A view from the Bigelow prototype (Bigelow Aerospace)
Bigelow — that company that has two inflatable structures in orbit and that plans to add an inflatable room to the International Space Station — is looking for help. The company is asking people to come to its Las Vegas facility and pretend to be astronauts for a few hours, to better test spacecraft ideas.
“The successful candidates will be expected to spend eight, 16 or 24 hour periods in a closed volume spacecraft simulation chamber. Candidates will live (eat, sleep and exercise) inside the chamber for defined periods of time and will be monitored continuously,” Bigelow wrote on the job description.
In 2015, the Bigelow Expandable Activity Module (BEAM) will be attached to the station as a sort of inflatable room. The test will examine the viability of inflatable structures in space. Pictured in front are NASA Deputy Administrator Lori Garver and Robert T. Bigelow, president and founder of Bigelow Aerospace in 2013. NASA/Bill Ingalls
“Successful candidates will be given structured daily tasks and schedules and will be expected to produce detailed daily reports on their activities and on their interactions with other crew members. The candidate will implement Bigelow Aerospace programs for quantifying, evaluating and optimizing crew systems, including process efficiencies, program quality and reporting on psychological, existential, social and environmental factors in spacecraft crews.”
Take note that only U.S. citizens or permanent residents are allowed to apply, and that you must hold a “BS or MS in Social, Psychological, Behavioral, Biological, Nursing, Engineering, or Human Factors Sciences,” Bigelow added.
NASA astronaut Mike Hopkins during his first spacewalk on Dec. 21, 2013 during Expedition 38. He tweeted the next day: "Wow . . . can't believe that is me yesterday. Wish I could find the words to describe the experience, truly amazing." Credit: NASA
Two astronauts are oh-so-close to fixing the International Space Station cooling system that shut down Dec. 11. NASA astronauts Mike Hopkins and Rick Mastracchio will head “outside” on a spacewalk around 7:10 a.m. EST (12:10 p.m. UTC) to replace a faulty pump that led to the problem.
The spacewalkers were so quick on their first outing (on Saturday, Dec. 21) that they accomplished many of the tasks planned for their second spacewalk. They unhooked the first pump module and stowed it safely, then elected to wait until their second to retrieve the replacement pump, swap it in and turn it on.
Below the jump, here are some things to watch for — including why Hopkins is getting a ride on the Canadarm2 robotic arm this time instead of Mastracchio.
The suits. NASA has new safety procedures and measures in place to protect against helmet water leaks, and everything worked perfectly the first time. In an unrelated incident, while the astronauts were in the airlock, an inadvertent switch-throw introduced some water into Mastracchio’s sublimator. The suit is airing out and Mastracchio is wearing a backup suit. While sublimators need water to function, this water could have ended up in the wrong spot. If he had used the one with the water in it, it could have frozen during the second spacewalk and caused problems, Judd Frieling, the Expedition 38 lead flight director, explained on NASA TV Monday.
The background personnel. While it’s easy to shine the spotlight on the two guys outside, also remember that Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata will be piloting the robotic arm under direction from CapCom and fellow Japanese astronaut Aki Hoshide. Giving advice to the spacewalkers will be CapCom and NASA astronaut Doug Wheelock, who did a similar repair on the International Space Station in 2010. As Wheelock told Universe Today, there are literally hundreds (likely, thousands) of people working the procedures to get this done.
The timeline. NASA really, really wants to wrap this repair up soon, and it’s not because of the holidays. Dec. 27 marks a planned spacewalk for the Russian side of the station that is totally unrelated to what is going on right now. The Americans are hoping they won’t disrupt the schedule so that the Russians can proceed with their experiment swapouts and foot restraint installation as originally planned.
Image above: Expedition 24 Flight Engineers Doug Wheelock (right) and Tracy Caldwell Dyson work to replace a failed ammonia pump module outside of the International Space Station. Credit: NASA TV
The robotic arm. Hopkins is a much more junior spacewalker than the experienced Mastracchio, who has seven spacewalks underneath his belt before today. Hopkins, who is on his first spaceflight, is in a situation where he can expect more flights in the future. So any training he can get in orbit would be fantastic as he would be a stronger asset on future missions. So, Mastracchio was supposed to ride the Canadarm2 on the second spacewalk, but at that time NASA anticipated it would take three to do the repair. Since the crew finished the work so swiftly, it’s likely only two will be needed. As such, giving Hopkins the slot would be the best practice, NASA and the crew determined.
The future pump move. NASA decided not to move the faulty pump from its temporary stowage location until later. Due to thermal conditions on station, it can stay in its temporary spot until June. This saves the spacewalkers extra work now, but someone will need to head outside by summer to move it to a more permanent location.
The streaked and stained surface of Phobos. (Image: NASA)
After seeing Phobos imaged from the surface of the Red Planet by Mars Curiosity, now we’re lucky to get a close-up treat: here’s a video showing Mars Express images of the Martian moon over the last 10 years. The images reveal mysterious grooves running through the small moon, which is 13.5-miles (22 kilometers) in diameter, and scientists still aren’t sure what’s going on.
“The moon’s parallel sets of grooves are perhaps the most striking feature, along with the giant 9 km-wide Stickney impact crater that dominates one face,” the European Space Agency wrote.
“The origin of the moon’s grooves is a subject of much debate. One idea assumes that the crater chains are associated with impact events on the moon itself. Another idea suggests they result from Phobos moving through streams of debris thrown up from impacts 6000 km away on the surface of Mars, with each ‘family’ of grooves corresponding to a different impact event.”
The Kirobo talking robot on the ISS. Credit: Toyota.
Just how human-sounding is Kirobo, the first talking robot on the station? This amusing conversation, recorded on the International Space Station and broadcast on a Toyota YouTube channel, shows a pint-sized robot that not only responds to questions, but also gestures and moves around in a scary person-like way.
As Kirobo chats with Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata — who is excellent at deadpan, by the way — the two discussed matters such as how the Earth looks from space, the Japanese robotic arm Kibo and — right at the end — the most important difference between Kirobo and his backup, Mirata.
We don’t want to spoil the joy of the conversation for you by repeating what Kirobo says, but let’s just say there’s something special about watching a Japanese space robot make a reference to the first landing on the moon, which was hailed as a huge technological achievement when it happened in 1969.
The 13.4-inch (0.34 meter) Kirobo is sponsored by Toyota and the University of Tokyo and is supposed to be able to pick up on the facial expressions of crewmates. The robot will be working closely with Wakata during Expedition 38 and then Expedition 39, when Wakata assumes command of station.
One goal is to see how well humans and semi-autonomous robots can work together in space. To see Kirobo’s first words from station, check out our past story from September.
The Expedition 38 crew tests spacesuits in preparation for December spacewalks to replace a pump for the International Space Station's cooling system. In the spacesuits are NASA astronauts Mike Hopkins (left) and Rick Mastracchio. Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata is in the foreground, with Russian commander Oleg Kotov behind. Credit: NASA TV
The week before Christmas will be full of spacewalk preparations for Expedition 38 as they get ready to remove and replace a malfunctioning pump aboard the International Space Station.
NASA astronauts Rick Mastracchio and Mike Hopkins will participate in the spacewalks, NASA said today (Dec. 17), with Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata handling robotic operations during the Dec. 21, Dec. 23 and Dec. 25 activities.
A new pump is needed to regulate temperatures in an external ammonia cooling loop that shut down automatically Wednesday (Dec. 11) when it got too cold. The loop keeps equipment at the right temperature on station. While the astronauts have been fine for the past week, several redundant systems and some experiments are offline. Luckily for the crew, other astronauts previously installed three spare pumps on station, which you can see in the graphic below.
Locations of spare pumps on the International Space Station as of December 2013. Credit: NASA
Spacewalks are always a risky proposition, and NASA has not conducted any since Italian astronaut Luca Parmitano experienced a leak in an American spacesuit in July. As such, the agency spent several days trying to fix the cooling loop by other means.
A faulty control valve made the pump malfunction on Wednesday. The valve normally mixes warm ammonia that flows past external radiators on station with cooler ammonia that was put through those radiators. NASA first tried to control the valve from the ground, then focused its attention on an isolation control valve upstream from the pump that the agency hoped could serve as a backup. The isolation valve, however, was only designed to be closed or opened fully — not positioned in between.
As of 11 a.m. EST (4 p.m. UTC) today, NASA was working on a software patch to try to freeze the valve in different positions to manually regulate the flow of ammonia.
“The fidelity that we have here on the ground to precisely control when that valve starts moving and stops is on the order of about 0.2 seconds, 0.3 seconds, somewhere in that range. We really need the fidelity to be much higher than that,” said Judd Frieling, the Expedition 38 lead flight director, in an update on NASA Television.
“We need it to be on the order of 0.1 seconds. So the way we can reliably produce that is by putting some software on the computers on board that basically allows us to get that finer control. So engineers and coders, overnight, have been working on a software — we call it a patch — software fix, to one of the computers that controls that valve.”
NASA planned to upload the patch to the station this afternoon (EST) to see if it was possible to control the isolation valve by telling it to move, then cutting the power when it got to a certain spot. The agency did not say how successful that fix was, but will likely address that in a media briefing tomorrow at 3 p.m. EST (8 p.m. UTC).
Cooling problems have occurred on station before. The most recent failure was a leak in May, which the Expedition 35 crew fixed just days before some of the astronauts went home. A more prominent failure on the same cooling loop occurred in 2010, when Expedition 24 astronauts performed three spacewalks to replace a faulty pump.
Each of the three emergency spacewalks this month (Dec. 21, 23 and 25) will start at 7:10 a.m. EST (12:10 p.m. UTC) and take about 6.5 hours to perform, NASA added. The activities will be carried live on NASA Television, with coverage starting about an hour before each spacewalk is expected to begin.
A view outside the cupola of the ISS. Credit: NASA.
For the past 13 years, Google has put together their annual “Zeitgeist” lists — “signs of the times” as to what people around the world were interested in, as registered by the internet’s largest search engine. In this compilation video, released by Google today, you’ll see space exploration and astronomical events show up several times. At :17 in the “New Frontiers” section with Voyager 2 entering interstellar space; at :45 the Chelyabinsk meteor flashes across the screen, at :53 the Kirobo robot shows up, at 1:13 Curiosity rolls across Mars, and at 1:14 you can look out the cupola windows of the International Space Station in the “Inspiration” section. You can see what trended in the various charts here.
Iran’s space program reportedly launched its second monkey into space on a 15-minute flight on Saturday (Dec. 14).
Reports from the Islamic Republic News Agency said the ballistic flight reached as high as 75 miles (120 kilometers). That’s just beyond the Karman line of 62 miles (100 kilometers) that many authorities cite as the boundary of space.
“The President said that thank God, Iranian astronauts launched into the space the second monkey, Fargam, on the first day of the Week of Research, the ‘Pajouhesh’ explorer and landed in full safety and health,” read a dispatch on IRNA, which is the official state agency in Iran.
The United States, Soviet Union and France sent primates themselves into space in the 1960s, many of which did not survive the trip. “Ham” is among the most famous monkey space voyagers; the U.S. chimp launched into space and landed safely on Jan. 31, 1961, a few months before astronaut Al Shepard became the first American person in space that May.
A view of the International Space Station as seen by the last departing space shuttle crew, STS-135. Credit: NASA
The decision to launch a cargo flight to the International Space Station next week has been pushed back until Monday (Dec. 16) because of a cooling problem on station that forced the shutdown of redundant systems, according to a NASA update.
Orbital Sciences’ Cygnus commercial spacecraft is expected to blast off on Dec. 18 from the Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia. However, with some station systems offline, the launch does not now meet certain “commit criteria” to make its journey to space next week, said Kenny Todd, the space station’s mission integration and operations manager.
“We haven’t lost any primary functionality,” he said in a NASA Television update today (Dec. 12), emphasizing that the six-person Expedition 38 crew is fine. “There is some redundancy that we’re down right now, but that’s not something I would call critical to day-to-day station operations.”
While a spacewalk is a possibility to fix the problem, it’s too early to say what NASA and other space station partners will decide to do.
NASA controllers spent the night examining a control valve blamed for causing an ammonia pump to shut down yesterday (Dec. 12). The space station uses liquid ammonia to maintain its temperature, pumping the ammonia through external radiators to bleed off heat. Astronauts have made periodic spacewalks to repair parts of the ammonia system, most recently in May when Expedition 35 replaced a pump controller box on the P6 (far port) truss just days before some crew members went home.
Expedition 35 Flight Engineers Chris Cassidy (left) and Tom Marshburn on a spacewalk on May 11 to inspect and replace a pump controller box on the International Space Station’s far port truss (P6) leaking ammonia coolant. Credit: NASA.
“The pump module on one of ISS two external cooling loops automatically shut down today when it got too cold,” stated the NASA Johnson Space Center Twitter feed yesterday (Dec. 11).
“The pump was brought back online, but they think a valve may not be working correctly inside it. Some of the station’s internal electrical systems were moved over to the second loop, and some noncritical things were powered down. The crew was always safe and will work with the ground teams as they figure out what caused the issue.”
Non-critical systems were powered down in the Harmony node, Columbus Laboratory and Japanese Kibo laboratory. After confirming that the new configuration was stable, controllers began this morning (EST) to move the troublesome valve to several positions and monitor the effect on cooling temperatures, according to a NASA TV update.
The Japanese Kibo module on the International Space Station as photographed by a member of the Expedition 38 crew in 2013. Credit: NASA
The crew is going about their activities as much as possible, although they’re on a “reduced timeline” because some of the experiments aren’t running as usual. (Science collected up to now is “not at risk”, Todd said.)
Responding to questions on social media, NASA astronaut Douglas Wheelock — who led three unplanned spacewalks in 2010 to replace a broken ammonia pump module on the S1 truss in the same cooling loop — said he is working with Mission Control to see what needs to be done next.
NASA astronaut Douglas Wheelock during a contingency spacewalk Nov. 16, 2010 after an ammonia cooling pump failed aboard the International Space Station. During this spacewalk, Wheelock and fellow Expedition 24 crew member Tracy Caldwell installed a spare ammonia pump module on the S1 Truss on the space station. The duo did three contingency spacewalks during the mission to address the problem. Credit: NASA
Astronauts have been troubleshooting the suit periodically on board station, but NASA is planning to send it back on the next SpaceX Dragon flight to Earth for further investigation. SpaceX isn’t planning to get to the station again until late February, media reports say. Russian spacewalks can still continue as they use a separate suit; the most recent one took place in November with the Olympic torch.
While Todd didn’t quite say the ban on spacewalks has been lifted, he added that NASA has new procedures in place to guard against another crew member facing the same water issue. He did not elaborate on what those procedures are.
The current launch window for Cygnus extends as far as Dec. 21 and “possibly” the 22nd, Todd said, but emphasized more time is needed to come to a decision. “At this point, for lack of a better term, we’re going to kick the can a little bit and let the team work a little bit more,” he said.
Updates will follow as the situation and fix progresses.
NASA's Morpheus Project -- a prototype for vertical landing and takeoff for other planets -- during a free flight test Dec. 10, 2013. Credit: NASA (@MorpheusLander Twitter feed)
What an otherworldly experience, without having to leave Earth! The Morpheus Project wrapped up a successful free-flight test yesterday. That picture above is just to whet your appetite for the actual video, which you can see (and definitely hear) after the jump below.
“WOOOOHOOOOO! How about them apples?!” the @MorpheusLander Twitter feed said shortly after the test wrapped up with a takeoff, hover and landing at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. “Successful #FREEFLIGHT @NASAKennedy today!” the feed added later. “Get ready for us to #increasetheawesome as we progress through our tests!”
The team is of course analyzing the data to see how successful this free flight was for the planetary landing prototype that NASA is testing.
NASA’s goal with Morpheus is to demonstrate landing technologies at low cost, to possibly bring on to planetary missions in the future — and ultimately, human ones as well.
“The Morpheus project and the Autonomous Landing and Hazard Avoidance Technology (ALHAT) project provide technological foundations for key components of the greater exploration architecture necessary to move humans beyond low Earth orbit (LEO),” the project stated on its website.
At Saturn, NASA's Cassini spacecraft snapped pictures showing a high-resolution view of a hexagon-shaped jet stream. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSI/Hampton
A raging hurricane is creating a “suck zone” at Saturn’s north pole. The handy Cassini spacecraft recently captured a bunch of images of the six-sided jet stream surrounding the storm, which mission managers then put together into an awesome animation showing the wind currents shifting. (You can see the animation below the jump.)
The feature is pretty in a picture, but NASA has a special interest because there is nothing else like this anywhere in our solar system, the agency stated. The immense storm stretches 20,000 miles (30,000 kilometers) across with winds whipping in its jet stream at 200 miles per hour (322 kilometers per hour). And despite all the turbulence, the storm is staying put at the north pole for reasons scientists are still trying to understand.
“The hexagon is just a current of air, and weather features out there that share similarities to this are notoriously turbulent and unstable,” said Andrew Ingersoll, a Cassini imaging team member at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. “A hurricane on Earth typically lasts a week, but this has been here for decades — and who knows — maybe centuries.”
An animation of Cassini Saturn images showing a hexagonal jet stream surrounding a storm at the north pole. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSI/Hampton University
Cassini has been orbiting Saturn since 2004, but it’s only since last year that it’s been able to peer at the hexagon with much success. That’s because the angle of the sun is finally favorable to peer at the storm. This has allowed scientists, for example, to look at the types of particles inside. They discovered that the jet stream is a sort of barrier around the storm, delineating a location with a lot of small haze particles and few large haze particles. (It’s the opposite outside of the jet stream). Scientists said it looks like the Antarctic ozone hole on Earth.
“The Antarctic ozone hole forms within a region enclosed by a jet stream with similarities to the hexagon,” NASA stated.
“Wintertime conditions enable ozone-destroying chemical processes to occur, and the jet stream prevents a resupply of ozone from the outside. At Saturn, large aerosols cannot cross into the hexagonal jet stream from outside, and large aerosol particles are created when sunlight shines on the atmosphere. Only recently, with the start of Saturn’s northern spring in August 2009, did sunlight begin bathing the planet’s northern hemisphere.”
Should Cassini have enough funding to function for a few more years, scientists are eager to watch as Saturn gets to its summer solstice in 2017 and the lighting gets even better around the north pole.
NASA also held an interesting Google+ Hangout yesterday (Nov. 4) about Saturn and the Cassini mission that featured Carolyn Porco, director of the Cassini Imaging Team and the Cassini Imaging Central Laboratory for Operations (CICLOPS). The whole video below is worth a watch, but here’s a little tidbit to let you know some of what was talked about:
“If you took all the mass of Saturn’s rings and recomposed it into a moon, it would be no bigger than Enceladus, so it’s a big spectacle coming from little mass,” Porco said. “The main rings are very thin, only about 30 feet [9 meters] thick, no bigger than about 2 stories in a modern day building. Despite the fact they are about 280,000 km [174,000 miles] across.”
