F ring.

Saturn's strange F ring and its two shepherd moons, Prometheus (right) and Pandora (left), are seen by NASA's Cassini spacecraft in this image. Saturn itself is located out of frame, to the right.

To learn more about how the F ring was formed, planetary scientists Ryuki Hyodo and Keiji Ohtsuki at Kobe University in Japan simulated collisions between moonlets at the outer edge of Saturn's main rings, with each moonlet composed of 5,000 spherical particles. Their models analyzed moonlets with a variety of compositions, and accounted for the effects that Saturn's gravitational pull would have on the debris from collisions.

This Cassini photo of Saturn's rings shows the F ring and its two shepherd moons (left) as they appear alongside the rest of the planet's ring system. Saturn's moon Epimetheus, which orbits beyond the F ring, appears at bottom.

The researchers found that if colliding moonlets were made up entirely of small, icy particles, these piles of rubble would have completely disintegrated after collisions, resulting in only a ring. However, if the moonlets had denser cores made up of rocks or large chunks of ice, they might not have completely destroyed each other. This would result in not only a ring but also two remnant moons with about half of the mass of the originals. This is a close match to what astronomers see with the F ring and its shepherd moons. Indeed, the researchers noted that NASA's Cassini spacecraft found that both Prometheus and Pandora had dense cores.

The scientists detailed their findings online Aug. 17 in the journal Nature Geoscience.

This close-up of Saturn's F ring taken by the Cassini spacecraft shows the moons Prometheus (right) and Pandora (left).

The implications of these findings are not limited to Saturn's F ring system, Hyodo said. "In our solar system, we have another narrow ring with shepherd moons on both its sides, the 'epsilon ring' around Uranus," Hyodo explained. "Seemingly unusual narrow ring systems with shepherd moons could be ubiquitous around giant planets."

In the future, the researchers will simulate the long-term evolution of the F ring to shed light on its ongoing evolution, Hyodo said. Ohtsuki added that more-accurate estimates of the F ring's mass and the internal structure of the shepherd moons would help researchers deduce what these satellites' progenitor moonlets and collisions were like.

http://www.space.com/30293-saturn-weirdest-ring-mystery-ancient-collision.html

Cheers....

6,181 · August 21, 2015

NASA Considering More Cargo Orders from Orbital ATK, SpaceX

WASHINGTON — Having delayed the award of follow-on Commercial Resupply Services (CRS) contracts until at least November, NASA is considering ordering more International Space Station cargo deliveries from Orbital ATK and SpaceX, both of which had already quietly hauled in additional orders under CRS deals signed in 2008.

After contract modifications initiated late last year and finalized this summer, SpaceX is on the hook for a total of 15 flights to the space station, up from the 12 NASA ordered in 2008. Orbital ATK wound up with 10 flights, up from eight, following the latest round of contract modifications, NASA spokeswoman Stephanie Schierholz wrote in an Aug. 20 email.

“NASA is discussing additional modifications with both companies,” Schierholz wrote.

Schierholz declined to disclose the value of NASA’s latest CRS orders. “[W]e are in an active procurement for CRS-2 [and] to maintain fair competition under the CRS contract, it is essential that NASA protect the commercial pricing aspects under the contracts,” she wrote.

NASA’s original CRS order obligated SpaceX and Orbital ATK to deliver 20 metric tons of cargo each to ISS. At the time, that worked out to 12 flights for SpaceX totaling $1.6 billion and eight flights for Orbital ATK totaling $1.9 billion. Each company’s indefinite quantity, indefinite delivery CRS contract is good through 2018 and has a maximum value of $3.1 billion.

Orbital ATK and SpaceX now face competition for a follow-on CRS contract from at least three companies: Boeing, Sierra Nevada and Lockheed Martin. Those companies, and the incumbents, have all confirmed they bid on CRS-2 when NASA solicited offers in September.

more info at.......

http://spacenews.com/nasa-considering-more-cargo-orders-from-orbital-atk-spacex/

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ISS Crew to Redock Soyuz in Manual Mode

Operations on Soyuz TMA-16M manned spacecraft redocking from Poisk small research module to Zvezda service module of Russian ISS segment are scheduled for August 28 and will be accomplished in the manual mode, – Mission Control Centre reports.
“The aim is to release docking node of Poisk small research module to receive Soyuz TMA-18M spacecraft with ISS-45 mission crew onboard to be launched on September 2”.
According to the specialists’ calculations ISS crew will be redocking Soyuz TMA-16M in manual mode in the period from 10.09 to 10.34, Moscow time.

http://russianspacenews.com/mss-iss-crew-to-redock-soyuz-in-manual-mode/

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AAC and Garvey Spacecraft Deliver First Rocket Motor to Kodiak

Alaska Aerospace Corporation (AAC) and Garvey Spacecraft Corporation (GSC) achieved an important milestone in their collaborative venture to path-find operations for a commercial nanosat launch vehicle at AAC's Pacific Spaceport Complex - Alaska (PSC-A) on Kodiak Island. Just one month after starting, the team worked through the logistics to enable GSC to ship a prototype first stage and then successfully demonstrate on-site fuel loading into the vehicle.

"To reach our strategic goal of providing commercial cubesat and nanosat launch services, a key step is transitioning our research and development, and test activities to more of an operational mode at a launch range with orbital access," Chris Bostwick, GSC project manager, said.

"AAC has been very responsive in supporting us in this task. Being able to ship our P-19 test vehicle after just a month of preparations and then fuel one day after our team arrived on site is particularly impressive."

"We are very interested in hosting the small launcher operators who are now coming on-line," Matt Steele, Vice President of Business Development for AAC, said.

"Working with GSC, we have already been able to implement and tailor a number of the logistics, facility, and safety functions that they require. We look forward to the next phase of development and supporting future GSC operations in Alaska."

Alaska Aerospace Corporation is a state-owned corporation established to develop a high-technology aerospace industry in Alaska. AAC owns and operates the Pacific Spaceport Complex -Alaska (PSC-A) and is the worldwide distributor for RapidEye multispectral imagery of Alaska. Its corporate offices are in Anchorage, Alaska.

Garvey Spacecraft Corporation is a California-based company that is developing a series of nanosat launch vehicles to provide dedicated launch services to the emerging cubesat and nanosat user communities. Additional partners on this project included the University of Alaska Fairbanks, Flight Works, Inc. and NASA Marshall Space Flight Center.

http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/AAC_and_Garvey_Spacecraft_Deliver_First_Rocket_Motor_to_Kodiak_999.html

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HTV Docking

On Monday, Aug. 24, JAXA Flight Engineer Kimiya Yui will use the Canadarm2 robotic arm to capture the unpiloted HTV spacecraft at approximately 6:55 a.m. NASA TV coverage Friday will begin at 5:15 a.m. NASA Flight Engineer Kjell Lindgren will provide assistance as necessary. The HTV will spend five weeks attached to the Earth-facing port of the Harmony module on the international outpost.

http://spaceref.com/international-space-station/japanese-htv-5-cargo-mission-to-the-international-space-station-launches.html

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Tentative ISS Schedule....subject to change.....

2015 Station Schedule

Date Event

August 14 Progress M-26M Undocking from Zvezda & End of Mission

August 16 HTV-5 Launch atop H-IIB

August 20 HTV-5 Capture & Berthing to Harmony Nadir

August 24 ISS Reboost by Zvezda Engines

August 28 Soyuz TMA-16M Relocation from MRM2 to Zvezda Aft

September 2 Soyuz TMA-18M Launch & Docking to Poisk (Volkov, Mogensen)

September 5 ISS Reboost by Progress M-28M

September 7 ISS Reboost by Progress M-28M

September/October Dragon SpX-8 Launch atop Falcon 9

September/October Dragon SpX-8 Capture & Berthing to Harmony

September 11/12 Soyuz TMA-16M Return to Earth (Padalka, Mogensen, Aimbetov)

September 27 HTV-5 Unberthing & Release

October 1/2 Progress M-29M Launch & Docking to Zvezda

October Relocation of Pressurized Mating Adapter 3 from Node 3P to Node 2Z

October PMA-3 EVA (Kelly & Lindgren)

October/November Dragon SpX-8 Unberthing, Release, Landing

October US EVA 45-1 & 45-2

November 19 Progress M-28M Undocking from Pirs

November 21 Progress MS-1 Launch

November 23 Progress MS-1 Docking to Zvezda Aft

December 3 Cygnus Orb-4 Launch atop Atlas V

December 5 (TBD) Dragon SpX-9 Launch atop Falcon 9

December 6 Cygnus Orb-4 Rendezvous & Berthing to Unity

December 7 (TBD) Dragon SpX-9 Capture & Berthing to Harmony

December US EVA - IDA-2 (Kelly, Lindgren)

December 9 Progress M-29M Undocking from Zvezda

December 11 Soyuz TMA-17M Relocation from Rassvet to Zvezda

December 15 Soyuz TMA-19M Launch & Docking to Zvezda (Malenchenko, Copra, Peake)

December 22 Soyuz TMA-17M Undocking & Landing (Kononenko, Yui, Lindgren)

http://www.spaceflight101.com/iss-calendar.html

Cheers......

6,181 · August 23, 2015

NASA ISS Space to Ground Weekly Report - 21 August 2015

NASA ISS Space to Ground Weekly Report - 21 August 2015. NASA

NASA's Space to Ground is your weekly update on what's happening aboard the International Space Station.

http://spaceref.com/international-space-station/nasa-iss-space-to-ground-weekly-report---21-august-2015.html

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NASA Blog info...

Cosmonauts Mikhail Kornienko, Gennady Padalka and Oleg Kononenko speak to the Russian Prime Minister Dmitri Medvedev Friday morning. Credit: NASA TV

NASA astronaut Scott Kelly collected blood and urine samples and stored them in a science freezer for the Fluid Shifts study. New Flight Engineers Kimiya Yui and Kjell Lindgren continued practicing the robotic techniques they will use Monday morning to capture a new cargo craft and berth it to the Harmony module. Lindgren also checked out spacewalking tools.

The “Kounotori” H-II Transfer Vehicle-5 (HTV-5) from the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency is delivering more than 9,500 pounds of research and supplies for the six-person station crew. NASA TV will begin live coverage of the HTV-5 arrival Monday at 5:15 a.m. EDT with capture due at about 6:55 a.m.

Hurricane Danny was pictured over the central Atlantic Ocean from the International Space Station early Friday morning. Credit: NASA TV

https://blogs.nasa.gov/spacestation/

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Hurricane Danny Seen From Space

Hurricane Danny NASA

Astronauts aboard the International Space Station captured an image of Hurricane Danny moving through the Central Atlantic Ocean.

Satellite data indicates that Danny is a small Category 2 hurricane, in which hurricane-force winds only extend 15 miles from the eye.

A NASA GOES Project animation of visible and infrared imagery of Hurricane Danny was created at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland to show the development and movement of the storm. The animation shows the eastern and central Atlantic Ocean from Aug. 18 to 21, 2015.

Forecaster Cangialosi of the National Hurricane Center noted that the eye of the compact hurricane has become more distinct recently and the cloud tops have cooled in the eyewall. Infrared data, such as that gathered by the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) instrument that flies aboard NASA's Aqua satellite is used to determine cloud top temperature. The colder the cloud tops, the higher they are in the atmosphere, and they are usually stronger.

At 11 a.m. EDT (1500 UTC) on August 21, the eye of Hurricane Danny was located near latitude 14.0 North, longitude 48.2 West. That puts the center of Danny about 930 miles (1,195 km) east of the Leeward Islands. Maximum sustained winds have increased to near 105 mph (165 kph), making Danny a Category 2 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale. The estimated minimum central pressure is 976 millibars.

Satellite data shows that hurricane force winds extend outward up to 15 miles (30 km) from the center and tropical storm force winds extend outward up to 70 miles (110 km).

Danny is moving toward the west-northwest near 10 mph (17 kph), and this general motion is expected to continue during the next day or so.

On August 22, Danny is expected to move into an area of increased southwesterly shear and drier air. These factors should induce a weakening trend. The National Hurricane Center (NHC) expects Danny to weaken below hurricane strength as it approaches the Caribbean islands.

http://spaceref.com/onorbit/hurricane-danny-seen-from-space.html

Hurricane Danny video....(2:00 min)

Another Hurricane Danny summary...

http://www.universetoday.com/121983/danny-first-atlantic-hurricane-of-2015-as-seen-from-space-station-by-scott-kelly/#more-121983

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ESA's next astronaut to go into space arrives at launch site

File image: ESA astronaut Andreas Mogensen.

ESA astronaut Andreas Mogensen, Soyuz spacecraft commander Sergei Volkov and Kazakh cosmonaut Aidyn Aimbetov arrived in Baikonur, Kazakhstan, yesterday. This is their last destination before heading to the International Space Station in the night of 2 September.

The trio will spend their last two weeks on Earth with technicians and medical staff to make sure everything is ready for the mission.

"We had a great welcome in Kazakhstan and I am looking forward to the last phase before launch," says Andreas.

Their schedule includes final checks to make sure their spacecraft is fit for travel, refresher training on Space Station systems and many medical examinations. They will spend their last days in quarantine to avoid taking unwanted bacteria or viruses to their colleagues waiting for them on the International Space Station.

Andreas's mission only lasts ten days so his schedule is tightly packed with European experiments to test new technologies and operational techniques for future space missions. Andreas will drive three different rovers in two experiments from 400 km above while he orbits Earth.

Much of the equipment that Andreas needs for his experiments will fly to the Space Station with him in the Soyuz spacecraft, including a radiation monitoring device, the 'SkinSuit' designed to alleviate astronaut back problems and a new type of filter that mimics nature to purify water.

These experiments will be packed into the Soyuz on 27 August. Andreas, Sergei and Aidyn have an extra day to prepare their personal belongings that they wish to take with them.

ESA astronaut Thomas Pesquet, who is Andreas's backup on this mission, also arrived at Baikonur yesterday with the rest of the backup crew - on a different plane for safety purposes.

http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/ESAs_next_astronaut_to_go_into_space_arrives_at_launch_site_999.html

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California Science Center Donates Water Tanks To NASA's International Space Station

LOS ANGELES, Aug. 21, 2015 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- NASA engineers this week completed the successful removal of four water tanks and one waste tank from Endeavour, a donation from the California Science Center Foundation to NASA. "We were glad to be able to fill NASA's need to reuse Endeavour's water tanks and put them to good use on the International Space Station. They were located under the mid-deck in a non-visible area. Our Endeavour Space Shuttle exhibit , the part that is on view to the public, remains exactly as it was before and continues its mission to inspire curiosity and science learning," said Science Center President and CEOJeffrey Rudolph.

During the removal process the shuttle attracted former Endeavour astronauts Drew Feustel and Mark Kelly, who was joined by former Congresswoman Gabby Giffords. This was the first time Mark Kelly had been inside the shuttle since he was Commander of Endeavour's final mission in 2011.

The shuttles were designed to be reused. Endeavour's water tanks have approximately 75 percent of design-life remaining since the shuttle only flew 25 of the 100 missions anticipated. The only major non-reusable part of the shuttle launch configuration is the External Tank.

NASA recently donated the only remaining flight qualified External Tank (ET-94) in existence to the California Science Center to enable it to fulfill its goal of displaying a full shuttle stack when it unveils the shuttle in launch position at the Samuel Oschin Air and Space Center expected to open in 2018. Rudolph joked that, "we like that kind of trade, water tanks in exchange for a 154-foot External Tank!"

The ET-94 is expected to make its journey from NASA's Michoud Assembly Facility inNew Orleans to the Science Center in Los Angeles in early 2016 depending on weather conditions and the progress of cosmetic restorations. The entire journey will take six to eight weeks.

This will mark the only time an ET has traveled through urban streets and will evoke memories of when Endeavour traveled 12-miles from the Los Angeles International Airport to the Science Center and was cheered on by a crowd of 1.5 million in 2012.

Longer than Endeavour, the ET was the Orbiter's massive "gas tank" and contained the propellants used by the Space Shuttle Main Engines (though ET-94 is empty). The tank is neither as wide as Endeavour (32 feet versus 78 feet) nor as high (35 feet versus 56 feet). Because of this, fewer utilities will be impacted and no trees will be removed along ET's route from the coast to Exposition Park, though some trimming may be necessary. The path it will take through the streets is currently being planned with city officials, utilities and community groups.

http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/prnewswire-space-news.html?doc=201508211520PR_NEWS_USPR_____DC84716&showRelease=1&dir=0&categories=AEROSPACE-AND-SPACE-EXPLORATION&andorquestion=OR&&passDir=0,1,2,3,4,5,6,15,17,34

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NASA Considers Using Old Water Tanks in New ISS Storage System

NASA's Space Shuttle program ended in 2011, with Atlantis having been the last American shuttle to fly into space in July 2011 as part of the 135th and final US shuttle mission.

"We can confirm that we are removing the tanks from [space shuttle] Endeavour this week. They, along with the ones from space shuttle Atlantis which were removed in May 2015, could potentially be used in a new Water Storage System for the ISS," Daniel Huot from NASA's Johnson Space Center (JSC) told RIA Novosti on Wednesday.

According to Huot, the details of the design plan which includes the old water tanks are not available as the project is still under development and it is not clear when it would be put into action. If it does happen, NASA could save a lot of money by opting out of building new tanks, Huot said.

"Using the shuttle tanks, which still have a large percentage of their design life available since they were only used for 25 missions (Endeavour) and 33 missions (Atlantis) could greatly reduce the overall cost to build the new system," Huot explained.

NASA's shuttle is the only winged manned spacecraft to have achieved orbit and land, and the only reusable manned space vehicle that has ever made multiple flights into Earth's orbit.

Two of the US shuttle orbiters (Challenger and Columbia) were destroyed in accidents. Discovery, Atlantis and Endeavour have been on display at US space centers.

http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/NASA_Considers_Using_Old_Water_Tanks_in_New_ISS_Storage_System_999.html

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Chance Lightning Storm Illuminates Brilliant Milky Way Vista (Photo)

Stephen Ippolito took this image from Bell Rock in Sedona, Arizona on August 9th.

A lightning storm illuminated the Arizona sky in this stunning skywatcher image of the Milky Way.

Photographer Stephen Ippolito took this image from Bell Rock in Sedona, Arizona on Aug. 9. "I received a lot of help from mother nature for this image," he told Space.com in an email. "As you can see, Bell Rock is illuminated. It is illuminated because there was a massive lightning storm many miles behind me that was illuminating the entire sky, and when the lightning struck, the entire Bell Rock area would be illuminated."

Ippolito lit in the foreground of the image with a color corrected LED light.

The Milky Way galaxy is a barred spiral galaxy with roughly 400 billion stars, including our sun. The stars, along with gas and dust, appear like a band of light in the sky from Earth. The galaxy stretches between 100,000 to 120,000 light-years in diameter. At the center of our galaxy lies a gigantic black hole billions of times the size of the sun.

To see more amazing night sky photos submitted by SPACE.com readers, visit our astrophotography archive.

http://www.space.com/30270-milky-way-lightning-storm-photo.html

Cheers......

6,181 · August 24, 2015

Japanese Cargo Ship Delivers Mice, Booze and More to Space Station

The Japanese cargo ship HTV-5 arrived at the International Space Station on Aug. 24, 2015. Astronaut Kimiya Yui of Japan posted this photo of the spacecraft after capturing it by robotic arm.

A robotic Japanese cargo ship made a special delivery to the International Space Station on Sunday (Aug. 24), ending a four-day trek to ferry tons of food, supplies — and even some mice and (experimental) liquor — to the orbiting lab.

The H-II Transfer Vehicle, called HTV-5, arrived at the space station at 6:55 a.m. EDT (1055 GMT), when it was captured via a robotic arm by astronauts inside the space station. The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) launched the HTV-5 cargo ship on Wednesday (Aug. 19).

"HTV-5 capture was successful!" wrote space station astronaut Kimiya Yui of Japan, who piloted the robotic arm along with NASA astronaut Kjell Lindgren, on Twitter after grappling the spacecraft. "Thank you all for your support and hard work."

After Yui and Lindgren's capture of the HTV-5 spacecraft, flight controllers at NASA's Mission Control Center in Houston were expected to use the station's robotic arm to remotely park the cargo ship at an available docking port.

AXA's HTV spacecraft are known in Japan as Kounotori, which is Japanese for "White Stork." The HTV-5 spacecraft is carrying about 9,500 lbs. (4,309 kilograms) of supplies and science gear for the space station crew.

That cargo haul includes:

A small cache of whiskey, tequila and Midori, which are being sent to see how microgravity affects the "mellowness" of their tastes after one or two years in space. The experiment was developed by the Tokyo-based Suntory Global Innovation Center.

A tiny crew of 12 mice, which are part of an experiment studying the effects of weightlessness during long space missions. The mice are housed in compartments that can switch between microgravity and Earth gravity as part of that study.

Equipment for NASA's twins study, which is tracking Scott Kelly on the space station and his identical twin brother, Mark Kelly, on Earth. Scott is currently spending a full year on the International Space Station, while Mark, as the control subject, remains on Earth. Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko is also spending a year on the station with Scott as part of that extreme-duration flight.

A new CALorimetric Electron Telescope delivered by HTV-5 will seek dark matter and examine cosmic rays from the space station, away from the distorting effect of Earth's atmosphere. With the telescope's high-resolution data, researchers will learn more about the makeup of the galaxy and the risks cosmic rays pose to astronauts.

A variety of small satellites, including 14 Earth-watching Dove cubesat satellites, which will be used for Earth observation. Other cubesats include a trio built to test communications systems for global aircraft tracking and the student-built AAUSAT5, designed to test ship beacon signal technology.

A new NanoRacks External Platform(NREP) to be attached on the porchlike external facility of the Japanese Kibo module. The NREP is designed to serve as a sort of base for future experiments sent to the station.

Like its name suggests, HTV-5 is the fifth Japanese HTV spacecraft to ferry supplies to the space station. These spacecraft are cylindrical vehicles that measure 33 feet (10 meters) long and 13 feet (4 m) wide. HTV spacecraft are also disposable: Once the HTV-5 mission is complete, the vehicle will be detached from the station and travel to burn up in Earth's atmosphere.

Japan's HVT spacecraft are part of an international fleet of robotic cargo ships serving the astronauts on the International Space Station. Russia launches unmanned Progress cargo ships to the space station, with NASA contracting resupply services to the private companies SpaceX and Orbital ATK. The European Space Agency has also provided five cargo missions using its huge Automated Transfer Vehicle.

The space station is currently home to six astronauts, representing the United States, Russia and Japan.

http://www.space.com/30340-japanese-spacecraft-delivers-space-station-cargo.html

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Live coverage: Japanese cargo craft arrives at space station

1217 GMT (8:17 a.m. EDT)
The robot arm, under the control of engineers on the ground, has maneuvered the HTV within about two feet of the nadir berthing port on the space station's Harmony module. The 33-foot-long cargo craft will next been moved against the Harmony common berthing mechanism into the so-called ready-to-latch position.
Then 16 bolts will drive to create a firm connection between the space station and the newly-arrived HTV cargo craft.

1034 GMT (6:24 a.m. EDT)
Capture of the HTV cargo freighter was confirmed at 1028 GMT (6:28 a.m. EDT) as the station was traveling 250 miles over South America.
Japanese astronaut Kimiya Yui was at the controls of the 58-foot robotic arm.

"You the man," radioed astronaut Koichi Wakata from space station mission control in Houston. "The stork has successfully delivered the package."

The HTV is nicknamed Kounotori, or white stork in Japanese.

Next comes berthing of the HTV to the nadir, or Earth-facing, port on the space station's Harmony module. That process is expected around 1345 GMT (9:45 a.m. EDT), but could be moved up sooner.

1028 GMT (6:28 a.m. EDT)
CAPTURE. The space station's robot arm has grappled the HTV cargo ship.

1027 GMT (6:27 a.m. EDT)
Kimiya Yui is driving the robot arm toward the HTV right now.

1022 GMT (6:22 a.m. EDT)
Mission Control just gave the space station crew the "go" for capture of the HTV with the lab's robot arm.

Full itinerary at the link....

http://spaceflightnow.com/2015/08/19/htv-5-mission-status-center/

Detailed approach procedures...

http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2015/08/htv-5-iss-berthing/

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Latest Series of National Lab Investigations Berthed to the International Space Station

Posted: Monday, August 24, 2015

The most recent series of payloads sponsored by the Center for the Advancement of Science in Space (CASIS) successfully berthed to the International Space Station (ISS) onboard the Japanese H-II Transfer Vehicle (HTV-5). CASIS is tasked with managing and promoting research onboard the ISS U.S. National Laboratory.

These ISS National Lab payloads have been delivered in coordination with payload services provider, NanoRacks LLC, a private sector company that operates the only commercial research facility aboard the ISS via a Space Act agreement with NASA. Sponsored payloads that berthed to the ISS on this recent mission include:

NanoRacks External Platform will be the first commercial platform capable of leveraging the extreme conditions outside of the ISS. After a joint agreement with CASIS in 2012 on the development of this device, the external platform will provide a variety of ISS National Lab researchers access to the unique environment of space in disciplines such as materials science and biological sciences over the coming years.

NanoRacks-AAUSAT5 will use a student-designed and constructed Automatic Identification System (AIS) receiver to track ship signals with a small satellite launched from the ISS. Results will validate the software and hardware for a space-based AIS system, and inspire students to develop a deeper connection to the space program. AAUSAT5 Student Team, Aalborg University, Aalborg, Denmark.

NanoRacks-GOMX-3 tests a small satellite with an advanced antenna-pointing system and a variety of communications capabilities. The satellite contains three radios, one of which receives beacons from commercial aircraft to improve air traffic monitoring. Two radios test reception and data downlink in the L-band, used by GPS satellites, and the X-band, used by the military and for weather monitoring, air traffic control and other uses. Principle investigator, Kim ToftHansen, Gomspace, Denmark.

NanoRacks-Planet Labs-Dove is a fleet of nanosatellites deployed from the ISS to take images of Earth from space. The satellites are designed, built and operated by Planet Labs Inc., which provides the imagery to a variety of users. The satellites focus on areas within 52 degrees of Earth’s equator, where most human populations and agricultural areas are located, and they revisit the same areas more frequently than any existing government or commercial satellites. The images have several humanitarian and environmental applications, from monitoring deforestation and urbanization to improving natural disaster relief and agricultural yields in developing nations. Principle investigator, Robbie Schingler, Planet Labs, San Francisco, CA.

http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.html?pid=46686

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International Space Station snaps red sprite above a US storm

There’s an unusual red spot in the sky above the southern US. The red splash visible just within the green airglow of Earth’s atmosphere is a sprite, hanging above the white glow of a thunderstorm raging over Illinois or Missouri.

Sprites are electrical discharges that occur above most major thunderstorms, thought to be triggered by the much hotter lightning emissions beneath.

The image above was snapped on 10 August by astronauts on the International Space Station while flying over north-west Mexico. The moon is visible above the airglow, while the bright patch on the ground roughly below the moon’s position is Dallas, Texas.

Almost three minutes after the pictured was taken, the astronauts witnessed another sprite near the coast of El Salvador (below). It produced red streaks reaching an altitude of about 100 kilometres. The golden blobs next to it are the result of city lights diffusing through clouds.

Earlier this year, a slow-motion video of a sprite helped reveal what sparks these atmospheric flashes, which are among the brightest objects seen in the sky. They can interfere with long-range communications, so a better understanding of how they form could help minimise disruption.

https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn28086-international-space-station-snaps-red-sprite-above-a-us-storm/

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Enormous Red Sprites Seen From Space (Update)

NASA photo ISS044-E-45576 showing storms over southern Mexico on Aug. 10, 2015.
Credit: NASA

This gorgeous photo, captured from the International Space Station on the night of Aug. 10, 2015, shows an orbital view of thunderstorms over the city lights of southern Mexico as a recumbent Orion rises over Earth's limb. But wait, there's more: along the right edge of the picture a cluster of bright red and purple streamers can be seen rising above a blue-white flash of lightning: it's an enormous red sprite caught on camera!

First photographed in 1989, red sprites are very brief flashes of optical activity that are associated with powerful lightning. So-called because of their elusive nature, sprites typically appear as branching red tendrils reaching up above the region of an exceptionally strong lightning flash. These electrical discharges can extend as high as 55 miles (90 kilometers) into the atmosphere, with the brightest region usually around altitudes of 40–45 miles (65–75 km).

Sprites don't last very long — 3–10 milliseconds at most — and so to catch one (technically here it's a cluster of them) on camera is a real feat... or, in this case, a great surprise!

Sprites have been photographed from the ISS before (it's a great place from which to observe these phenomena, which are often obscured from the ground by storm clouds) but this is one of the best images of one I've seen yet.

Detail of the sprite photographed over Mexico on Aug. 10, 2015.

Not related to the above event, but another great shot....The shots are rare due to the speed of the event.......

Jason Ahrns, a graduate student at the University of Alaska-Fairbanks, goes sprite-chasing at night during electrical storms. Here he captures column-shaped red sprites over Red Willow County, Nebraska, on Aug. 12, 2013.

http://www.space.com/30286-enormous-red-sprites-space-update.html

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NASA: Huge asteroid will not destroy Earth in September

NASA struck down apocalyptic theories that a giant asteroid will hit Earth in September, saying there is "not one shred of evidence" the rumors are true.

In response to online rumors about a massive asteroid strike between Sept. 15 and 28, the U.S. space agency sought to clarify "numerous recent blogs and web postings" as false. "All known Potentially Hazardous Asteroids have less than a 0.01 percent chance of impacting Earth in the next 100 years," NASA said.

"There is no scientific basis -- not one shred of evidence -- that an asteroid or any other celestial object will impact Earth on those dates," said Paul Chodas, manager of NASA's Near-Earth Object office at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.

For years, YouTubers have been predicting the doomsday asteroid to hit near Puerto Rico, triggering a massive earthquake that will devastate the United States, Mexico, and Central and South America.

This isn't the first time NASA had made moves to quell Internet hysteria. In 2011, there were rumors the comet Elenin would destroy Earth. Instead, it broke up into small pieces in space. In 2012, Internet rumors predicted an asteroid strike would end the world on Dec. 12, 2012, in conjunction with the end of the Mayan calendar. Others, too, have missed Earth "just as NASA said they would," the space agency said.

"Again, there is no existing evidence that an asteroid or any other celestial object is on a trajectory that will impact Earth," said Chodas. "In fact, not a single one of the known objects has any credible chance of hitting our planet over the next century."

http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/NASA_Huge_asteroid_will_not_destroy_Earth_in_September_999.html

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Near Earth Object Program

http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/ca/

sample listings....upcoming NEO's

1 AU = ~150 million kilometers
1 LD = Lunar Distance = ~384,000 kilometers

Object
Name Close
Approach
Date CA
Distance*
(AU) CA
Distance*
(LD) Estimated
Diameter** H
(mag) Relative
Velocity
(km/s)

(2015 OV) 2015-Aug-24 0.0750 29.2 51 m - 110 m 23.6 6.89

(2005 QQ87) 2015-Aug-25 0.0845 32.9 77 m - 170 m 22.7 18.99

(2015 OS78) 2015-Aug-26 0.0840 32.7 160 m - 370 m 21.1 22.20

(2013 RZ5) 2015-Aug-26 0.1574 61.3 5.6 m - 12 m 28.4 21.73

(2015 PM307) 2015-Aug-27 0.1538 59.9 120 m - 270 m 21.7 34.37

(2015 QT3) 2015-Aug-28 0.0107 4.2 45 m - 100 m 23.9 26.29

(2015 PT227) 2015-Aug-29 0.0248 9.7 42 m - 95 m 24.0 9.35

(2015 QP3) 2015-Aug-30 0.0606 23.6 41 m - 92 m 24.1 9.30

(2015 QA) 2015-Aug-30 0.1094 42.6 78 m - 180 m 22.7 5.94

250458 (2004 BO41) 2015-Aug-31 0.1473 57.3 730 m - 1.6 km 17.8 21.39

(2015 PS227) 2015-Aug-31 0.0610 23.8 34 m - 76 m 24.5 8.66

(2004 TD10) 2015-Sep-01 0.0717 27.9 100 m - 230 m 22.1 11.83

(2006 MV1) 2015-Sep-01 0.1375 53.5 12 m - 26 m 26.8 7.98

281375 (2008 JV19) 2015-Sep-01 0.0447 17.4 190 m - 430 m 20.7 7.24

(2006 AW) 2015-Sep-02 0.1706 66.4 560 m - 1.2 km 18.4 13.63

(2012 JU) 2015-Sep-02 0.1602 62.3 5.8 m - 13 m 28.3 15.54

(2014 DA) 2015-Sep-03 0.1661 64.6 77 m - 170 m 22.7 17.47

(2015 QX8) 2015-Sep-04 0.0520 20.2 40 m - 89 m 24.1 10.70

Cheers....

8,882 · August 24, 2015

I take it the Japanese ship had no automated docking procedure like the Russian cargo vessels?

6,181 · August 24, 2015

I take it the Japanese ship had no automated docking procedure like the Russian cargo vessels?

Correct, the HTV has advanced communications and thruster controls, but no automated docking. Once inside a 30 meter "safe zone", thrusters inhibited and it drifts till graplled and berthed.

The HTV will be launched from the Tanegashima Space Center aboard an H-IIB launch vehicle.

After separating from the H-IIB launch vehicle, the HTV will automatically start-up the HTV subsystems and initiate communications with the HTV Mission Control Room (HTVMCR) at Tsukuba Space Center (TKSC).

After separating from the H-IIB launch vehicle, the HTV will approach the ISS in the sequence described below.

After separating from the H-IIB launch vehicle, the HTV will automatically start-up the communication system and initiate communications with NASA's Tracking and Data Relay Satellite (TDRS).

The HTV status will be monitored from the HTVMCR at TKSC. It will take about three days for the HTV to reach close proximity to the ISS.

When the HTV reaches the "proximity communication zone" (23km from the ISS), the HTV will then be able to directly communicate with the ISS.

The HTV will establish communications with the Proximity Communication System (PROX).

While communicating with PROX, the HTV will approach the ISS guided by GPS signals until the HTV is 5km behind the ISS. At this point, the HTV will maintain this distance from the ISS.

The HTV will slowly approach from the nadir (bottom) side of the ISS (from the direction of Earth). The HTV will then be grappled by Canadarm2 and berthed with the ISS. This phase is called the "Berthing Phase."

The HTV's approach in the Berthing Phase is as follows.

Guided by GPS signals, the HTV will approach to within 500 meters below the ISS.

While using the Rendezvous Sensor (RVS), the HTV will move closer to the ISS guided by the reflectors that are installed on Kibo.

At this point, the HTV will maintain a distance of 10 meters below the ISS.

The HTV approach speed during this phase is 1 to 10 meters /minute. During the approach, the ISS crew can send commands such as "HOLD," "RETREAT" or "ABORT" to the HTV.

Once the HTV is within a certain distance from the ISS, the HTV thrusters will be disabled. Next, the HTV is grappled by Canadarm2 and berthed to the nadir (bottom) side of "Harmony" (Node 2), through Harmony's Common Berthing Mechanism (CBM).

While the HTV is berthed to the ISS, both the HTV and ISS hatches will be opened. The ISS crew will then transfer the supplies (ISPRs, drinking water, clothes, etc.) from the HTV Pressurized Logistics Carrier (HTV-PLC) to the ISS. After the supplies are transferred, the HTV will be loaded with waste from the ISS.

Next, the ISS crew will unload the Exposed Pallet from the HTV Unpressurized Logistics Carrier and attach it to the ISS Mobile Base System or Kibo's Exposed Facility using the Canadarm2.

After being loaded with waste, the HTV will undock and separate from the ISS and then be destroyed during reentry into the atmosphere. The HTV debris is expected to fall within the South Pacific Ocean. However, the Indian Ocean is also planned as a backup area.

http://iss.jaxa.jp/en/htv/operation/

Once HTV-5 performed the RI burn, it entered the ISS Keep Out Sphere (KOS) – which is a three-dimensional “back yard” for the Station involving a number of additional procedures to ensure no misbehaving Visiting Vehicle proves to be risk to the Station. All such vehicles hold the ability to abort their closure on the orbital outpost.

With the two vehicles enjoying a “Tally Ho”, HTV-5 proceeded to a point 30 meters below the station, following which it will then proceeded to the capture point – thus concluding the rendezvous phase of the mission, and beginning the capture phase.

Following HTV-5’s arrival at the capture point, the spacecraft was put into free drift, inhibiting any thruster activity from occurring during this time.

The free drift command was sent to HTV-5 via the Hardware Command Panel (HCP), which sends commands between the ISS and HTV via the PROX link, in the same way that the Crew Command Panel (CCP) sends commands between the ISS and Dragon spacecraft via the COTS UHF Communication Unit (CUCU).

The HCP previously stood for HTV Command Panel, but the “HTV” has since been replaced with “Hardware” since the Cygnus spacecraft also uses the HCP, utilizing the PROX link to communicate with the ISS, as the HTV does.

The HCP, located in the Cupola module on the ISS, allows the crew to control the Space Station Remote Manipulator System (SSRMS) via the Cupola Robotics Workstation (RWS), with the RWS in the US Lab in “hot backup” standby mode.

http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2015/08/htv-5-iss-berthing/

Cheers....

38,286 · August 24, 2015

JAXA, the Japanese space agency, has been planning on a new HTV vehicle which has a pressurised capsule which can return cargo to Earth: HTV-R. They were also discussing this capsule evolving into a crewed spacecraft early in the 2020's.

6,181 · August 25, 2015

Good Find!......This is exactly what the ISS needs, or any other space station, ie commercial venture. We need the ability to have a lifeboat, regular return vehicle and be able to transport goods back to Earth, and still be able to incinerate trash.......as long as we don't get them mixed up........

This would introduce a form of partial reusability as well...hope others follow this trend........Cheers.....

6,181 · August 25, 2015

NASA International Space Station On-Orbit Status 21 August 2015

NASA International Space Station On-Orbit Status 21 August 2015.

Three cosmonauts studied magnetics, human digestion then participated in ultrasound scans and blood pressure checks today. The trio, consisting of Commander Gennady Padalka and Flight Engineers Mikhail Kornienko and Oleg Kononenko, also subjected themselves to vision checks for the ongoing Ocular Health study.

NASA astronaut Scott Kelly collected blood and urine samples and stored them in a science freezer for the Fluid Shifts study. New Flight Engineers Kimiya Yui and Kjell Lindgren continued practicing the robotic techniques they will use Monday morning to capture a new cargo craft and berth it to the Harmony module. Lindgren also checked out spacewalking tools.

Try Zero-Gravity-Asia Education Payloads Operations (EPO): Yui set up several experiments to demonstrate and promote the understanding of space and microgravity. Video of the different experiments will be downlinked and distributed. The various experiment themes were proposed by various Asian countries.

Fluid Physics Experiment Facility (FPEF) Closeout: Yui performed closeout steps following the ground software load in preparation for the Dynamic Surf-3 experiment. The investigation is part of a series of JAXA experiments addressing Marangoni convection driven by the presence of surface tension gradient as produced by a temperature difference at a liquid/gas interface. Fluid convection observations of a silicone oil liquid bridge that is generated by heating the one disc higher than the other within the Fluid Physics Experiment Facility (FPEF) are also performed. By observing and understanding how such fluids move, researchers can learn how heat is transferred in microgravity, and ultimately drive the design and development of more efficient fluid flow based systems and devices.

Extravehicular Activities (EVA) Pistol Grip Tool (PGT) Torque Analyzer Kit (TAK) Data Gather: Lindgren completed this 6-month requirement for all on-orbit PGTs. He installed the TAK on the PGTs and recorded PGT output torque data for ground analysis.

On-Board Training (OBT) Robotics On-Board Trainer (ROBoT): The USOS crew completed a session of this training during which they completed three capture point hold runs which allows free drift timing practice, malfunction response, and nominal rate approaches. They also practiced two meter approaches. This activity is in preparation for HII Transfer Vehicle (HTV)5 capture and berthing planned for next Monday, August 24.

Crew Quarters Light Replaced - Yesterday the crew swapped the dim Lamp Housing Assembly (LHA) in Crew Quarters 1 with another that had been turned off to conserve it as a spare. 12 spare LHA's will arrive on HTV5.

Ground Activities

All activities were completed unless otherwise noted.

ROBoT training support
Cardiac/Ultrasound ops
MSS powerup
Ground Camera Calibration Part 2

Three-Day Look Ahead:

Saturday, 08/22: Crew off duty, Housekeeping
Sunday, 08/23: Crew off duty, HTV Hardware Command Panel setup
Monday, 08/24: HTV5 capture/berthing

QUICK ISS Status - Environmental Control Group:

Component - Status
Elektron - On
Vozdukh - Manual
[СКВ] 1 - SM Air Conditioner System ("SKV1") - Off
[СКВ] 2 - SM Air Conditioner System ("SKV2") - On
Carbon Dioxide Removal Assembly (CDRA) Lab - Standby
Carbon Dioxide Removal Assembly (CDRA) Node 3 - Operate
Major Constituent Analyzer (MCA) Lab - Shutdown
Major Constituent Analyzer (MCA) Node 3 - Operate
Oxygen Generation Assembly (OGA) - Process
Urine Processing Assembly (UPA) - Standby
Trace Contaminant Control System (TCCS) Lab - Off
Trace Contaminant Control System (TCCS) Node 3 - Full Up

http://spaceref.com/international-space-station/nasa-international-space-station-on-orbit-status-21-august-2015.html

Video is 2:02 minutes....

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Send Your Name to Mars on NASA’s Next Red Planet Mission

Get your Boarding Pass to fly your name on the Mars Insight Lander. Visit… http://go.usa.gov/3Aj3G

Mars enthusiasts around the world can participate in NASA’s journey to Mars by adding their names to a silicon microchip headed to the Red Planet aboard NASA’s InSight Mars lander, scheduled to launch next year.

The fly-your-name opportunity comes with “frequent flier” points to reflect an individual’s personal participation in NASA’s journey to Mars, which will span multiple missions and multiple decades. The InSight mission offers the second such opportunity for space exploration fans to collect points by flying their names aboard a NASA mission, with more opportunities to follow.

Last December, the names of 1.38 million people flew on a chip aboard the first flight of NASA’s Orion spacecraft, which will carry astronauts to deep space destinations including Mars and an asteroid. After InSight, the next opportunity to earn frequent flier points will be NASA’s Exploration Mission-1, the first planned test flight bringing together the Space Launch System rocket and Orion capsule in preparation for human missions to Mars and beyond.

Submissions will be accepted until Sept. 8. To send your name to Mars aboard InSight, go to: http://go.usa.gov/3Aj3G

https://blogs.nasa.gov/orion/2015/08/20/send-your-name-to-mars-on-nasas-next-red-planet-mission/

Here is the sign up link...real easy, roughly 320,000 names submitted so far...it's the only way I'll get to Mars.....

http://mars.nasa.gov/participate/send-your-name/insight/

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Ghostly Particles from Outer Space Detected in Antarctica

The IceCube Lab at the South Pole, lit up by star trails in this photo taken in July 2015.
Credit: IceCube Collaboration

Buried deep in the Antarctic ice, an observatory has spotted ghostly, nearly massless particles coming from inside our galaxy and points beyond the Milky Way.

Finding these cosmic neutrinos not only confirms their existence but also sheds light on the origins of cosmic rays, the researchers said.

The IceCube Neutrino Observatory is made up of 86 shafts dug 8,000 feet into the ice near the South Pole. The shafts are equipped with detectors that look for the telltale light from high-energy particles plowing through the surrounding ice.

Neutrinos have little mass, and zip through matter so easily that a block of lead a light-year across wouldn't stop them. These elusive particles come from high-energy sources: exploding stars, black holes and galactic cores among them.

Though they don't interact much with matter, occasionally one will hit an atomic nucleus on Earth. When that happens the neutrino generates a particle called a muon. That's what scientists look for when seeking neutrinos — the muons move faster than the speed of light in a solid (ice in this case) and generate light waves, like the wake of a boat in water, called Cherenkov radiation. They also show the paths of the neutrinos. (The speed of light is constant in a vacuum, but it is slower in a medium like ice or glass — this is what causes refraction. So the muons aren't actually breaking the speed of light limit).

The IceCube project found neutrinos from outside our galaxy in 2013, but to confirm that detection the researchers, led by a team at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, had to make sure these neutrinos weren't coming from sources within our own galaxy (such as from the sun). To do so, they looked for neutrinos with similar energies that were coming from all directions at the same rate, meaning they are independent of the Earth's rotation and orbit around the sun — the only way that can happen is if the source is outside the galaxy.

The scientists also had to filter out muons created when cosmic rays crash into the planet's atmosphere. They used the Earth itself to weed out most of these muons, pointing the observatory through the Earth and toward the sky in the Northern Hemisphere (which is "down" with respect to Antarctica).

A representation of one of the highest-energy neutrinos detected in the northern sky by the IceCube Observatory.
Credit: IceCube Collaboration

Over two years, between May 2010 and May 2012, the observatory logged more than 35,000 neutrinos, with 20 of those showing high enough energies to suggest they came from cosmic sources.

Those 20 neutrinos, called muon neutrinos, came from the opposite direction, but at approximately the same rate, as similar neutrinos observed in earlier runs. Since the rate at which they showed up was about the same throughout the observation, it means it didn't matter where the observatory was pointed as a result of the daily rotation and yearly orbit of the Earth — the result predicted for extragalactic neutrinos. [Wacky Physics: The Coolest Little Particles in Nature]

"At least a fraction of that flux is extragalactic origin," Albrecht Karle, a UW-Madison professor of physics and one of the senior authors of the new study, told Live Science. "This was a new discovery."

Those observations also told them something else: The energies of the muon neutrinos, and their numbers, didn't fit well with several models of their origins. The scientists don't address it deeply in their study ("We leave that to theorists," Karle said), but the data appear to show these muon neutrinos are probably not coming from gamma-ray bursts (GRBs), which are highly energetic events in space.

"There are some stringent upper limits of neutrinos from GRBs — we know they don't produce that many," he said.

Similarly, active galactic nuclei don't seem to be the culprit, either, though Karle said it's too soon to say for sure.

Other possibilities are galaxies going through bouts of rapid star formation, or masses of gas and dust that surround black holes at the galactic centers. As atoms get pulled into the maw of a black hole, they slam into each other more often at higher energies. Eventually some produce pions, neutrinos and photons. If that were the case, Karle said, then one would expect a nearly one-to-one ratio of high-energy neutrinos to accompanying photons. But that hasn't been confirmed or refuted yet.

The study is detailed in today's (Aug. 20) issue of the journal Physical Review Letters.

http://www.space.com/30331-cosmic-neutrinos-confirmed.html

A gigantic observatory called IceCube lurks beneath Antarctic ice at the South Pole, where detectors scan the cosmos for ghostly, near-massless neutrinos. These "high-energy astronomical messengers," as IceCube collaborators call them, shed light on some of the most violent happenings in the universe, including exploding stars, gamma-ray bursts, and processes that involve black holes and neutron stars. Here's a look at the chilly lab and some of its findings.

The IceCube Observatory resides at the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station. The network of people who make the lab run (called the IceCube Collaboration) includes about 300 physicists hailing from 45 institutions and 12 countries. (Photo Credit: Dag Larsen, IceCube/NSF)

The part of the observatory that's buried beneath the ice holds 5,160 sensors called digital optical modules (DOMs). These sensors are attached to "strings" frozen into 86 boreholes that are spread out over a cubic kilometer (0.24 cubic miles) at depths from 4,800 to 8,000 (1,450 to 2,450 meters). Here an artistic impression of the DOMs. (Photo Credit: Jamie Yang, IceCube Collaboration)

It took about 11 hours to deploy each of the 86 "strings," during which time 60 DOMs were quickly installed into each — the scientists had to be quick and get it done before the ice froze completely around the sensors. (Photo Credit: IceCube/NSF)

The strings of sensors, shown here, were spaced about 55 feet (17 meters) apart. (Photo Credit: Jim Haugen, IceCube/NSF)

The team of scientists, engineers and drillers who deployed the observatory in December 2010 signed the last sensor before it was buried beneath a mile of Antarctic ice. (Photo Credit: Robert Schwarz, NSF)

http://www.livescience.com/51924-icecube-observatory-photos.html

All About Neutrinos

What is this thing, anyways?

Neutrinos are subatomic particles produced by the decay of radioactive elements and are elementary particles that lack an electric charge, or, as F. Reines would say, "...the most tiny quantity of reality ever imagined by a human being".

"The name neutrino was coined by Enrico Fermi as a word play on neutrone, the Italian name of the neutron."

Of all high-energy particles, only weakly interacting neutrinos can directly convey astronomical information from the edge of the universe - and from deep inside the most cataclysmic high-energy processes and as far as we know, there are three different types of neutrinos, each type relating to a charged particle as shown in the following table:

Neutrino v_e v_µ v_τ

Charged Partner electron (e) muon (µ) tau (τ)

Copiously produced in high-energy collisions, travelling essentially at the speed of light, and unaffected by magnetic fields, neutrinos meet the basic requirements for astronomy. Their unique advantage arises from a fundamental property: they are affected only by the weakest of nature's forces (but for gravity) and are therefore essentially unabsorbed as they travel cosmological distances between their origin and us.

Where are they coming from?

From what we know today, a majority of the neutrinos floating around were born around 15 billions years ago, soon after the birth of the universe. Since this time, the universe has continuously expanded and cooled, and neutrinos have just kept on going. Theoretically, there are now so many neutrinos that they constitute a cosmic background radiation whose temperature is 1.9 degree Kelvin (-271.2 degree Celsius). Other neutrinos are constantly being produced from nuclear power stations, particle accelerators, nuclear bombs, general atmospheric phenomenae, and during the births, collisions, and deaths of stars, particularly the explosions of supernovae.

A little bit of history

1931 - Pauli presents hypothetical "neutron" particle

1934 - Fermi develops theory of weak interaction and baptizes the neutrino

1956 - First discovery of the neutrino by an experiment

1962 - Discovery of an other type of neutrino at Brookhaven National Lab

1968 - First experiment to detect electron neutrinos produced by the sun

1978 - Discovery of the tau lepton at Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, existence of tau neutrino theorized

1983 - Kamiokande becomes operational

1985 - The IMB experiment & Russian team reports measurement of non-zero neutrino mass

1987 - Kamiokande and IMB detect simultaneous burst of neutrinos from Supernova

1989 - Kamiokande becomes second experiment detecting neutrinos from the sun and confirms anomaly of finding only 1/3 expected rate

1990 - IMB confirms deficit of muon neutrino interactions

1991 - LEP experiments show that there are only three light neutrinos

1994 - First proclamation of possible neutrinos oscillations seen by LSND experiment

1995 - Missing solar neutrinos confirmed by GALLEX

1996 - AMANDA neutrino telescope observes neutrinos at the south pole

1998 - Super-Kamiokande collaboration announces evidence of non-zero neutrino mass

A lot more data at the link here....

http://www.livescience.com/51924-icecube-observatory-photos.html

Cheers......


Date	Event
August 14	Progress M-26M Undocking from Zvezda & End of Mission
August 16	HTV-5 Launch atop H-IIB
August 20	HTV-5 Capture & Berthing to Harmony Nadir
August 24	ISS Reboost by Zvezda Engines
August 28	Soyuz TMA-16M Relocation from MRM2 to Zvezda Aft
September 2	Soyuz TMA-18M Launch & Docking to Poisk (Volkov, Mogensen)
September 5	ISS Reboost by Progress M-28M
September 7	ISS Reboost by Progress M-28M
September/October	Dragon SpX-8 Launch atop Falcon 9
September/October	Dragon SpX-8 Capture & Berthing to Harmony
September 11/12	Soyuz TMA-16M Return to Earth (Padalka, Mogensen, Aimbetov)
September 27	HTV-5 Unberthing & Release
October 1/2	Progress M-29M Launch & Docking to Zvezda
October	Relocation of Pressurized Mating Adapter 3 from Node 3P to Node 2Z
October	PMA-3 EVA (Kelly & Lindgren)
October/November	Dragon SpX-8 Unberthing, Release, Landing
October	US EVA 45-1 & 45-2
November 19	Progress M-28M Undocking from Pirs
November 21	Progress MS-1 Launch
November 23	Progress MS-1 Docking to Zvezda Aft
December 3	Cygnus Orb-4 Launch atop Atlas V
December 5 (TBD)	Dragon SpX-9 Launch atop Falcon 9
December 6	Cygnus Orb-4 Rendezvous & Berthing to Unity
December 7 (TBD)	Dragon SpX-9 Capture & Berthing to Harmony
December	US EVA - IDA-2 (Kelly, Lindgren)
December 9	Progress M-29M Undocking from Zvezda
December 11	Soyuz TMA-17M Relocation from Rassvet to Zvezda
December 15	Soyuz TMA-19M Launch & Docking to Zvezda (Malenchenko, Copra, Peake)
December 22	Soyuz TMA-17M Undocking & Landing (Kononenko, Yui, Lindgren)

Object Name	Close Approach Date	CA Distance* (AU)	CA Distance* (LD)	Estimated Diameter**	H (mag)	Relative Velocity (km/s)
(2015 OV)	2015-Aug-24	0.0750	29.2	51 m - 110 m	23.6	6.89
(2005 QQ87)	2015-Aug-25	0.0845	32.9	77 m - 170 m	22.7	18.99
(2015 OS78)	2015-Aug-26	0.0840	32.7	160 m - 370 m	21.1	22.20
(2013 RZ5)	2015-Aug-26	0.1574	61.3	5.6 m - 12 m	28.4	21.73
(2015 PM307)	2015-Aug-27	0.1538	59.9	120 m - 270 m	21.7	34.37
(2015 QT3)	2015-Aug-28	0.0107	4.2	45 m - 100 m	23.9	26.29
(2015 PT227)	2015-Aug-29	0.0248	9.7	42 m - 95 m	24.0	9.35
(2015 QP3)	2015-Aug-30	0.0606	23.6	41 m - 92 m	24.1	9.30
(2015 QA)	2015-Aug-30	0.1094	42.6	78 m - 180 m	22.7	5.94
250458 (2004 BO41)	2015-Aug-31	0.1473	57.3	730 m - 1.6 km	17.8	21.39
(2015 PS227)	2015-Aug-31	0.0610	23.8	34 m - 76 m	24.5	8.66
(2004 TD10)	2015-Sep-01	0.0717	27.9	100 m - 230 m	22.1	11.83
(2006 MV1)	2015-Sep-01	0.1375	53.5	12 m - 26 m	26.8	7.98
281375 (2008 JV19)	2015-Sep-01	0.0447	17.4	190 m - 430 m	20.7	7.24
(2006 AW)	2015-Sep-02	0.1706	66.4	560 m - 1.2 km	18.4	13.63
(2012 JU)	2015-Sep-02	0.1602	62.3	5.8 m - 13 m	28.3	15.54
(2014 DA)	2015-Sep-03	0.1661	64.6	77 m - 170 m	22.7	17.47
(2015 QX8)	2015-Sep-04	0.0520	20.2	40 m - 89 m	24.1	10.70

Neutrino	v_e	v_µ	v_τ
Charged Partner	electron (e)	muon (µ)	tau (τ)

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