Three days after launching on its Soyuz booster rocket, the Russian ISS Progress 45 cargo ship docked to the International Space Station on Nov. 2, 2011, delivering almost three tons of food, fuel and supplies. This is great news for the Space Station program, as the successful launch and today’s efficacious docking certainly bodes well for the resumption of crewed flights to the ISS, diminishing the prospect for having the ISS unmanned. Soyuz rocket launches were halted for almost 2 months after the unexpected failure and loss of the Progress 44 vehicle in August. Today, the unmanned Progress automatically linked up to the Pirs Docking Compartment on the Russian segment and the crew will soon begin unloading the supplies.
Image taken by International Space Station Commander Mike Fossum of the Progress cargo ship burning up in Earth's atmosphere after it undocked on Oct. 29, 2011. Credit: @Astro_Aggie.
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International Space Station Commander Mike Fossum captured this amazing view of the Progress M-10M cargo ship burning up in Earth’s atmosphere after it undocked from the space station on Saturday, Oct. 29, 2011. Via Twitter, astronaut Chris Hadfield — who is scheduled to command the ISS next year — said he received an email from Fossum about the picture, reminding him of a previous description Hadfield had given of what exactly is inside these departing cargo ships. It’s a video we’ve shared before, but it’s worth watching again.
Of course, the big news here is that the Progress M-10M was able to undock because of the successful launch of the Progress 45 vehicle last Friday, setting the stage for allowing the Soyuz crew ships to start flying again, lessening the probability that the ISS will have to go unmanned. Stay tuned for updates on the launch of the station’s next three residents, which is scheduled for Nov. 13, 2011.
Crepuscular Rays seen from the space station on Oct. 18, 2011. Credit: NASA
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Seeing crepuscular rays on Earth is a somewhat rare event, as conditions have to be just right at either sunset or sunrise for the Sun’s rays to appear as though they are diverging outward from the Sun. But seeing them from space is even more rare.
This picture taken by an astronaut on the International Space Station provides an unusual viewing perspective from above of crepuscular rays. Why are they parallel in this picture instead of radiating in an outward fashion like they appear to us on Earth? This image shows the true nature of crepuscular rays: they really are parallel!
The word crepuscular means “relating to twilight,” and they occur when objects such as mountain peaks or clouds partially shadow the Sun’s rays, when the Sun is low on the horizon. These rays are visible only when the atmosphere contains enough haze or dust particles so that sunlight in unshadowed areas can be scattered toward the observer.
The light rays are actually parallel, but appear to converge to the Sun due to “perspective,” the same visual effect that makes parallel railroad tracks appear to converge in the distance.
In the images taken from the ISS, the sun was setting to the west (image left) on the Indian subcontinent, and cumulonimbus cloud towers provided the shadowing obstructions. The rays are being projected onto a layer of haze below the clouds.
Here’s an image taken by UT reader Stephano De Rosa of crepuscular rays as seen from a more Earthly perspective:
Crepuscular Rays. Credit: Stefano De Rosa
Sources: NASA Earth Observatory, University of Illinois
The Soyuz launch sequence, showing the time of the anomaly on August 24, 2011. Credit: ESA
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The first launch of a Russian resupply ship since the August failure and crash of the Progress/SoyuzU is scheduled for Sunday, October 30, 2011 at 6:11 a.m. EDT (10:11 GMT). The importance of a successful launch looms large for the future of the International Space Station.
“Because the previous Progress didn’t get to orbit, it is important this launch go as planned,” NASA spokesman Kelly Humphries told Universe Today. “The booster we use to launch the crews, while not identical, is very similar to the one used for Progress — in particular the third stage where the failure was identified, so we do look forward to our Russian partners having a successful launch on Sunday.”
If not, the space station faces the prospect of being de-crewed.
This first post-shuttle era launch of a Progress cargo ship abruptly ended at about six minutes into the flight on August 24, 2011 when an engine anomaly prompted a computer to shutdown an engine, just before the third stage of the Soyuz rocket ignited. The rocket and ship crashed to Earth in eastern Russia.
Progress 45 is now set to launch from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Sunday and hopefully deliver 2.8 tons of food, fuel and supplies to the space station crew members.
Progress M-12M cargo vehicle launches on August 24, 2011. The rocket eventually failed and the rocket and ship crashed. Credit: NASA TV.
If that launch goes as planned, that would allow the Soyuz TMA-22 spacecraft carrying three new station crew members to launch in mid-November. Flight Engineers Dan Burbank, Anton Shkaplerov and Anatoly Ivanishin are scheduled to join the current on-orbit crew of Commander Mike Fossum and Flight Engineers Satoshi Furukawa and Sergei Volkov on Nov. 16.
Fossum and his crew are due to end their stay at the station on Nov. 21, so if the Soyuz TMA-22 can’t launch before then, the ISS will be left crewless.
While the Soyuz rockets and Progress cargo ships have had a long history of successes, this one failure – coming just after the space shuttles were retired – has left the ability to get new crews to the space station in limbo. The Progress cargo ships launch on a Soyuz-U rocket, while the Soyuz crew capsules, — the Soyuz TMA — launches on a Soyuz-FG. The third stages of the two rockets are virtually identical.
A Russian commission investigating the Progress failure said the crash was caused by a malfunction in the rocket’s third stage engine gas generator. The commission the malfunction was the result of an accidental manufacturing flaw. The third stages of all Soyuz-type rockets have been changed out, and a Soyuz rocket did launch successfully on October 21 from the ESA’s new launch facility in French Guiana, carrying new GPS satellites.
The Soyuz-U rocket has had 745 successful launches and just 21 failures over nearly four decades. The Soyuz-FG has had 25 launches, all successful.
“Because of the failure and similarity of the launch vehicles, we have been performing a lot of preliminary planning and work to make sure that in the unlikely event the Progress were to have another problem,” Humphries said, “that we would be able to get the existing crew home safely and be able to operate the International Space Station and conduct research there without the crew on board.”
Humphries said the ISS team has identified many issues so that they would be capable of operating the space station almost indefinitely without a crew.
“Of course that is not the preference because it would have some impacts on our research,” he said. “But we are very confident that our Russian partners have done their due diligence and identified the root cause and taken the right steps to correct this and we are looking forward to having a good launch.”
Humphries said despite the challenges of working with potentially having to de-crew the ISS, the space station program and partnerships are still strong.
“The international partnerships we’ve developed with our colleagues in Russia, Canada, Japan and Euorpe are probably one the greatest achievements of the ISS program,” Humphries said. “We back each other up on a variety of operational and other fronts on a daily basis. For example, our Russian colleagues were instrumental in keeping the space station operational following the Columbia accident in 2003.”
The launch and also the Progress docking to the ISS will be carried live on NASA TV.
Ever wonder what it would be like on board the Starship Enterprise when Capt. Kirk commands Mr. Sulu to fire the thrusters, only to have the artificial gravity turn off at the same time? We’ve got our own 21st century equivalent of a big spaceship — the International Space Station — firing its thrusters in order to stay in a good orbit around Earth. And since we haven’t invented artificial gravity yet, you can see what happens. In the video are Expedition 29 Commander Mike Fossum and Flight Engineers Satoshi Furukawa and Sergei Volkov, demonstrating what it is like to experience the acceleration from firing the thrusters.
Hurricane Rina's location and forecasted path as of 7 am CDT on Oct 26, 2011. Credit: NOAA
“It’s a big one!” said International Space Station commander Mike Fossum as the space station flew over Hurricane Rina at 2:39 p.m. EDT on Oct. 25, 2011. External cameras on the ISS captured these views as the station flew 248 miles over the Caribbean Sea east of Belize.
Rina’s maximum sustained winds remained steady at about 110 mph early Wednesday, said the U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami, making it a Category 2 storm. Forecasters predict it will strengthen to a major hurricane as it nears the Mexican coast Wednesday night before rolling over the island of Cozumel, then along the coast to Cancun.
See a map of the Hurricane’s projected path below.
The late season hurricane, which continues to intensify, was located 300 miles east-southeast of Chetumal, Mexico, barely moving west-northwest at a glacial three miles an hour. Hurricane warnings have been issued for the Yucatan from north of Punta Gruesa, Mexico, to Cancun.
What did the three astronauts do on the ISS this past week? Here’s an update from NASA on the research and activities on the International Space Station for October 17-21, 2011. Includes updates on the upcoming Progress and Soyuz launches.
What’s a good way to generate excitement around the whole world for the International Space Station? Create a contest for kids from anywhere on the planet to have their idea for a science experiment performed by astronauts on the space station, with it live-streamed back to Earth. YouTube SpaceLab is an open competition inviting 14 – 18 year olds to come up with an idea for a science experiment for space. You don’t have to actually do the experiment, you just have to make a 2-minute video of yourself explaining it.
The tagline for this contest is “Your experiment, 250 miles above the Earth, for the whole world to see,” and this should be a really fun and engaging world-wide contest that is sure to generate a lot of interest. Continue reading “New YouTube Space Station Experiment Contest”
A view of the Capcom station in ISS Mission Control at Johnson Space Center. Credit: NASA
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Want to know what science experiments the astronauts are working on in the International Space Station today? Interested in looking over the shoulder of the flight controllers in Houston? There’s a new website that allows you to follow all the activities on the space station in real time, from seeing exactly what each crew member is doing, to watching live video from space, to seeing the displays on consoles in the ISS Mission Control at Johnson Space Center. Called Space Station Live!, the new interactive website is part of NASA’s Open Government Initiative, an “effort to increase public access to government information and services through live data feeds and data sets.”
The website is still in beta, so there are a few bugs (the video feed is sometimes blank and not all the links work all the time) but the data available and interactive features are enough to make a space nerd swoon. And soon, there will be apps available so all the data will be accessible with mobile devices, according to NASA Spaceflight.com. There is historical information on the assembly of the International Space Station, a large diagram showing the current configuration ISS, access to operational handbooks, an audio feed of the communications between the station and mission control, and much more. Of course, all the sensitive and classified information and materials are not available, but this is a brand new and unprecedented way for NASA to share real-time data with the public. There are also educator resources and soon there will be a programming interface to allow teachers to integrate live data and science from the ISS in their classroom projects.
A good place to start is in the crew timeline area, which provides information for each crew member, what time it is on the ISS, a video feed, and information on the ISS orbital status (is the ISS in orbital daylight or darkness?)
A view of a recent aurora from the ISS. Credit: NASA
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Mike Fossum, current commander of the International Space Station, took this beautiful image of a recent aurora, two Russian vehicles docked to the station in the foreground. You can see the image on NASA’s Gateway to Astronaut Photography of Earth.
