Astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti peers out one of the windows of the Cupola onto the Earth below.

• 
  

The New Year Brings Dragon and Spacewalk Preparations

Astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti peers out one of the windows of the Cupola onto the Earth below.

The first full work week of 2015 for Expedition 42 includes advanced science, high-flying plumbing and preparations for the arrival of the SpaceX Dragon. The Dragon commercial craft is due to launch Tuesday at 6:20 a.m. and be captured at the International Space Station about 48 hours later.
› Read more about the SpaceX CRS-5 mission
Commander Barry Wilmore worked on the European Space Agency experiment Haptics-1 testing the remote control of robots on the ground from orbit using a joystick. He later joined Flight Engineer Terry Virts gathering tools for a trio of spacewalks tentatively planned for February that will ready the station for future commercial crew and cargo vehicles.
› Read more about the Haptics-1 experiment
Virts started Monday with a periodic fitness evaluation as he and Italian astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti took turns on an exercise cycle. Virts then moved on to plumbing work replacing a dose pump in the Waste and Hygiene Compartment. Cristoforetti then participated in an educational experiment that explores the possibility of using plants to produce food and oxygen on the station.
In the Russian segment of the orbital lab, cosmonauts Anton Shkaplerov, Alexander Samokutyaev and Elena Serova studied ways to detect micrometeoroid impacts at the station, worked on maintenance and photographed windows for a contamination inspection.

This entry was posted in Expedition 42 and tagged dragon, European Space Agency, Expedition 42, International Space Station, NASA, Roscosmos, spacex on January 5, 2015 by Mark.

diciembre

·

INDIAN OCEAN *Full update* NASA's Aqua Satellite Sees Tropical Cyclone Kate Passing

SO. INDIAN OCEAN *Full update*
NASA's Aqua Satellite Sees Tropical Cyclone Kate Passing Cocos Keeling Islands
- RWhat esidents of the Cocos Keeling Islands in the Southern Indian Ocean had a Christmas day visitor they didn't want in the form of Tropical Cyclone Kate. Kate moved through the islands and triggered warnings on Dec. 25 before started moving away to the west. NASA's Aqua satellite caught a picture of Kate on Dec. 25 that showed the heaviest thunderstorms were west of the islands.

NASA's Aqua satellite passed over Kate on Dec. 25 at 0705 UTC (2:05 a.m. EST) and the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer or MODIS instrument captured a visible image of the storm. The MODIS image showed that the strongest thunderstorms (which appeared bright white on satellite imagery) were west of the islands although the islands were still being affected by the storm's northeastern quadrant at the time. Animated infrared satellite imagery shows the system has developed a cloud-filled eye as central convection has deepened.
On December 25 at 1500 UTC (10 a.m. EST) Kate had maximum sustained winds near 35 knots (40 mph/62 kph). Kate was centered near 12.4 south and 96.2 east, just 30 nautical (34.5 miles/55.5 km) miles southwest of Cocos Island, Australia. Kate was moving to the west at 8 knots (9.2 mph/14.8 kph). At that time, Kate was being battered by moderate wind shear from the northeast, and that wind shear was pushing the bulk of clouds and showers southwest of the low-level center.
By Dec. 26 after Kate had just passed the islands, it began to intensify, as maximum sustained winds increased to 70 knots (80.5 mph/129.6 kph). Forecasters at the Joint Typhoon Warning Center expect Kate to strengthen to 85 knots (97.8 mph/157.4 kph) on Dec. 27 before weakening again.
Kate was centered near 12.5 south latitude and 94.1 east longitude, or about 155 nautical miles (178.5 miles/287.3 km) west of Cocos Island. Kate was moving to the west at 3 knots (3.4 mph/5.5 kph).
Kate is forecast to move in a west-southwesterly direction over the next couple of days and weaken back to a depression as vertical wind shear increases.
Rob Gutro

Image of the day: NASA's RapidScat instrument aboard the International Space Station measured the gusty winds associated with the cold front that moved off the U.S. East coast yesterday, Dec. 25. Some of the sustained winds were as high as 25 meters per second or 55 mph (in red)! Credit: NASA JPL/Doug Tyler

NORTHERN INDIAN OCEAN - System 95B is showing signs of organizing today, despite being battered by strong vertical wind shear (20-30 knots). The low pressure area is located neaer 5.6 north latitude and 93.2 east longitude, about 213 nautical miles east-southeast of Colomba, Sri Lanka.
Satellite data shows some flaring convection and thunderstorms pushed to the west of the center and located over southern Sri Lanka. Despite the strong wind shear, maximum sustained winds at the surface are between 25-30 knots. This tropical low has a medium chance to develop into a depression in the next 24 hours.
Today, Dec. 26 at 750 UTC (2:50 a.m. EST) the MODIS instrument aboard NASA's Aqua satellite captured this image of the low pressure area.

SO. PACIFIC OCEAN - 2 Tropical Lows Losing Chances for Development. System 96P is no longer suspect for tropical cyclone formation in the South Pacific, and the chances for System 94P to develop have dropped to low. System 94P is centered near 19.2 south and 157.8 west, about 390 nautical miles west-southwest of Bora Bora.
NOAA's GOES-West satellite captured an infrared picture of the low pressure area on Dec. 26 at 1452 UTC (9:52 a.m. EST/U.S.) and it shows that westerly wind shear has had a strong effect on the system. The Joint Typhoon Warning Center noted that the storm is being "unraveled and its low-level center exposed to outside winds." So, it appears that System 94P is also fizzling out.

SOUTHERN PACIFIC _ System 96P has formed near 12.4 south and 175.2 west, about 290 miles west-northwest of Pago Pago, American Samoa, but it has a low chance of development in the next 24 hours.SOUTHERN PACIFIC OCEAN - System 94P continues to have a high chance for development over the next 24 hours. It is centered near 14.8 south latitude and 158.2 west longitude, about 395 nautical miles west-northwest from Bora Bora. It is moving south at 6 knots and satellite imagery shows that the storm is consolidating and organizing. This image was taken from NOAA's GOES-West satellite earlier today.

SOUTHERN INDIAN OCEAN - Warnings Remain in Effect for Tropical cyclone Kate
A tropical cyclone warning is in effect for the Cocos Keeling Islands today as Tropical Cyclone Kate moves through. At 1500 UTC (10 a.m. EST) Kate had maximum sustained winds near 35 knots (40 mph/62 kph). Kate was centered near 12.4 south and 96.2 east, just 30 nautical miles southwest of Cocos Island, Australia. Kate was moving to the west at 8 knots.
Kate is forecast to move in a west-sou...

SO. INDIAN OCEAN *Full Update* NASA-NOAA's Suomi NPP Satellite Spots Birth of Tropical Cyclone Kate
- The tropical low pressure area previously known as System 95S organized and strengthened into Tropical Cyclone Kate on Dec. 24 and the Cocos Keeling Islands are expected to feel its effects on Dec. 25 and 26. NASA-NOAA's Suomi-NPP satellite passed over Kate after it formed.
NASA-NOAA's Suomi NPP satellite flew over newborn Tropical Cyclone Kate on Dec. 24 at 06:39 UTC (1...

Special Feature and Video: NASA Looks at Some Severe Holiday Weather from Space
Severe weather in the form of tornadoes is not something people expect on Christmas week but a storm system on Dec. 23 brought tornadoes to Mississippi, Georgia and Louisiana. As the storm moved, NASA's RapidScat captured data on winds while NOAA's GOES satellite tracked the movement of the system. http://www.nasa.gov/…/nasa-looks-at-some-severe-holiday-w…/…

When Scott Kelly calls home from the International Space Station

When Scott Kelly calls home from the International Space Station (ISS) sometime next year, whoever answers the phone may simply hang up on him. The calls will be welcome, but the link can be lousy, with long, hissing silences breaking up the conversation. That’s what happens when you’re placing your call from at least 229 mi. (369 km) above the Earth while zipping along at 17,500 m.p.h. (28,164 kph) and your signal has to get bounced from satellites to ground antennas to relay stations like an around-the-horn triple play. “When someone answers, I have to say, ‘It’s the space station! Don’t hang up!’” says Kelly.

Photograph by Marco Grob for Time

That’s not likely to be necessary when he calls his brother Mark. Perhaps best known as the husband of former Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, who was grievously wounded in an assassination attempt in 2011, Mark is a former astronaut who has been to space four times. He knows the crackle of an extraterrestrial signal in his ear, just as he knows the singular feeling of weightlessness, the singular sweep of Earth outside the window—­and the power of 229 miles of altitude to make a person feel alone. Drive that in the flat and it’s nothing more than Syracuse to Boston. Fly it straight up and it’s a whole other thing.
But most of all, Mark, 50, knows Scott, 50—which is how it is with brothers, especially when they’re identical twins, born factory-loaded with the exact same genetic operating system. The brothers’ connection will be more important than ever beginning in March, when Scott takes off for a one-year stay aboard the space station, setting a single-mission record for a U.S. astronaut.
Scott will be partnered in his marathon mission with Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko. They, in turn, will be joined by a rotating cast of 13 other crew members, all of whom will be aboard for anywhere from 10 days to six months, conducting experiments and reconfiguring various station modules for the arrival of privately built crew vehicles, which could come early as 2017.
A year in space will require Scott to leave behind a lot: his Houston home, his daughters—Samantha, 20, and Charlotte, 11—and his girlfriend of five years, Amiko Kauderer, a NASA public-affairs officer. (He and his first wife are divorced.) But he won’t, in some ways, leave Mark behind.
Ever since the Apollo days, the U.S. has vaguely discussed a crewed mission to Mars, though the target date for the grand expedition has always remained a convenient decade or two away. But on Dec. 5, NASA took a big step toward that goal, with the successful uncrewed test flight of the Apollo-like Orion spacecraft—America’s deep-space ship of the future. Add to that the competition from upstarts like Elon Musk’s SpaceX and newbie nations like China and India, with their own surging space programs, and the scramble for cosmic supremacy is accelerating fast.

The biggest problem with our exploratory ambitions is, simply, us. The human body is a purpose-built machine, designed for the one-G environment of Earth. Take us into the zero-G of space or the 0.38 G of Mars and it all comes unsprung. Bones get brittle, eyeballs lose their shape, hearts beat less efficiently since they no longer have to pump against gravity, and balance goes awry. At least that’s what we know so far. “There’s quite a bit of data [on human health] for six months in orbit,” says space-station program manager Mike Suffredini. “But have we reached stasis at six months, or do things change at one year? Is there a knee in the curve we haven’t reached yet?”
So NASA needs subjects to venture out and run the long-duration tests. In a perfect experiment, every one of those subjects would also have a control subject on the ground—someone with, say, the exact same genes and a very similar temperament, so you could tease apart the changes that come from being aloft for 12 months from those that are a result of growing the same year older on Earth. In the Kelly brothers—and only the Kelly brothers—NASA has that two-person sample group. “The twins study didn’t come up when we were selecting crew for the mission,” says Suffredini. “But it occurred to us later that we had this ground-based truth in Mark.”
What NASA calls a “ground-based truth,” of course, Scott calls a big brother (by six minutes). And while the mission that is to come may be equal parts science experiment, endurance test and human drama, it is to the Kelly brothers (and only the Kelly brothers) just the latest mile in a journey they’ve shared for half a century.

Rocket Men
It’s a matter of historical record that Scott and Mark Kelly never got around to building an airplane. They never built a rocket ship either, but on both counts they can be forgiven. There’s rarely much follow-through when you’re 5 years old and you hatch your plans at night, in whispers, after your parents have put you to bed.
The brothers did their planning around the time of the Apollo 11 moon landing, when space travel seemed sublimely cool. They were alike in their fascination with space—and in other ways too. Like many twins, they spoke their own private language in toddlerhood, gibberish that was unintelligible to adults but seemed to make perfect sense to them. They dressed alike until first grade too. “There is a picture of us in orange shorts, orange striped shirts and bow ties,” Mark says—with a small wince. “We did everything together until college and were always on the edge of getting into trouble.”

Astronaut Twins: Mark and Scott Kelly, the Early Years

Courtesy Mark and Scott Kelly

At age 1, Scott, left, and Mark with their mother, Patricia Kelly in Oct. 1965.

1 of 13

By the late 1980s, both brothers were commissioned as naval aviators and both were assigned to active duty aboard aircraft carriers. Upon finishing their first squadron assignment and tour of duty, both became Navy test pilots. In 1995 they applied to NASA, and by 1996, they were dressing identically once again—and once again in orange—this time in the pressure suits of a space-shuttle astronaut.
From 1999, the brothers served a combined seven missions, though they never went to space together. (NASA had no policy against that, but Scott nixed the idea. “I thought it would really suck for our kids to lose both their dad and their uncle in one accident.”) And while they insist there has never been any competition between them, their interplay suggests a gentle tweaking all the same. “Scott flew first,” Mark says, “but I flew twice before he got his second flight. Then I flew my third before he did.”
Over drinks at Boondoggles, an astronaut haunt in Houston, Scott describes a stubborn eye twitch he experienced during re-entry after his last mission, a 159-day stay aboard the space station that ended in 2011. It’s something other long-duration astronauts have complained of too, but there is no explanation for it yet.
“What do you mean your eyes twitched?” Mark asks.
“Yours didn’t?” Scott responds.
“No.”
“Your flights weren’t long enough.”
By shuttle standards, Mark’s flights were actually pretty standard in terms of duration. His four trips ran about two weeks each, giving him a total of 54 days in space. Scott’s first two flights were ­similar, but his 159-day stay put him at a running total of 180, with a full year coming up next.

A Day in Orbit
As much of an adventure as Scott’s mission is likely to be, neither Mark nor anyone else would envy him every part of it. The ISS is spacious enough: from end to end, it measures 358 ft. (109 m), a little larger than a football field. The 14 modules that make up the living and work space represent only a small fraction of that overall sprawl, but together they provide as much habitable space as the interior of a 747—or, as the astronauts prefer to think of it, as much as a four-bedroom house.
Still, stay inside any house for a year—even one in orbit—and you’re going to fall into a routine. For all astronauts, a day aboard the station begins and ends in a private enclosure about the size of a phone booth that serves as sleep chamber and personal space, with enough room for a laptop computer, a few belongings and a sleeping bag. Reveille, in the form of an alarm from a wristwatch or an iPad in each astronaut’s enclosure, comes at about 6:30 a.m. (Greenwich mean time), but Scott admits that on his last flight he often hit the snooze button. “I wouldn’t wake up at the time it says on the schedule,” he says. “I’d generally get 30 extra minutes of sleep.”

When astronauts do crawl out of the sack, the day that unfolds usually follows a 30/40/30 work breakdown—30% of the time devoted to science experiments, 40% to physical exercise and monitoring the station’s systems and 30% to fixing hardware breakdowns—which is the way of things when your home requires 52 computers, 3.3 million lines of code, 8 miles (13 km) of wiring and 90 kW of power coming from an acre of solar panels just to keep operating.
The daily schedule does allow for some downtime. Movies and books are stocked in the station, and NASA can send up nearly any TV show the astronauts request. The crew members are free to email with family members whenever they want, call home when they’ve got a good downlink and surf the Internet—though the connection can be sluggish.
On this flight, the time for distractions may be especially tight, thanks to the battery of 10 medical and psychological tests that will be on the agenda for both Scott and Kornienko in orbit and for Mark on the ground. Flight surgeons will run studies of cardiovascular efficiency, blood-­oxygen levels and blood volume. Bone density will be monitored, as well as cellular aging and fluid shifts in the body. Sonograms will be taken of the eye and optic nerve to determine how those shifts affect vision.
The body’s microbiome will come in for scrutiny as well. The bacteria that make their home in your gut are critical to maintaining bodily function, but everyone’s internal ecosystem is different, depending on diet and environment. The twins’ micro­biomes will be regularly compared, via the unlovely business of analyzing body waste. “Giving urine and stool samples is an incredibly exciting thing to do,” Mark says drily. But in the service of human spaceflight—even when that service is ­secondhand—it’s worth the small indignity. “I miss every day I spent in space,” Mark readily admits.

Your Brain on Space Travel
If the body can suffer from long-term space flight, the mind is hit even harder—and that causes NASA particular concern. Psychologists will track ­Kornienko’s and Scott’s cognitive function, mood and stress level, partly with regular—and private—interviews. They will be especially alert for what is known as the third-quarter effect, a slacking off of psychological performance that hits between the half and three-quarter point of any long confinement or tour of duty.
“Scott has flown a six-month mission, so we have data on him,” says NASA psychologist Al Holland. “But it’s not a linear thing. Running a full marathon is different from running two half-marathons.”

Here, the science must yield a bit to the wild card of human emotion, and even a veteran like Scott may have trouble wrapping his mind around the scope of the mission he’s about to undertake. His flight begins on March 28, but he has to leave the U.S. on Feb. 16, since he will take off from the Russians’ Baikonur launch complex. Recently, Kauderer, his girlfriend, mused that since his birthday is Feb. 21, he’ll be 50 when he leaves the country and 52 when he comes home . “I was like, ‘Thanks for pointing that out,’” he laughs.
It’s easy to make jokes at T minus three months. Things will get harder in the spring, when the mission’s 5,920 orbits get under way. It is then that the brother in space will be especially fortunate to have the brother on the ground. “This is a dangerous job,” says Mark. “The public doesn’t understand how dangerous. But Scott can talk to someone who’s done this before.”
During Scott’s last mission, it was Mark who had to lean on him—in January 2011, when Giffords was shot. NASA got the news up to Scott, and it was only later that the brothers could talk. For Mark, it wasn’t quite the same. “The one person who could have given me the most support,” he says, “was off the planet.” This time, the support will likely come from the ground up.
Mark has already retired from NASA but is a consultant for SpaceX and has not given up thoughts of returning to space one day. Scott has not decided whether he’ll retire when he returns to Earth in 2016. Either way, it’s unlikely that the Kelly brothers, who once dreamed of building a rocket ship side by side, will ever fly in one together. But if humanity hopes to beat the biological limits that confine us to one small planet in a trackless universe, it will depend on the kind of science both brothers will soon make possible. Only one Kelly name will be on the mission patch, but to those who appreciate the brothers’ bond, it will stand for both.

Aboard the International Space Station, Expedition 42

Merry Christmas from the International Space Station! ‪#‎AstroButch‬
Photo credit: NASA/Barry Wilmore

‪#‎SuitUp‬ with us for the ‪#‎JourneytoMars‬ in 2015. http://www.nasa.gov/suitup

 ·

While looking up for Santa tonight, keep your eyes peeled for the ‪#‎ISS‬. Find out when it passes over your town and sign up for updates: http://spotthestation.nasa.gov/
Join the conversation on Twitter using ‪#‎SpotTheStation‬ and send us your best pics to be added to our Flickr collection: https://www.flickr.com/…/nasa2explo…/sets/72157644262301579/

spotthestation.nasa.gov

spotthestation.nasa.gov

NASA - National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Aboard the International Space Station, Expedition 42 Commander Barry Wilmore and Flight Engineer Terry Virts of NASA offered their thoughts and best wishes to ...

Big on social media and love science? Apply now for a NASA Social event at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston on Jan. 15 to meet Astronaut Scott Kelly and go behind-the-scenes of his one-year mission to the space station and all the science that entails. Deadline is tomorrow at noon ET tomorrow. Apply at www.nasa.gov/iss1year-social.

Love Science? Meet Astronaut Scott Kelly and Learn About the Research Planned for his One-Year...

On Thursday, Jan. 15, 20 of NASA's social media followers will have the unique opportunity to meet Astronaut Scott Kelly who will be launching to the...

nasa.gov

It’s beginning to look like Christmas on the International Space Station. The stockings are out, the tree is up and the station residents continue advanced space research to benefit life on Earth and in space.

Station Decorated for Holidays as Crew Studies Life in Space | Space Station

Scientists on the ground worked in conjunction with the astronaut lab assistants exploring life science in space.

blogs.nasa.gov

502 922 reproducciones

International Space Station

It's great to be home for the holidays! The ‪#‎ISS‬ becomes home for visiting astronauts and is home for Astronauts Barry Wilmore and Terry Virts this holiday. Watch '93 Million Miles' set to music from Jason Mraz: http://go.nasa.gov/1AWLCJT

‪#‎SuitUp‬ with us for the ‪#‎JourneytoMars‬ in 2015. http://www.nasa.gov/suitup

271 210 reproducciones

International Space Station

A Christmas greeting from low Earth orbit! Astronauts Barry Wilmore and Terry Virts wish a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to the men and women in the armed ...

The six Expedition 42 crew members started Christmas week with a replanned schedule after SpaceX postponed its Dragon launch until Jan. 6. The crew would have been unloading new science and cargo from Dragon had it arrived Sunday but instead turned its attention to ongoing science and maintenance.

Crew Focuses on Science and Waits for Dragon’s January Launch | Space Station

Terry Virts continued preparing for the arrival of Dragon collecting gear to be stowed for return to Earth.

blogs.nasa.gov

Love Science? Meet Astronaut Scott Kelly and Learn About the Research Planned for his One-Year Mission to the International Space Station
On Thursday, Jan. 15, 20 of NASA's social media followers will have the unique opportunity to meet Astronaut Scott Kelly who will be launching to the International Space Station for a one year mission, the longest space mission ever assigned to a NASA astronaut.
Participants will also have a chance to speak with space station scientists and...

Love Science? Meet Astronaut Scott Kelly and Learn About the Research Planned for his One-Year...

On Thursday, Jan. 15, 20 of NASA's social media followers will have the unique opportunity to meet Astronaut Scott Kelly who will be launching to the...

nasa.gov

Watch as a childhood fascination for deep space and exploration is rekindled at the NASA Social for the first flight test of NASA’s Orion Spacecraft.
We are moving forward in NASA's Journey to Mars and have entered a new era of American space exploration.
VIdeo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W6zNCM6Z5Ps&feature=youtu.be

55 538 reproducciones

NASA’s Orion Spacecraft

What will astronauts see as they return from Mars?
New video recorded during NASA’s Orion return through Earth’s atmosphere provides viewers a taste of what the...

‪#‎TBT‬ to NASA Johnson Style! 2 years ago, the NASA JSC Students created a video to show their excitement for our missions. If you have not seen this, watch now! https://www.youtube.com/watch…

NASA Johnson Style (Gangnam Style Parody)

Learn more about NASA: http://www.nasa.gov Learn more about the International Space Station: http://www.nasa.gov/station Sign up to get space station sightin...

youtube.com

NASA and SpaceX announced Thursday the launch of the Dragon commercial cargo craft is now scheduled for no earlier than Jan. 6. The six-member Expedition 42 crew postponed its Dragon mission preparations and focused on eye exams and station maintenance.

Dragon Launch Slips, Crew Adjusts Schedule | Space Station

Astronaut Terry Virts worked on the Sabatier system which produces water on the space station.

blogs.nasa.gov

NASA - National Aeronautics and Space Administration and SpaceX announced today the launch of SpaceX's fifth commercial resupply services mission to the Interna...
 

 ·

TIME highlights NASA's first-ever 1-year mission to the space station. See TIME's new cover: The Year Ahead featuring Astronaut Scott Kelly. http://ti.me/1w25Qgo
Learn more about the space station research goals: nasa.gov/iss-science

NASA astronaut Terry Virts unpacked Robonaut 2 so that payload controllers from NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama could power up its new legs for the first time.

Crew Works Multitude of Advanced Robotics | Space Station

Crew members trained earlier in the week for the planned Sunday capture of Dragon using the Canadarm2.

blogs.nasa.gov

Undergraduate students, apply now for Micro-g NExT for a chance to design, build and test a tool to advance space exploration. Find out more here: https://microgravityuniversity.jsc.nasa.gov/index.cfm