The competition heats up: October 7 has now been set as the launch date for the first operational cargo flight of Dragon to ISS.
Astronaut Sunita Williams completed the first simulated triathlon in space this past weekend on ISS.
After “swimming” half a mile (0.8 km), biking 18 miles (29 km), and running 4 miles (6.4 km), Williams finished with a time of one hour, 48 minutes and 33 seconds, she reported. The space station has its own treadmill and stationary bike, which use harnesses and straps in place of gravity to keep astronauts from floating away. To simulate the swimming portion of the race, Williams used what’s called the Advanced Resistive Exercise Device (ARED) to do weightlifting and resistance exercises that approximate swimming in microgravity.
Three astronauts have safely returned to Earth from ISS.
More important, the Russians have now delayed the next Soyuz manned launch to ISS for a week due to “some malfunctions [that] have appeared in one of the devices of the decent module.”
They also say the delay is to avoid a flight conflict with the next Dragon mission on October 15. This is interesting in that the last word we had from NASA was that the Dragon launch could occur as early as October 5.
The view of New York City from ISS on September 11, 2001.
SpaceX’s first official cargo flight to ISS could occur as early as October 5.
In a spacewalk today astronauts successfully overcame a stuck bolt to install a replacement power unit.
Because of the failure to replace a power unit during last week’s spacewalk, the U.S. portion of ISS is now in a brown-out, with a 25% reduction in power.
They plan a second spacewalk tomorrow to try to fix the problem.
The competition heats up: On Friday SpaceX successfully completed a launch pad dress rehearsal for the next Falcon 9 launch to ISS.
Two astronauts on ISS completed an eight hour spacewalk today, extended because of problems with several stuck bolts.
Williams and Hoshide initially progressed well through their tasks, but the astronauts struggled with difficult bolts when removing a faulty power box from the exterior of the space station, and then again when replacing the defunct unit with a new spare.
More information here. In the end they were forced to leave the replacement unit only temporarily attached because the bolts would simply not screw in. It was thought there might be debris in the screw holes.
The possibility that NASA might finally agree with Russia’s repeated request to fly a year-long mission to ISS grew stronger this morning with two stories:
The first, by James Oberg, digs into the underworld of NASA politics to find that plans might very well be more advanced than NASA is letting on:
» Read more
The Russians are once again pushing for a year long mission on ISS, while NASA once again appears unenthusiastic.
Though from this article it appears that this time NASA officials are at least considering the idea.
Good news! NASA today announced that recent research on ISS into bone loss due to weightlessness has found that proper exercise and diet can stabilize bone loss.
Past Russian research on Mir had found that exercise and diet could limit the bone loss, but not stop it entirely. The key difference in this recent work seems to be the use of more sophisticated exercise equipment.
If this research holds up, it eliminates one of the most serious obstacles to interplanetary travel.
The European cargo ship docked at ISS today successfully fired its engines and raised the station’s orbit to 260 miles.
This is in contrast to a previous attempt on August 15, which cut off prematurely.
What do you do with a giant space station when its lifespan is over?
The article notes that no date has been set for deorbit, and that it likely will not happen before 2028. The article also includes information about some of medical and engineering problems of long term weightlessness that have been discovered on ISS, and how engineers have attempted to address them.
Unfortunately, some of these problems, such as the recently discovered vision problems, remain unsolved. It is a shame that while Russia wants to do multi-year missions on the station to study these issues, NASA continues to resist.
Monday’s successful spacewalk by two Russian astronauts has prepared ISS for the arrival of a new Russian module.
I should have posted a link about this spacewalk earlier. What is important however is that the Russians continue to move forward, though slowly. And they continue to come up with simple solutions to problems, such as the extra layer of shielding for the living quarters on ISS, installed during this spacewalk.
More information on the the premature engine cut off during the attempt to boost ISS’s orbit earlier this week.
A routine engine firing to raise the orbit of the International Space Station failed to come off today.
Though it appears the engines on the European ATV cargo craft did not fire as scheduled, the report is very vague and does not make clear what actually happened. Stay tuned.
The Russians have successfully docked their Progress freighter to ISS, using a fast route that took only 6 hours.
The rumors are now official: NASA will announce the winners of the commercial crew contracts on Friday.
Getting to ISS faster: a Progress freighter, launched today, is testing a new rendezvous route that takes only 6 hours to reach the station instead of the normal 48.
Success: The Russians today successfully redocked their unmanned Progress freighter to ISS, using a new docking system.
July 28 has now been set for the next docking attempt by a Progress freighter to ISS to test Russia’s new docking system.
A test redocking of a new automatic docking system on a Russian Progress freighter was aborted last night when the system did not work as planned.
They will probably try again on the weekend, after a Japanese cargo craft is berthed with the station.
Russia is considering shortening the time it takes for its Progress and Soyuz capsules to reach ISS after launch, from 50 hours to 6.
The long travel time was designed to save fuel at launch — thus increasing payload — by allowing orbital mechanics to bring the capsule and station together. I wonder then why the Russians are considering this change. Have the figured out a way to save the fuel in other ways?
Tantalizing hints: Has Sierra Nevada’s Dream Chaser been picked as one of two finalists in NASA’s competition to ferry crew and cargo to ISS?
Three astronauts successfully lifted off on a Soyuz rocket earlier today, headed to ISS.
Bad training of the ISS astronauts by the company supplying the experiments was the reason the student experiments were never turned on.
“Previous crews were given on the ground review and personal interaction prior to launch,” Manber said. “For this mission, the astronaut received hardware training solely via video while on the space station. Clearly, there was a miscommunication resulting from the video instruction.”
It seems that more than one experiment was never turned on while on ISS this past month, and an investigation has begun as to why.
A student experiment — successfully flown up and down to ISS by Dragon — is apparently a failure because no one on ISS ever turned it on.
Per instructions from NanoRacks, the Houston company that works with NASA to integrate such deliveries, Warren packed his worms, or C. elegans, into a glass ampule, or tube, then packed that tube into a larger one containing a liquid “growth medium” for the worms. An astronaut aboard the space station was to crack the outer ampule in a way that would release the worms into the surrounding liquid. It never happened.
The article is very diplomatic about this, but it is very clear that either the astronauts on ISS screwed up, or NASA did by not giving them clear instructions.
Scientists can now use neutron detectors at the south pole to warn astronauts on ISS of incoming dangerous radiation.
