Space and astronomy news
One under-appreciated space asset is the photography skills of the Russian cosmonauts on board the International Space Station. They are extremely skillful photographers who don’t get the same recognition as their astronaut counterparts in their Earth observation skills. In particular, they have taken some stunning high-oblique shots of objects close to the horizon, with almost an 3-D effect.
Continue reading “Mount Everest, Seen from Space!”
Wow! See that bright streak in the photo above? That’s a shot of the Expedition 40 crew making a flawless return from the International Space Station yesterday (Sept. 10) … a shot taken from space itself.
“Our view of the picture perfect reentry of TMA-12M,” wrote Expedition 41 astronaut Reid Wiseman, who just hours before bid farewell to Steve Swanson (NASA), Alexander Skvortsov (Roscosmos) and Oleg Artemyev (Roscosmos). The re-entry was in fact so perfect that TV cameras caught the parachute immediately after deployment, which doesn’t always happen.
As you can see in the video replay below, the Soyuz made a bulls-eye landing near Dzhezkazgan, Kazakhstan at 10:23 p.m. EDT (2:23 a.m. UTC). There are now only three people tending to the space station until the rest of the Expedition 41 crew launches, which is expected to happen Sept. 25.
With the full Moon approaching just a little bit closer than Earth to usual, a cosmonaut on the International Space Station took a few moments of his time to capture a few shots of it setting behind the Earth. Oleg Artemyev was just a shade closer to that Moon than the rest of us, and the sequence of pictures (below the jump) is stunning.
As Universe Today’s David Dickinson explained last week, the so-called “supermoon” refers to a phenomenon where the full Moon falls within 24 hours of perigee (closest approach to the Earth.) We’re in a cycle of supermoons right now, with this weekend’s the second in a three-part cycle this year.
The Moon appears about 14% bigger between its furthest and closest approaches to Earth. While the difference is subtle in the sky, it does produce higher tides on Earth (with an example being Hurricane Sandy in 2012.)
Technically the perigee happened August 10 at 6:10 p.m. UTC (2:10 p.m. EDT), but people (including Artemyev) took several pictures of the moon a bit before and after that time. One example from our Universe Today Flickr pool is at the bottom of this post. You can see more examples on Flickr.
?????????? ????? ???? ?? #??? ??? ??. ???? (Supermoon Moonset #ISS more in blog) #BlueDot http://t.co/Wg9098bHIF pic.twitter.com/PIk5zZRRJR
— Oleg Artemyev (@OlegMKS) August 10, 2014
Update, 8:33 p.m. EDT: The Soyuz spacecraft arrived safely at station at 7:53 p.m. EDT (11:53 a.m. UTC) and coverage of the hatch opening is scheduled at 10:15 p.m. EDT (2:15 a.m. UTC).
After spending an extra couple of days in the cramped Russian Soyuz spacecraft, the incoming International Space Station crew will likely be very be glad to get out and stretch their legs. You can check out the festivities live in the video link above.
Three people are set to make a docking with the orbiting complex at 7:58 p.m. EDT (11:58 p.m. UTC). If all goes to schedule, they’ll pop the hatch open at 10:40 p.m. EDT (2:40 a.m. UTC). Meanwhile, engineers are trying to figure out what caused the malfunction that prevented a docking as planned on Tuesday (March 25).
Remember that all schedules are subject to change, so tune into NASA TV well before each event happens.
The Expedition 39/40 crew lifted off Tuesday afternoon (EDT) from Kazakhstan to take a fast track to the space station that should have seen them dock on launch day. The Soyuz has to make three engine firings or burns to accomplish this. The docking was cancelled after the third burn did not happen as planned. The Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos) has determined this was because the spacecraft was in the wrong orientation, but the underlying cause is still being investigated.
Once this happened, the crew switched to a standard backup procedure to bring them to the station in two days instead. (This path, in fact, was what all crews did up until last year.) The crew is safe and in good spirits heading up to the docking, NASA has said. The Soyuz has done several other engine firings since, with no incident.
The Soyuz crew includes Steve Swanson (NASA), Alexander Skvortsov (Roscosmos) and Oleg Artemyev (Roscosmos). Awaiting them on the station are Koichi Wakata (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency), Rick Mastracchio (NASA) and Mikhail Tyurin (Roscosmos). Wakata is in command of the station, marking a first for Japan’s astronaut corps.
Despite a problem that held up last night’s International Space Station docking, the Expedition 39/40 crew is doing well as they execute a standard backup procedure to bring their Soyuz spacecraft to the station on Thursday, NASA said.
The crew was originally expected to dock with the station around 11 p.m. EDT (3 a.m. UTC), but an error with the spacecraft’s position in space prevented the engines from doing a third planned “burn” or firing to make that possible, NASA said in an update.
“At this point, the crew is in good shape and the vehicle appears to be in good shape,” said Kenny Todd, the space station’s operations integration manager, in an interview on NASA TV Wednesday morning (EDT). “At this point, everything looks real good.”
In fact, the spacecraft has done a couple of burns since to get it into the right spot for a docking Thursday evening, Todd added. (So it appears the crew just missed the window to get there on Tuesday night.) The underlying cause of the orientation problem was not mentioned in the interview, presumably because it’s still being investigated.
NASA is quite familiar with a two-day route to the space station as up until last year, all crews took two days to get to the space station. This took place for 14 years until a rapider method of reaching the orbiting complex within hours was introduced.
The crew includes Steve Swanson (NASA), Alexander Skvortsov (Roscosmos) and Oleg Artemyev (Roscosmos), who will join three people already on station when they arrive.
Current station residents Koichi Wakata (the commander, of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency), Rick Mastracchio (NASA) and Mikhail Tyurin (Roscosmos) got to sleep in this morning and had some minor modifications to their schedule because of the docking delay, Todd added.
Instead of taking the day off as planned, the crew will do some work. A planned ISS software update for last night is going to be pushed “down the line”, Todd said, adding that the forthcoming SpaceX launch on Sunday and docking on Tuesday is still going ahead as planned.
We’ll provide more updates as the situation progresses. Docking is scheduled for 7:58 p.m. EDT (11:58 p.m. UTC) Thursday and will be covered on NASA Television.
Update, 10:13 p.m. EDT: Tonight’s docking with the International Space Station will not happen because one of the engine firings scheduled to happen did not take place when it was supposed to. The crew is safe, according to NASA, and going to a standard backup plan that should bring the craft to the station on Thursday (2 days from now). Roscosmos is examining the issue. We will provide updates as warranted.
Update, 6:43 p.m. EDT: The Soyuz is on its way to space after an on-time launch — and by the way, astronauts saw it leave from the space station! It’s en route and NASA is still expecting an arrival around 11:04 p.m. EDT., which you can watch live on NASA TV above.
Despite tensions on the ground between the United States and Russia, officials say that it’s business as usual on the International Space Station. The three people launching to space today, in fact, are from both countries: Alexander Skvortsov and Oleg Artemyev of the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos), and Steve Swanson from NASA.
As has been the habit lately, the Expedition 39/40 crew will take a faster route to the International Space Station that see launch and docking happen in the same day, should all go to plan. It all begins with the launch at 5:17 p.m. EDT (9:17 p.m. UTC) from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, with docking scheduled to happen at 11:04 p.m. EDT (3:04 a.m. UTC).
Bear in mind that schedules are subject to change, so it’s a good idea to watch NASA TV (see video above) well before each milestone to see if things are happening on time. Once the crew arrives at station, one big question is if they’ll do spacewalks when they get there.
Last July, Italian astronaut Luca Parmitano experienced a severe water leak in his NASA spacesuit that sent the crew scrambling back to the station. While Parmitano emerged physically all right, the agency opened an investigation and suspended all non-essential activities. A report was issued in February and the agency pledged to deal with all the urgent items quickly.
Spacewalks are planned for Expedition 40, but only if these urgent items are cleared in time for that. (That expedition begins in May and will include NASA astronauts Alex Gerst, Reid Wiseman and Russian cosmonaut Maxim Suraev.)
Seriously, how cool is this picture? The International Space Station crew caught an incredible view of their three future crewmates rocketing up to meet them today around 5:17 p.m. EDT (9:17 p.m. UTC).
Expedition 39’s Rick Mastracchio (from NASA) shared this on Twitter, casually mentioning that he will expect more crewmates to arrive later today. Upon the rocket were Steve Swanson (NASA), Alexander Skvortsov (Roscosmos) and Oleg Artemyev (Roscosmos).
Check out the launch video and some NASA pictures of the activities below the jump. (Update, 10:21 p.m. EDT: One of the engine firings did not take place as planned, meaning the astronauts will not dock with the station as planned tonight. The crew is safe and doing a standard backup plan that will bring them to the station on Thursday. We will provide updates as the situation progresses.)
#ISS #Exp39 arrives at #Soyuz launch pad. Watch launch live at 4:15p ET at http://t.co/qrm0Dzmt3M pic.twitter.com/NFXMBflKiY
— NASA (@NASA) March 25, 2014
Tune to NASA TV for #Exp39 #Soyuz launch to #ISS. Coverage at 4:15p ET, launch at 5:17p http://t.co/qrm0Dzmt3M pic.twitter.com/4WrM8gdL8F
— NASA (@NASA) March 25, 2014
First image of #Exp39 crew in #Soyuz with Quack the duck, who will let them know when they’re in 0-g pic.twitter.com/fpNQmJB0Y9
— NASA (@NASA) March 25, 2014
The #Exp39 crew launched to the #ISS aboard a #Soyuz rocket at 5:17pm ET. They will dock with station at 11:05pm. pic.twitter.com/ep07MpVazf
— NASA (@NASA) March 25, 2014
And follow #Swanny as he becomes first @NASA_Astronaut to Instagram from space! http://t.co/WEhYJoVgxn pic.twitter.com/7cDkHxEsyi
— Johnson Space Center (@NASA_Johnson) March 25, 2014
Remember those snorkels and pads astronauts used during the ammonia pump replacement on station this past December? The new measures went a long way to helping astronauts stay safe if another helmet water leak happens, but at the same time, NASA is eager to find the cause so they know how it happened and how to prevent it.
Two maintenance spacewalks are planned for Expedition 40, but they’re not necessarily going forward yet. NASA has traced the issue to a fan pump separator, but there’s another issue, explained expedition commander Steve Swanson: where the particulates in the water came from. Perhaps they were from a filter, or perhaps from the water system itself. So NASA is reserving spacewalks on a need-only basis until more is known.
“That was the problem. Now, we’ve got to find out where that came from,” Swanson said in a phone interview with Universe Today from Houston to preview Expedition 39/40’s mission, which launches in late March. Joining the two-time shuttle astronaut will be two other people, including Alexander Skvortsov. The Russian cosmonaut commanded Expedition 24 in 2010, which experienced a similar ammonia leak to the one that was just repaired a few months ago.
While leaks and spacewalks are the items that grab headlines when it comes to spaceflight, one of the major goals of the International Space Station is more subtle. Researchers hope to understand how spaceflight affects the human body during long-duration missions. (This will be a major focus of a one-year mission to station in 2015.) Through a translator, Skvortsov explained that the recent decision to extend station’s operations to at least 2024 will be a help for research of this kind.
“It is great that they have expanded the station until 2024 at least, and it will be very beneficial to the science programs and projects we have on board,” he said in Russian. “I hope that it will be extended even further. It will depend on the condition of the station.”
Rounding out the crew will be Oleg Artemyev, a first-time cosmonaut who has participated in precursor isolation experiments to the Mars 500 mission that saw a crew of people simulate a mission to Mars.
Expedition 39 is expected to launch March 26, 2014 from the Baikonour Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. The crew will join orbiting spacefarers Koichi Wakata (who will command Expedition 39, a first for Japan), Rick Mastracchio (who participated in the ammonia pump swap-out) and Mikhail Tyurin.
