Hotfire test of Aerojet Rocketdyne AJ26 engines on the E-1 Test Stand at NASA’s Stennis Space Center on Jan 17, 2014. Credit: NASA
Hotfire test of Aerojet Rocketdyne AJ26 engines on the E-1 Test Stand at NASA’s Stennis Space Center on Jan 17, 2014. Credit: NASA
See up close AJ26 photos below[/caption]
A Russian built rocket engine planned for future use in the first stage of Orbital Sciences Corp. commercial Antares rocket launching to the International Space Station failed during pre-launch acceptance testing on Thursday afternoon, May 22, at NASA’s Stennis Space Center in Mississippi.
“There was a test failure at Stennis yesterday afternoon (May 22),” Orbital Sciences spokesman Barry Beneski told Universe Today.
The Aerojet Rocketdyne AJ26 rocket engine failed with extensive damage about halfway through the planned test aimed at qualifying the engine for an Antares flight scheduled for early next year.
“Engineers are examining data to determine the cause of the failure,” Beneski told me.
The test was initiated at about 3:00 p.m. EDT on Thursday and the anomaly occurred approximately 30 seconds into the planned 54-second test.
“It terminated prematurely, resulting in extensive damage to the engine,” Orbital said in a statement.
An investigation into the incident by Aerojet and NASA has begun. The cause of the failure is not known.
“During hot-fire testing on May 22 at NASA’s Stennis Space Center, Aerojet Rocketdyne’s AJ26 engine experienced a test anomaly. The company is leading an investigation to determine the cause,” Aerojet spokesperson Jessica Pieczonka told Universe Today.
Up close view of two AJ26 first stage engines at the base of an Antares rocket at NASA Wallops during exclusive visit by Ken Kremer/Universe Today. These engines powered the successful Antares liftoff on Jan. 9, 2014 at NASA Wallops, Virginia. Credit: Ken Kremer – kenkremer.com
Fortunately no one was hurt.
“There were no injuries,” Pieczonka confirmed to me.
A team of NASA, Orbital Sciences Corporation, Aerojet Rocketdyne and Lockheed Martin engineers tests all of the AJ26 engines on the E-1 Test Stand at NASA’s Stennis Space Center before delivering them to the launch site at NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia.
The testing program began in November 2010.
“Stennis will perform checkouts to the facility to ensure its operational integrity,” NASA Stennis spokesperson Rebecca Strecker told me.
Antares first stage is powered by a pair of liquid oxygen and kerosene fueled AJ26-62 engines that deliver a combined 734,000 pounds (3265 kilonewtons) of sea level thrust.
To date, the AJ26 engines have performed flawlessly through a total of three Antares launches from NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia.
They measure 3.3 meters (10.9 feet) in height and weigh 1590 kg (3,500 lb.).
Side view of two AJ26 first stage engines at the base of an Antares rocket during exclusive visit by Ken Kremer/Universe Today. These engines powered the successful Antares liftoff on Jan. 9, 2014 at NASA Wallops, Virginia. Credit: Ken Kremer – kenkremer.com
The next Antares rocket is slated to blastoff on June 10 with the Cygnus cargo freighter on the Orb-2 resupply mission to the ISS.
As of today, it’s not known whether the June flight will have to be postponed.
“It is too early to tell if upcoming Antares flights will be affected,” Beneski said.
The most recent launch of the two stage rocket took place this past winter on Jan. 9, 2014 on the Orb-1 resupply mission.
Orbital Sciences technicians at work on two AJ26 first stage engines at the base of an Antares rocket during exclusive visit by Ken Kremer/Universe Today at NASA Wallaps. These engines powered the successful Antares liftoff on Jan. 9, 2014 at NASA Wallops, Virginia bound for the ISS. Credit: Ken Kremer – kenkremer.com
The AJ26 engines were originally known as the NK-33 and built in the Soviet Union for their manned moon landing program.
Aerojet extensively modified, checked and tested the NK-33 engines now designated as the AJ26-62 to qualify them for use in the first stage Antares core, which is manufactured in Ukraine by the Yuznoye Design Bureau and based on the Zenit launch vehicle.
“Each test of an AJ26 engine is exciting and affirming because it is in direct support of NASA’s commercial space flight efforts, as well as a continuation of a very successful Stennis partnership with Orbital and Aerojet Rocketdyne,” Stennis Director Rick Gilbrech said in an earlier statement.
Antares soars to space on Jan. 9, 2014 from NASA Wallops on Virginia coast on the Orb-1 mission to the ISS. Photo taken by remote camera at launch pad. Credit: Ken Kremer – kenkremer.com
Orbital Sciences was awarded a $1.9 Billion supply contract by NASA to deliver 20,000 kilograms of research experiments, crew provisions, spare parts and hardware for 8 flights to the ISS through 2016 under the Commercial Resupply Services (CRS) initiative.
The June mission would be the second operational Antares/Cygnus flight.
SpaceX has a similar resupply contract using their Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon cargo carrier and just completed their 3rd operational mission to the ISS.
Antares rocket powered by AJ26 1st stage engines successfully launched on Jan. 9, 2014. Here it undergoes processing at the Horizontal Integration Facility at NASA Wallops, Virginia, during exclusive visit by Ken Kremer/Universe Today. Credit: Ken Kremer – kenkremer.com
Screen capture from NASA TV of the Soyuz approaching the International Space Station with the Expedition 35/36 crew. Via NASA TV
Facing sanctions from the United States government, a high-ranking Russian official took to Twitter today (April 29) to express his frustration, warning that NASA has few options should Soyuz flights to the International Space Station cease.
“After analyzing the sanctions against our space industry, I suggest to the USA to bring their astronauts to the International Space Station using a trampoline,” wrote Dmitry Rogozin, Russia’s deputy prime minister, in a Russian-language tweet highlighted by NBC News.
The jibe points to the fact that only the Russians can bring crews up to the space station right now. Rogozin also linked to a story in Russian RT where he is quoted as saying (if Google Translate is correct) that the Americans will see a “boomerang” of sanctions laid upon Russian officials.
On April 2, as part of a larger policy of the Obama administration, NASA announced it would cease most connections with Russia except for those essential ones related to the International Space Station. NASA administrator Charles Bolden has repeatedly said that things are normal with the Russians when it comes to the station.
Structure arms for Soyuz TMA-11M (the launching vehicle for Expedition 38) raise into place in this long-exposure photograph taken in Kazakhstan. Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls
The United States is dependent on the Russian Soyuz to bring astronauts to the space station. The U.S. method of transportation ceased in 2011 after the space shuttle retired, and commercial spacecraft — though being developed — are not expected to be ready until about 2017.
That said, one of the developers of these spacecraft — SpaceX CEO Elon Musk — wrote on Twitter that the public will soon see the unveiling of the human-rated Dragon spacecraft that the company has been working on with contract money from NASA. (The other funded spacecraft proposals are Boeing’s CST-100 and Sierra Nevada’s Dream Chaser).
Sounds like this might be a good time to unveil the new Dragon Mk 2 spaceship that @SpaceX has been working on w @NASA. No trampoline needed — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 29, 2014
Cover drops on May 29. Actual flight design hardware of crew Dragon, not a mockup.
The Russian situation is expected to weigh heavily on NASA budget discussions for fiscal 2014 and 2015 as agency officials try to make their case that commercial funding should be sustained, or even increased, for Americans to be able to launch from their own soil again quickly.
The Kavir desert in Iran, as seen from the International Space Station on Feb. 14, 2014. Credit: NASA.
At first glance, this beautiful swirling view appears like clouds above a large body of water or possibly the eddies of ocean currents. Surprisingly, this is a desert, the Kavir desert (Dasht-e Kavir – literally ‘desert of salt-marsh’) in Iran, and the image was taken by one of the astronauts on the International Space Station.
An annotated version of the image of the Kavir Desert. Credit: NASA
You’ll notice the striking pattern of parallel lines and sweeping curves. NASA explains that the lack of soil and vegetation in this desert allows the geological structure of the rocks to appear quite clearly from space and the patterns result from the gentle folding of numerous, thin layers of rock. “Later erosion by wind and water cut a flat surface across the dark- and light-colored folds, not only exposing hundreds of layers but also showing the shapes of the folds. The pattern has been likened to the layers of a sliced onion,” NASA says.
While a quick look at Google Maps (see image below) shows that most of the region does appear to be sand-colored brown from space, there are regions with blue tints due to the folds and layers in the exposed surfaces, and the image is actually just a small part of the 77,600 square kilometer (30,000 sq mile) desert. It’s a bit difficult to get a sense of scale in the top image since there are no fields or roads to provide a reference, but the width of the image is about 105 kilometers (65 miles).
There is some water in this area, however. In the center of the NASA image is a dark s-shaped region is a lake and a small river snakes across the bottom of the image. The irregular, light-toned patch just left of the lake is a sand sheet thin enough to allow the underlying rock layers to be detected.
Screenshot of Google Maps showing the Kavir Desert in Iran.
Astronaut Rick Mastraccio works outside the International Space Station during a spacewalk on Dec. 24, 2013. Credit: NASA
NASA announced today that the Obama administration has approved NASA’s request for an extension of operations for the International Space Station for an additional four years to 2024. This means work on board the orbiting laboratory will continue at least for another decade.
“I think this is a tremendous announcement for us here in the space station world,” said Bill Gerstenmaier, associate administrator for NASA’s Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate, speaking during a press briefing today, “ and also for all of human spaceflight and for our international partnership.”
“This is a tremendous gift the administration has given us,” he added later.
Gerstenmaier said the extension allows NASA to expand their planning horizons, and it will change the way scientists and commercial companies look at their “investment” in the future of the ISS.
“We’re starting to see a lot of science benefits on ISS that have a lot of applications here on Earth, such as pharmaceuticals, materials processing, and climate change equipment, and operating until least 2024 opens up a large avenue of research on the ISS,” he said. “This also changes the perspective for commercial providers … as the commercial sector now has a larger market to carry cargo to space for NASA, as well as crew.”
Commercial Spaceflight Federation president and former astronaut Michael Lopez-Alegria agreed. “The International Space Station is the crown jewel of NASA’s human spaceflight program,” he said in a statement. “This extension comes at a critical time and paves the way for the ISS to fulfill its extensive and multifaceted potential – as a research lab that will provide countless benefits here on Earth, as an anchor destination for America’s commercial space race and as a jumping off point for deep space technology development and exploration.”
Gerstenmaier also sees the ISS as a proving ground for future human spaceflight plans to head out to deep space. “NASA doesn’t think of ISS and deep space human plans as separate, but as a combined strategy,” he said.
A recent review of ISS modules and equipment ensured that the station could likely last until 2028, and Gerstenmaier said this new extension allows operations to be at least considered until nearly 2030.
“Ten years from today is a far-reaching vision,” he said. “Our international partners are well aware of this extension and they were involved in hardware studies to see if station operations could extend. They will continue to evaluate their hardware and they all see this as a positive step in moving forward. … This is truly an international endeavor and we all work together.”
The International Space Station as seen from the crew of STS-119. (Credit: NASA).
Gerstenmeier added that it’s not immediately clear whether all of the 15 nations involved in the ISS along with the US will continue to participate for the duration of the life of the ISS, but that NASA is prepared to work with whatever plans the international partnership evolves into over time.
He said that no additional funding for the ISS was currently required for the extension, as the basic budget now covers the ISS to at least 2020, and the funds set aside for eventually deorbiting the ISS will be shifted towards operations.
Additional funding will likely be required at some point, however, but well past when the current Administration and Congress will be obligated to decide.
Expedition 36/37's Luca Parmitano, a European Space Agency astronaut, moments after landing Nov. 10, 2013. Credit: NASA/Carla Cioffi
The big news around astronaut circles these days is the assignment of Takuya Onishi — from the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency — to Expedition 48/49 around June 2016. Onishi is from the class of 2009, and we’re guessing he’d be sure to poll his classmates on how their mission training is going.
Well, another of the 2009 astronaut class — Luca Parmitano — just returned from six months in space. It was an eventful mission, with Parmitano facing down a scary water leak during a spacewalk, using the Canadarm to berth and let go of a cargo spacecraft, and then delighting the Internet with enthusiastic fist pumps just minutes after he landed.
Parmitano speaks about the science on station (up to 150 experiments at one time!) as well as what he was experiencing during the leak:
“We were starting our third task, and I felt some water on the back of my head,” he said in an undated video from orbit included in the new video. “And I realized it was cold water. It was not a normal feeling. So I called ground, and that point we called to terminate the EVA.”
But he made it back safely, and looks more than ready to take on another mission in this picture. The cause of the leak is still under investigation, and NASA is holding off on more spacewalks with American suits until they figure out what happened.
A 10 second exposure of a bright pass of the International Space Station. (Photo by Author).
It’s a question we get all the time.
Watch the sky closely in the dawn or dusk hours, and you’ll likely see a moving “star” or two sliding by. These are satellites, or “artificial moons” placed in low Earth orbit. These shine via reflected sunlight as they pass hundreds of kilometres overhead.
Many folks are unaware that you can see satellites with the naked eye. I always make an effort to watch for these during public star parties and point them out. A bright pass of the International Space Station if often as memorable as anything that can be seen through the eyepiece. But after this revelation, “the question” soon follows- “What satellite is that?”
Welcome to the wonderful and highly addictive world of satellite tracking. Ground observers have been watching the skies since Sputnik 1 and the first satellite launch in October 1957. Armies of dedicated volunteers even participated in tracking the early launches of the Space Age with Operation Moonwatch.
Depiction of the apparent motion of a typical satellite overhead with respect to the observer. (Graphic created by author).
The Internet has offered a wealth of information for satellite hunters. Every time I write about “how to spot the ISS,” someone amazes me with yet another new tracker App that I hadn’t heard of. One of my favorites is still Heavens-Above. It’s strange to think that we’ve been visiting this outstanding website daily for a decade and a half now. Heavens-Above specializes in satellites, and will show you a quick listing of passes for brighter satellites once configured with your location. A nifty “quick check” for possibly resolving a mystery satellite is their link for “Daily Predictions for brighter satellites” Which will generate a list of visible passes by time.
Screenshot of a typical list of bright satellite passes from Heavens-Above filtered by brightness, time and location .
Looking at the time, direction, and brightness of a pass is crucial to satellite identification. No equipment is needed to start the hunt for satellites tonight, just a working set of eyes and information. We sometimes use a set of Canon image-stabilized 15x 45 binoculars to hunt for satellites too faint to see with the naked eye. We’ve seen the “Tool Bag” lost during an ISS EVA a few years back, as well as such “living relics” of the early Space Age as Canada’s first satellite Alloutte-1, and the Vanguards (Yes, they’re STILL up there!) using binocs.
A comparison of typical satellite orbits. (Credit: Cmglee, Geo Swan graphic under a Creative Commons Attribution -Share Alike 3.0 unported license).
The trick to catching fainter satellites such as these is to “ambush” them. You’ll need to note the precise time that the selected satellite is going to pass near a bright star. Clicking on a selected satellite pass in Heavens-Above will give you a local sky chart with a time-marked path. I use a short wave portable AM radio tuned to WWV out of Fort Collins, Colorado for an accurate audible time signal. Just sit back, listen to the radio call out the time, and watch for the satellite to pass through the field of view near the target star.
Another great site for more advanced trackers is CALSky. Like Heavens-Above, CALSky will give you a customized list for satellite passes over your location. One cool extra feature on CALSky is the ability to set alerts for passes of the ISS near bright planets or transiting the Sun or Moon. These are difficult events to capture, but worth it!
The International Space Station transiting the Moon as captured by Mike Weasner from Cassiopeia Observatory in Arizona.
A great deal of what’s up there is space junk in the form of discarded hardware. Many satellites are on looping elliptical orbits, only visible to the naked eye when they are near perigee. Many satellites are located out at geosynchronous or geostationary orbits 35,786 kilometres distant and are invisible to the naked eye all together. These will often show up as streaks in astrophotos. An area notorious for geosynchronous satellites exists near the direction of M42 or Orion Nebula. During certain times of year, satellites can be seen nearby, nodding slowly north to south and back again. Around the March and September equinox seasons, geostationary satellites can be eclipsed by the shadow of the Earth. This can also cause communications difficulties, as many geo-sats also lie sunward as seen from the Earth around these times of year.
Probably one of the simplest satellite trackers for casual users is Space Weather’s Satellite Flybys page. North American users simply need to enter a postal code (worldwide users can track satellites via entering “country-state-city”) and a list of passes for your location is generated.
It’s a basic truism of satellite tracking that “aircraft blink; satellites don’t”. Know, we’re going to present an exception to this rule.
Some satellites will flash rhythmically due to a tumbling motion. This can be pretty dramatic to see. What you’re seeing is an expended booster, a cylinder tumbling due to atmospheric drag end-over-end. Some satellites can flash or flare briefly due to sunlight glinting off of reflective surfaces just right. Hubble, the ISS and the late NanoSail D2 can flare if conditions are just right.
The most dramatic of these are Iridium flares. The Iridium constellation consists of 66 active satellites used for satellite phone coverage in low-Earth orbit. When one of their three refrigerator-sized antennas catch the Sun just right, they can flare up to magnitude -8, or 40 times brighter than Venus. CALSky and Heavens-Above will also predict these events for your location.
Didn’t see a predicted satellite pass? Light pollution or bright twilight skies might be to blame. Keep in mind, passes lower to the horizon also fall prey to atmospheric extinction, as you’re looking through a thicker layer of the air than straight overhead. Some satellites such as the ISS or the USAF’s X-37B spy space plane even periodically boost or modify their orbits, throwing online prediction platforms off for a time.
A screenshot example of TLE’s for the ISS & Tiangong-1 from Celestrak.
I use a free tracking platform created by Sebastian Stoff known as Orbitron. Orbitron lets you set your observing location and tailor your view for what’s currently over head. You can run simulations and even filter for “visual only” passes, another plus. I also like Orbitron’s ability to run as a stand-alone system in the field, sans Internet connection. Just remember, for it to work properly, you’ll need to periodically update the .txt file containing the Two-Line Element (TLE) sets. TLE’s are data element sets that describe the orbital elements of a satellite. Cut and paste TLEs are available from Heavens-Above and Celestrak.
Orbitron screenshot for visible satellites using ‘radar’ mode… there’s lots up there! (Credit: Orbitron).
For serious users, NORAD’s Space-Track is the best site for up-to-date TLEs. Space-Track requires a login and user agreement to access, but is available to satellite spotters and educators as a valuable resource. Space-Track also hosts a table of upcoming reentries, as does the Aerospace Corporation’s Center for Orbital & Reentry Debris Studies.
The SeeSat-L mailing list is also an excellent source of discussion among satellite trackers worldwide. Increasingly, this discussion is also moving over to Twitter, which is ideal for following swiftly evolving action in orbit. @Twisst, created by Jaap Meijers,will even Tweet you prior to an ISS pass!
And there’s always something new or strange in the sky for the observant. Satellites such as those used in the Naval Ocean Surveillance System (NOSS) were launched in groups, and are eerie to watch as they move in formations of 2 or 3 across the sky. These are difficult to catch, and all three of our sightings thus far of a NOSS pair have been surreptitious. And we’ve only had the camera ready to swing into action once to nab a NOSS pair;
A NOSS pair captured by the author. The multi-colored trail to the left of the path is an aircraft. Note a bit of “jitter” at the beginning of the exposure- I had to swing the camera into action quickly!
Another bizarre satellite to catch in action is known as the Cloud-Aerosol LiDAR & Infrared Pathfinder Satellite for Observations, or CALIPSO. Part of the “afternoon A-Train” of sun-synchronous Earth observing satellites, you can catch the green LiDAR flashes of CALIPSO from the ground with careful planning, just as Gregg Hendry did in 2008-2009:
A CALIPSO LiDAR pass imaged by Gregg Hendry in 2008. My Hendry mentions that, “The hollow nature of the spots is likely due to some spherical aberration in the camera lens coupled with imperfect focus, and is not representative of the laser beam’s optical quality.” (Credit: Gregg Hendry, used with permission).
NASA even publishes a prediction table for CALIPSO lidar passes. I wonder how many UFO sightings CALIPSO has generated?
Artist’s depiction of the A-Train constellation of Earth-Observing satellites. (Credit: NASA).
And speaking of photography, it’s easy to catch a bright pass such as the ISS on camera. Shooting a satellite pass with a wide field is similar to shooting star trails; just leave the shutter open for 10-60 seconds with a tripod mounted camera. Modern DSLRs allow you to do several test exposures prior to the pass, to get the ISO, f/stop, and shutter speed calibrated to local sky conditions.
You can even image the ISS through a telescope. Several sophisticated rigs exist to accurately track and image the space station through a scope, or you could use our decidedly low-tech but effective hand-guided method;
And that’s a brief overview of the exciting world of sat-spotting… let us know of your tales of triumph and tragedy as you sleuth out what’s going on overhead!
The International Space Station as seen from the crew of STS-119. (Credit: NASA).
Never seen the International Space Station before? Now is a good time to try, as we enter into a very special time of year.
Starting at 12:30 Universal Time/8:30 AM EDT on Monday, June 3rd, the ISS will enter a phase of permanent illumination throughout the length of its orbit. The station will remain in sunlight and will not experience an orbital sunset until five days later, when it briefly dips into the Earth’s shadow on June 8th at 11:50 UT/ 7:50 AM EDT.
This sets us up for a wealth of visible passes worldwide. This unique phenomenon occurs as a product of the station’s highly inclined orbit. Tilted at 51.6° with respect to the Earth’s equator, its orbit can be oriented roughly perpendicular to the Sun within a few weeks of either solstice.
But whereas the December solstice favors multiple summer sightings for the southern hemisphere, the season near the June solstice (which occurs this year on June 21st) favors northern latitudes. In fact, observers in the UK, southern Canada and the northern United States will be able to see multiple ISS passes in one night over the next week. Note that the ISS is nearly in full illumination now, and will remain so well into mid-June.
So, why was the ISS put into such a highly inclined orbit?
This orientation enables international partners to have access to the station from launch complexes worldwide. Whereas the shuttle launched on construction flights from Cape Canaveral at 28.5° north latitude, the Progress and crewed Soyuz missions depart from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan located at 46° north. This resulted in some dramatic launches from the US Florida Space Coast, as the shuttle chased the ISS up the US Eastern Seaboard and was often visible minutes later crossing over the UK.
Though born of practicality, this happy circumstance also means that the ISS is visible to a wide swath of humanity located from 60° north latitude to 60° south. Only locales such as Antarctica, Greenland, and Iceland miss out.
I’m often asked how I know a moving star is a satellite and not an airplane. Aircraft flash, generating their own light, while satellites shine by reflected sunlight. This means that there’s a window of about an hour after sunset or before local sunrise that objects in low Earth orbit are still illuminated high overhead. In the early morning hours, if often seems as if someone has just “flipped on a switch” and satellites suddenly become visible across the sky.
And yes, satellites can flash as well, but in most instances, this is due to tumbling or the observer catching a glint of sunlight off of a reflective panel or surface just right. The Iridium constellation of satellites is known for this effect, but the ISS and Hubble Space Telescope can also flare in this fashion as well.
At 108.5 x 72.8 metres in size, the ISS is the largest man made object ever constructed in Earth orbit. Its unmistakable to spot as it passes overhead, shining at a maximum illumination brighter than the planet Venus at magnitude -5.2 when 100% illuminated.
Note the time the ISS is passing over your location and the direction its coming from and just start watching, no equipment required. It’s really as simple as that. Many prediction platforms exist for ISS passes. I’ve used Heavens-Above for over a decade now to spot ISS passes worldwide. Probably the simplest tracker out there is provided by Spaceweather. Just enter in your postal code and it kicks out an easy to decipher prediction. NASA also has a “Sighting Opportunities” webpage where you can choose your country and city to find out when the ISS will be passing over your location.
More advanced satellite trackers many want to check out CALSky which can also provide a list of transits of the ISS in front of the Sun or Moon from your location. I’ve managed to catch one each from my backyard utilizing it. I also like to use a free satellite tracking program known as Orbitron, which can be run on a laptop in the field away from an Internet connection.
Screenshot of the ISS orbital pass during full illumination next week. (Credit: Orbitron).
Photographing a pass of the ISS is easy. Just do a wide field exposure with a DSLR camera on a tripod for 10-30 seconds and you’ll get a picture of the ISS streaking across the starry background. Be sure to use manual mode and either set the focus to infinity or focus on something bright such as Venus just prior to the pass. I generally take a series of test exposures prior to get the combination of ISO/f-stop settings correct for the current sky conditions.
A 20 second exposure of the ISS during a July 4th fireworks show in 2011. (Photo by Author).
I can just make out structure on the ISS with binoculars as it passes overhead. This appearance can vary greatly depending on its orientation. Sometimes, it looks like a close binary star. Other times it can appear box-shaped. Occasionally, it looks like a tiny luminous Star Wars TIE-fighter!
The station managers typically orient the huge solar arrays to provide a small amount of artificial shadow during phases of full illumination. The ISS extends ~45” across at closest approach, similar in apparent diameter to Saturn including its ring system.
You can even image the ISS through a telescope, with a little skill and luck. Many sophisticated mounts will track the ISS as it crosses the sky, or you can use our own low-tech method;
Be sure to check out an ISS pass coming to a sky near you!
British astronaut Timothy Peake training in a Soyuz simulator. (European Space Agency)
The name is Peake. Timothy Peake. And he’s set to follow in the (fictional) footsteps of fellow British citizen James Bond with a stay on a space station.
In 2015, Peake will be the first British citizen to live for six months on the International Space Station. He’ll be a part of the Expedition 46/47 crew. NASA hasn’t publicly named all of his seatmates yet, but expect a lot of excitement across the former Empire when Peake has his turn.
“This is another important mission for Europe and in particular a wonderful opportunity for European science, industry and education to benefit from microgravity research,” Peake said in a statement.
There have been a bevy of British astronauts before Peake, both as joint nationals within NASA and even for private spaceflights (remember Mark Shuttleworth‘s and Richard Garriott’s ‘vacations’ on station?) Also, it’s quite possible that even more British citizens will get into space before Peake does in 2015.
ESA astronaut Timothy Peake trains for the NEEMO 16 underwater mission. Credit: NASA
That’s not due to lack of qualifications on Peake’s part, though. He participated in the NEEMO 16 underwater mission and took part in a periodic underground cave expedition that ESA runs to simulate spaceflight, among other duties. Peake also used to be a helicopter pilot in the British Army; the media is already calling him “Major Tim” for that reason in homage to David Bowie’s “Space Oddity” song (most recently pwned by Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield.)
But 2015 also marks when the ground is expected to shift, so to speak, in commercial spaceflight. It’s expected that Britain’s Virgin Galactic will start regular suborbital runs around that year. (XCOR’s Lynx suborbital spacecraft also may start flights around the same time, perhaps with British citizens on board.)
British songstress Sarah Brightman previously announced she will make a much shorter visit to the space station in 2015. That hasn’t been fully confirmed yet — there aren’t many seats available on Soyuz spacecraft after the end of the shuttle program — but it’s possible she could make it up there.
Getting back to Peake, some important secondary news came out for the latest corps of European astronauts: all of them are expected to fly before the end of 2017, as ESA previously promised.
The European Space Agency’s astronaut class of 2009 (left to right): Andreas Mogensen, Alexander Gerst, Samantha Cristoforetti, Thomas Pesquet, Luca Parmitano, Timothy Peake. Credit: European Space Agency/S. Corvaja
The astronauts, who call themselves ‘The Shenanigans’, are already having an exciting month as Italian Luca Parmitano is scheduled to fly to the International Space Station May 28. (In a spaceflight first, he’s doing outreach with a 15-year-old while in orbit.)
Two other Shenanigans are assigned to spaceflights: Alexander Gerst and Samantha Cristoforetti, who will make the journey around 2014.
It’ll be a little while before the last two astronauts, Andreas Mogensen and Thomas Pesquet, get confirmation of flight assignments, but it should be by announced by mid-2015, stated ESA’s director-general, Jean-Jacques Dordain.
ESA has made numerous contributions to the station, racking up credits that the federation of countries can use towards astronaut spaceflights. Among them are the Columbus laboratory, the Automated Transfer Vehicle cargo ship and the cupola (a panoramic window with a history of awesome astronaut shots.)
A view from the cupola in the International Space Station. Credit: NASA
“The value of Europe’s astronauts and the training given at the European astronaut center is reflected in the large number of mission assignments awarded to ESA astronauts,” stated Thomas Reiter, ESA’s director of human spaceflight and operations.
You can follow Peake’s training at his Twitter account, and he has promised to keep up his social media efforts in space.
“I certainly will be tweeting from space. A large part of what I want to achieve on this mission is to try to inspire a generation and encourage them to continue to support space flight and microgravity research,” Peake said in a press conference, as reported by The Guardian.
Friday's spacewalk is supposed to replace a navigational aid to guide in spacecraft, such as the European Space Agency's Automated Transfer Vehicle. Credit: NASA
Spacewalkers will replace a faulty navigational aid Friday to ensure that a cargo spacecraft in June docks safely with the International Space Station.
Expedition 35 cosmonauts Pavel Vinogradov and Roman Romanenko will venture into space to remove and replace a broken retroreflector on the Russian Zvezda station module. The first spacecraft to use the new retroreflector will be the European Space Agency’s automated transfer vehicle (ATV) Albert Einstein, which is scheduled to dock with the station in June.
The ATV has a videometer on board that shoots laser beams at retroreflectors on the outside of the station. Then, the videometer analyzes the pattern of light that is returned. Based on this pattern, it navigates towards the station and in for a docking.
Albert Einstein will carry about two tons of cargo to the station, including water, oxygen, and extra fuel to boost the space station’s orbit. Tipping the scales at 44,611 pounds (20,235 kg), this ATV will be the heaviest ever lifted by an Ariane rocket.
Replacing the retroreflector won’t be the cosmonauts’ only task. They’ll retrieve an experiment, called Biorisk, that is supposed to evaluate how much microbes affect spacecraft structures. They may also take the Vinoslivost experiment (which looks at how exposed materials behave in space) back inside, depending on how much time they have.
Pavel Vinogradov during a 2006 spacewalk. Friday will mark the seventh spacewalk for the veteran Russian cosmonaut. Credit: NASA
These experiments are part of the long-term mandate of the station’s activities to study how well people and structures survive after years in space. Based on the results, engineers back on Earth can make adjustments for spacecraft under development, making them more robust for long-term missions.
Additionally, the cosmonauts plan to install the Obstanovka experiment, which will look at “space weather” in the Earth’s ionosphere. This region of the atmosphere is where auroras arise after the Sun’s particles strike the area.
Besides producing these pretty patterns, space weather has a darker side: it can cause communications shortouts or hurt satellites. That’s why NASA has the Solar Dynamics Observatory and other spacecraft keeping a close eye on the sun. The agency wants to improve space weather predictions to protect infrastructure on Earth.
You can watch Expedition 35’s first spacewalk on NASA Television at 9:30 a.m. EDT (1:30 p.m. UTC) on Friday. The cosmonauts should head outside around 10:06 a.m. EDT (2:06 p.m. UTC). This could change depending on how quickly the cosmonauts depressurize the Pirs airlock and complete their pre-spacewalk checklist.
This spacewalk will be the seventh for Vinogradov and the first for Romanenko. Including this upcoming spacewalk, there have been 167 spacewalks performed to construct the space station and do maintenance.
