Space Life Blogs

July 8, 2021: International Space Station Configuration. Four spaceships are docked at the space station including the SpaceX Crew Dragon and Russia’s Soyuz MS-18 crew ship and ISS Progress 77 and 78 resupply ships. With NASA astronaut Shane Kimbrough   monitoring aboard the International Space Station , a SpaceX cargo Dragon spacecraft undocked from the International Docking Adapter on the station’s space-facing port of the Harmony module at 10:45 a.m. EDT. Dragon will fire its thrusters to move a safe distance from the space station during the next 36 hours. On Friday, July 9, Dragon will conduct a deorbit burn to begin its re-entry sequence into Earth’s atmosphere. Dragon is expected to splash down at approximately 11:29 p.m. in the Gulf of Mexico near Tallahassee, Florida. The splashdown will not be broadcast. Splashing down off the coast of Florida enables quick transportation of the science aboard the capsule to the agency’s Kennedy Space Center’s Space Station Processing Fa...

The SpaceX Cargo Dragon vehicle approaches the space station on June 5, 2021. At center right, the SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft is also pictured docked to the Harmony module. SpaceX CRS-22 undocking is planned for Thursday, July 8 at 10:35 a.m. EDT, with NASA TV coverage scheduled to begin at 10 a.m. NASA and SpaceX flight control teams continue to monitor the weather and splashdown locations. Certain parameters like wind speeds and wave heights must be within certain limits to ensure the safety of the recovery teams, the science, and the spacecraft. Additional opportunities are available on July 9 and 10. The space freighter’s departure had been scheduled for earlier this week but was postponed due to weather conditions off the coast of Florida. Meanwhile, the Expedition 65 crew members stayed focused on a variety of science activities including human health, robotics and physics. Flight Engineers Shane Kimbrough and Thomas Pesquet took turns working out on an exercise cycle Wedn...

NASA astronauts Shane Kimbrough and Megan McArthur are pictured inside the cupola during the approach and rendezvous of the SpaceX Cargo Dragon on June 5, 2021. Due to forecast extreme weather off the coast of Florida, SpaceX CRS-22 undocking is no longer planned for Wednesday, July 7. NASA and SpaceX flight control teams continue to monitor the weather and splashdown locations and are prepared to support undocking of the Dragon cargo spacecraft once conditions are safe to do so. Certain parameters like wind speeds and wave heights must be within certain limits to ensure the safety of the recovery teams, the science, and the spacecraft. The next opportunity for undocking is July 8 at 10:35 a.m. EDT, with NASA TV coverage scheduled to begin at 10 a.m. Additional opportunities are available on July 9 and 10. NASA will provide an update Wednesday, July 7 on the date for undocking following a weather briefing. NASA Flight Engineers Mark Vande Hei and Shane Kimbrough worked on cargo tran...

The SpaceX Cargo Dragon resupply ship is pictured approaching the space station on June 5, 2021. Due to forecasted extreme weather off the coast of Florida, SpaceX CRS-22 undocking is now planned for no earlier than July 7. NASA Television coverage will begin at 10:45 am EDT. NASA and SpaceX flight control teams continue to monitor the weather and splashdown locations. Certain parameters like wind speeds and wave heights must be within certain limits to ensure the safety of the recovery teams, the science, and the spacecraft. Learn more about station activities by following the space station blog ,  @Space_Station  and  @ISS_Research  on Twitter as well as the  ISS Instagram  and  ISS Facebook  accounts. from Space Station https://ift.tt/3yn3h0U

July 1, 2021: International Space Station Configuration. Five spaceships are parked at the space station including the SpaceX Crew Dragon and Cargo Dragon spaceships and Russia’s Soyuz MS-18 crew ship and ISS Progress 77 and 78 resupply ships. An uncrewed Russian Progress 78 spacecraft arrived at the International Space Station ’s Poisk module on the space-facing side of the Russian segment at 8:59 p.m. EDT, two days after lifting off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan Sunday, Tuesday June 29 at 7:27 p.m. (4:27 a.m. Wednesday, June 30, Baikonur time). The spacecraft were flying over southeast Pacific Ocean off the coast of Chile at the time of docking. Carrying more than 3,600 pounds of food, fuel, and supplies for the Expedition 65 crew, the Progress 78 resupply spacecraft will spend almost five months at the station. The cargo craft is scheduled to perform an automated undocking and relocation to the new “Nauka” Multipurpose Laboratory Module in late October. Na...

Expedition 65 Flight Engineer Megan McArthur works on a protein crystal experiment potentially benefitting pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies on Earth. Cargo operations continue at the International Space Station as a Russian resupply ship gets ready for docking tonight and a U.S. spaceship prepares for undocking next week. The Expedition 65 crew is also staying focused today on life science and physics research. Russia’s ISS Progress 78 cargo craft is orbiting Earth today fine-tuning its maneuvers as it heads toward the orbiting lab. Cosmonauts Oleg Novitskiy and Pyotr Dubrov will be monitoring Progress as it approaches the station’s Poisk module for an automated docking at 9:03 p.m. EDT. NASA TV begins its live broadcast at 8:15 p.m. on the agency’s website and the NASA app ,. NASA Flight Engineers Megan McArthur , Shane Kimbrough and Mark Vande Hei joined Flight Engineer Thomas Pesquet of ESA (European Space Agency) on Thursday and continued readying the Cargo Drag...

Russia’s ISS Progress 78 resupply ship launches from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan to the space station. Credit: Roscosmos A Russian resupply ship is racing toward the International Space Station as another U.S. cargo craft nears the end of its mission. Meanwhile, the Expedition 65 crew focused its research activities today on a variety of physics and biology studies. Russia’s ISS Progress 78 resupply ship is orbiting Earth today following its Tuesday launch from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. The Progress will arrive on Thursday with over 3,600 pounds of food, fuel and supplies, for an automated approach and docking to the Poisk module at 9:03 p.m. NASA TV will broadcast its arrival beginning at 8:15 p.m. on the agency’s website and the NASA app ,. The next cargo craft to depart the station will leave on July 6 at 11:05 a.m. EDT. The SpaceX Cargo Dragon will undock from the Harmony module ’s Earth-facing international docking adapter and parachute to a splashdown...

Russia’s ISS Progress 78 resupply ship blasts off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan to the space station. Credit: NASA TV The uncrewed Russian Progress 78 is safely in orbit headed for the International Space Station following launch at 7:27 p.m. (4:27 a.m. Wednesday, June 30, Baikonur time) from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Russia’s ISS Progress 78 resupply ship blasted off today at 7:27pm ET and will dock to the station on Thursday at 9:03pm. More… https://t.co/i174ZK82TS pic.twitter.com/oGgR4kJIFn — International Space Station (@Space_Station) June 29, 2021 The resupply ship reached preliminary orbit and deployed its solar arrays and navigational antennas as planned for a two-day rendezvous on its way to meet up with the orbiting laboratory and its Expedition 65 crew members. After making 34 orbits of Earth on its journey, Progress will dock to the station’s Poisk module on the space-facing side of the Russian segment at 9:03 p.m. Thursday, July 1. Live coverag...

Russia’s ISS Progress 78 resupply ship stands at its launch pad at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Credit: Energia NASA Television, the agency’s website and the  NASA app now are providing live coverage of the launch of a Russian cargo spacecraft to the International Space Station . The uncrewed Russian Progress 78 is scheduled to lift off on a Soyuz rocket at 7:27 p.m. EDT (4:27 a.m. Wednesday, June 30, Baikonur time) from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan to begin a two-day journey to the orbiting laboratory. For departure coverage and more information about the mission, visit: https://blogs.nasa.gov/spacestation/ . Get space station news, images and features via social media on Instagram at: @iss , ISS on Facebook, and on Twitter @Space_Station and @ISS_Research . from Space Station https://ift.tt/3qMqp6F

The Cygnus space freighter is pictured shortly after its release from the Canadarm2 robotic arm above the United States. Credit: NASA TV At 12:32 p.m. EDT, flight controllers on the ground sent commands to release the Northrop Grumman Cygnus spacecraft from the Canadarm2 robotic arm after earlier detaching Cygnus from the Earth-facing port of the Unity module. At the time of release, the station was flying 270 miles over southern Wyoming. The #Cygnus space freighter from @NorthropGrumman is pictured shortly after its release from the #Canadarm2 robotic arm at 12:32pm ET today over southern Wyoming. #AskNASA | https://t.co/yuOTrYN8CV pic.twitter.com/ZTwBLRJJQR — International Space Station (@Space_Station) June 29, 2021 The Cygnus spacecraft successfully departed the International Space Station four months after arriving at the space station to deliver about 8,000 pounds of scientific experiments and supplies to the orbiting laboratory. After departure, Cygnus will remain in orbi...

The Cygnus space freighter is pictured moments before its capture with the Canadarm2 robotic arm on Feb. 22, 2021. About four months after delivering several tons of scientific experiments and supplies to the International Space Station , Northrop Grumman’s uncrewed Cygnus cargo spacecraft is scheduled to depart the orbiting laboratory Tuesday, June 29. This morning, flight controllers on the ground sent commands to use the Canadarm2 robotic arm to robotically detach Cygnus from the Earth-facing port of the Unity module and maneuver it into place. Live coverage of the spacecraft’s release will air on NASA Television and the agency’s website , and the NASA app beginning at noon EDT, with its release from the robotic arm scheduled for 12:25 p.m. NASA astronaut Megan McArthur will monitor Cygnus’ systems upon its departure from the space station. The Cygnus resupply spacecraft is named after NASA mathematician Katherine Johnson , a Black woman who broke through barriers of gender and r...

(From left) The Northrop Grumman Cygnus resupply ship and Russia’s ISS Progress 78 cargo craft will depart and launch just hours apart on Tuesday. The Cygnus resupply ship will complete its cargo mission to the International Space Station on Tuesday. Several hours later, Russia’s ISS Progress 78 (78P) cargo craft will launch on a two-day trip to replenish the Expedition 65 crew. Commander Akihiko Hoshide joined Flight Engineer Thomas Pesquet and closed the hatch on the trash-filled Cygnus early Monday morning. Following that, NASA Flight Engineers Shane Kimbrough and Mark Vande Hei installed the Slingshot small satellite deployer on Cygnus’ hatch. Cygnus will be released from the Canadarm2 robotic arm at 12:25 p.m. EDT on Tuesday. Once Cygnus reaches a safe distance from the station, the Slingshot will deploy five CubeSats for a variety of research including atmospheric physics as well as software evaluation and development. The 78P cargo craft sits atop its rocket at the Baik...

The 60-foot-long roll out solar arrays were successfully deployed in a process that took about 10 minutes. Working together outside the International Space Station, ESA (European Space Agency) astronaut Thomas Pesquet and NASA astronaut Shane Kimbrough successfully installed, connected, and deployed a new ISS Roll-Out Solar Array (iROSA). The array deployment began at 1:45 p.m. EDT using stored kinetic energy, unfurling over the course of about 10 minutes. Mission control confirmed good power generation on the new array. It is the second of six total new iROSAs that will be installed in the coming years to upgrade the station’s power supply and completes installation of the pair delivered aboard SpaceX’s cargo Dragon on the company’s 22 nd commercial resupply services mission to the station. The new solar arrays are positioned in front of current arrays, which are functioning well but have begun to show signs of expected degradation as they have operated beyond their designed 1...

The new ISS Roll-Out Solar Array (iROSA) were successfully deployed in a process that took about 10 minutes. NASA astronaut Shane Kimbrough and ESA (European Space Agency) astronaut Thomas Pesquet concluded their spacewalk at 2:37 p.m. EDT, after 6 hours and 45 minutes. In the ninth spacewalk of the year outside the International Space Station , the two astronauts installed and deployed a new ISS Roll-Out Solar Array (iROSA) on the far end of the left (port) side of the station’s backbone truss structure (P6). Kimbrough and Pesquet successfully removed the array from its position in the flight support equipment, maneuvered it into position, connected the electrical cables, and released it to extend the solar array to its fully deployed position at the 4B power channel. After deployment, Pesquet also retrieved an articulating portable foot restraint (APFR) to bring inside the space station. During two spacewalks June 16 and 20, Kimbrough and Pesquet installed and deployed a new array...

Spacewalkers (from left) Shane Kimbrough and Thomas Pesquet work to install new roll out solar arrays on the International Space Station’s P-6 truss structure on June 16, 2021. ESA (European Space Agency) astronaut Thomas Pesquet and NASA astronaut Shane Kimbrough have begun their spacewalk outside the International Space Station to install and deploy the second of two new ISS Roll-Out Solar Array s (iROSA). The spacewalkers switched their spacesuits to battery power at 7:52 a.m. EDT to begin the spacewalk, which is expected to last about six and a half hours. Watch the spacewalk on NASA TV, the NASA app , and the agency’s website . Pesquet is extravehicular crew member 1 (EV 1), wearing a spacesuit bearing red stripes and using helmet camera #20. Kimbrough is extravehicular crew member 2 (EV 2), wearing the unmarked spacesuit and helmet camera #22. It is the fifth spacewalk Kimbrough and Pesquet have conducted together and the third during this mission to install new solar arrays...

Astronauts Thomas Pesquet and Shane Kimbrough are conducting their fifth spacewalk together today. Their first two spacewalks together were during Expedition 50 on 2017. NASA Television coverage of today’s spacewalk with NASA astronaut Shane Kimbrough and ESA (European Space Agency) astronaut Thomas Pesquet is now underway and is also available on the NASA app and the agency’s website . The crew members of Expedition 65 are preparing to go outside the International Space Station for a spacewalk expected to begin at approximately 8 a.m. EDT and last about six and a half hours. The crew is in their spacesuits in the airlock in preparation to exit the space station and begin today’s activities to install and deploy the second new ISS Roll-Out Solar Array (iROSA) to upgrade the station’s power supply. Kimbrough and Pesquet will be working near the farthest set of current solar arrays on the station’s left (port) side, known as P6, to upgrade the 4B power channel. First they will prepa...

At center, Expedition 65 Flight Engineers Megan McArthur and Mark Vande Hei pose with astronauts Shane Kimbrough (far left) and Thomas Pesquet (far right) who are in U.S. spacesuits. NASA astronaut Shane Kimbrough and ESA (European Space Agency) astronaut Thomas Pesquet are scheduled to exit the International Space Station ’s Quest airlock Friday for a spacewalk to install and deploy the second of six new solar arrays to help power the orbiting laboratory. Live coverage of the spacewalk will air on NASA Television, the agency’s  website , and the NASA app beginning June 25 at 6:30 a.m. EDT, with the crew members scheduled to set their spacesuits to battery power about 8 a.m., signifying the start of their spacewalk. During the planned six-and-a-half-hour spacewalk, Kimbrough and Pesquet will work on the far end of the left (port) side of the station’s backbone truss structure (P6) to upgrade the 4B power channel with the installation and deployment of an ISS Roll-Out Solar Arra...

(Clockwise from bottom) Expedition 65 Flight Engineers Mark Vande Hei, Megan McArthur, Shane Kimbrough and Thomas Pesquet participate in robotics training to support the solar array installation spacewalks. Four Expedition 65 crew members spent Thursday preparing for the third spacewalk to continue new roll-out solar array installation work. The other three International Space Station crew members continued with variety of space research. Astronauts Shane Kimbrough and Thomas Pesquet are scheduled to exit the space station shortly after they set their U.S. spacesuits to battery power at 8 a.m. EDT on Friday. The veteran spacewalking duo will work about 6.5 hours to begin installing a second ISS Roll-Out Solar Array (iROSA) on the station’s Port-6 truss structure . Both astronauts set up their spacesuits then readied their tools inside the U.S. Quest airlock just before lunchtime today. Afterward, they joined NASA Flight Engineers Megan McArthur and Mark Vande Hei and reviewed t...

NASA spacewalker Shane Kimbrough is pictured during a spacewalk to install new roll out solar arrays on the International Space Station’s Port-6 truss structure. Wednesday was a light duty day for the five Expedition 65 astronauts, two of whom will go on their third spacewalk this month. The two Russian flight engineers aboard the International Space Station stayed  focused on cardiac research and plasma crystal physics throughout the day. Astronauts Shane Kimbrough and Thomas Pesquet joined NASA Flight Engineers Megan McArthur and Mark Vande Hei for robotics training ahead of Friday’s spacewalk. The quartet reviewed and practiced robotics maneuvers on a computer planned to support the installation of the station’s second roll out solar array. Kimbrough and Pesquet will begin their third spacewalk in nine days on Friday at 8 a.m. EDT when they set their U.S. spacesuits to battery power. The veteran spacewalkers will spend about six-and-a-half hours on the Port-6 truss structu...

Spacewalkers (from left) Shane Kimbrough and Thomas Pesquet work to complete the installation of a roll out solar array on June 20, 2021, The Expedition 65 crew continued its space research activities today while two astronauts prepared for their third spacewalk in less than two weeks. The International Space Station will also see a U.S. cargo craft depart and a Russian one launch on the same day next week. NASA Flight Engineer Mark Vande Hei strapped himself to an exercise cycle and attached sensors to himself on Tuesday morning for a workout study measuring aerobic capacity in space. NASA Flight Engineer Megan McArthur explored how bacteria is affected by microgravity and ways to counteract harmful changes. Eye checks were back on the schedule for four astronauts on Tuesday afternoon. Commander Akihiko Hoshide and Vande Hei took turns operating medical imaging gear and scanned the eyes of astronauts Shane Kimbrough and Thomas Pesquet . A variety of eye exams take place on the...