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Live Coverage of Expedition 65 U.S. spacewalk # 75 to install IROSA solar array
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By NASA
Caption: Expedition 70 Flight Engineer Nikolai Chub from Roscosmos is pictured during a spacewalk to inspect a backup radiator, deploy a nanosatellite, and install communications hardware on the International Space Station’s Nauka science module.Credit: NASA NASA will provide live coverage as two Roscosmos cosmonauts conduct a spacewalk outside of the International Space Station on Thursday, Dec. 19.
NASA’s live coverage begins at 9:45 a.m. EST, Thursday on NASA+. Learn how to watch NASA content through a variety of platforms, including social media. The spacewalk is scheduled to begin at approximately 10:10 a.m. and last about six and a half hours.
Expedition 72 crewmates Alexey Ovchinin and Ivan Vagner will venture outside the station’s Poisk module to install an experiment package designed to monitor celestial x-ray sources and new electrical connector patch panels and remove several experiments for disposal. The two cosmonauts also will relocate a control panel for the European robotic arm, which is attached to the Nauka multipurpose laboratory module. Roscosmos cosmonaut Alexsandr Gorbunov will operate the arm during the spacewalk from inside the station.
Roscosmos spacewalk 63 will be the second for Ovchinin and the first for Vagner. Ovchinin will wear an Orlan spacesuit with red stripes, and Vagner will wear a spacesuit with blue stripes. It will be the 272nd spacewalk in support of space station assembly, maintenance, and upgrades.
Get breaking news, images, and features from the space station on the station blog, Instagram, Facebook, and X.
Learn more about the International Space Station at:
https://www.nasa.gov/station
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Claire O’Shea / Josh Finch
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1100
claire.a.o’shea@nasa.gov / joshua.a.finch@nasa.gov
Sandra Jones
Johnson Space Center, Houston
281-483-5111
sandra.p.jones@nasa.gov
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Last Updated Dec 17, 2024 LocationJohnson Space Center Related Terms
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By NASA
5 Min Read Scientists Share Early Results from NASA’s Solar Eclipse Experiments
On April 8, 2024, a total solar eclipse swept across a narrow portion of the North American continent from Mexico’s Pacific coast to the Atlantic coast of Newfoundland, Canada. This photo was taken from Dallas, Texas. Credits:
NASA/Keegan Barber On April 8, 2024, a total solar eclipse swept across North America, from the western shores of Mexico, through the United States, and into northeastern Canada. For the eclipse, NASA helped fund numerous research projects and called upon citizen scientists in support of NASA’s goal to understand how our home planet is affected by the Sun – including, for example, how our star interacts with Earth’s atmosphere and affects radio communications.
At a press briefing on Tuesday, Dec. 10, scientists attending the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union in Washington, D.C., reported some early results from a few of these eclipse experiments.
“Scientists and tens of thousands of volunteer observers were stationed throughout the Moon’s shadow,” said Kelly Korreck, eclipse program manager at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “Their efforts were a crucial part of the Heliophysics Big Year – helping us to learn more about the Sun and how it affects Earth’s atmosphere when our star’s light temporarily disappears from view.”
Changes in the Corona
On April 8, the Citizen CATE 2024 (Continental-America Telescopic Eclipse) project stationed 35 observing teams from local communities from Texas to Maine to capture images of the Sun’s outer atmosphere, or corona, during totality. Their goal is to see how the corona changed as totality swept across the continent.
On Dec. 10, Sarah Kovac, the CATE project manager at the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado, reported that, while a few teams were stymied by clouds, most observed totality successfully — collecting over 47,000 images in all.
These images were taken in polarized light, or light oriented in different directions, to help scientists better understand the processes that shape the corona.
This preliminary movie from the Citizen CATE 2024 project stitches together polarized images of the solar corona taken from different sites during the total solar eclipse on April 8, 2024. SwRI/Citizen CATE 2024/Dan Seaton/Derek Lamb Kovac shared the first cut of a movie created from these images. The project is still stitching together all the images into the final, hour-long movie, for release at a later time.
“The beauty of CATE 2024 is that we blend cutting-edge professional science with community participants from all walks of life,” Kovac said. “The dedication of every participant made this project possible.”
Meanwhile, 50,000 feet above the ground, two NASA WB-57 aircraft chased the eclipse shadow as it raced across the continent, observing above the clouds and extending their time in totality to approximately 6 minutes and 20 seconds.
On board were cameras and spectrometers (instruments that analyze different wavelengths of light) built by multiple research teams to study the corona.
This image of the total solar eclipse is a combination of 30 50-millisecond exposures taken with a camera mounted on one of NASA’s WB-57 aircraft on April 8, 2024. It was captured in a wavelength of light emitted by ionized iron atoms called Fe XIV. This emission highlights electrified gas, called plasma, at a specific temperature (around 3.2 million degrees Fahrenheit) that often reveals arch-like structures in the corona. B. Justen, O. Mayer, M. Justen, S. Habbal, and M. Druckmuller On Dec. 10, Shadia Habbal of the University of Hawaii, who led one of the teams, reported that their instruments collected valuable data, despite one challenge. Cameras they had mounted on the aircraft’s wings experienced unexpected vibrations, which caused some of the images to be slightly blurred.
However, all the cameras captured detailed images of the corona, and the spectrometers, which were located in the nose of the aircraft, were not affected. The results were so successful, scientists are already planning to fly similar experiments on the aircraft again.
“The WB-57 is a remarkable platform for eclipse observations that we will try to capitalize on for future eclipses,” Habbal said.
Affecting the Atmosphere
On April 8, amateur or “ham” radio operators sent and received signals to one another before, during, and after the eclipse as part of the Ham Radio Science Citizen Investigation (HamSCI) Festivals of Eclipse Ionospheric Science. More than 6,350 amateur radio operators generated over 52 million data points to observe how the sudden loss of sunlight during totality affects their radio signals and the ionosphere, an electrified region of Earth’s upper atmosphere.
Students from Case Western Reserve University operate radios during the 2024 total solar eclipse. HamSCI/Case Western Reserve University Radio communications inside and outside the path of totality improved at some frequencies (from 1-7 MHz), showing there was a reduction in ionospheric absorption. At higher frequencies (10 MHz and above), communications worsened.
Results using another technique, which bounced high-frequency radio waves (3-30 MHz) off the ionosphere, suggests that the ionosphere ascended in altitude during the eclipse and then descended to its normal height afterward.
“The project brings ham radio operators into the science community,” said Nathaniel Frissell, a professor at the University of Scranton in Pennsylvania and lead of HamSCI. “Their dedication to their craft made this research possible.”
Also looking at the atmosphere, the Nationwide Eclipse Ballooning Project organized student groups across the U.S. to launch balloons into the shadow of the Moon as it crossed the country in April 2024 and during a solar eclipse in October 2023. Teams flew weather sensors and other instruments to study the atmospheric response to the cold, dark shadow.
The eclipse’s shadow was captured from a camera aboard Virginia Tech’s balloon as part of the Nationwide Eclipse Ballooning Project on April 8, 2024. Nationwide Eclipse Ballooning Project/Virginia Tech This research, conducted by over 800 students, confirmed that eclipses can generate ripples in Earth’s atmosphere called atmospheric gravity waves. Just as waves form in a lake when water is disturbed, these waves also form in the atmosphere when air is disturbed. This project, led by Angela Des Jardins of Montana State University in Bozeman, also confirmed the presence of these waves during previous solar eclipses. Scientists think the trigger for these waves is a “hiccup” in the tropopause, a layer in Earth’s atmosphere, similar to an atmospheric effect that is observed during sunset.
“Half of the teams had little to no experience ballooning before the project,” said Jie Gong, a team science expert and atmospheric scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. “But their hard work and research was vital in this finding.”
By Abbey Interrante and Vanessa Thomas
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
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Last Updated Dec 10, 2024 Related Terms
2024 Solar Eclipse Citizen Science Goddard Space Flight Center Heliophysics Solar Eclipses The Sun Uncategorized Explore More
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By NASA
Maxar Space Systems Technicians guide the equipment that will house Gateway’s xenon and liquid fuel tanks in this photo from July 1, 2024. The tanks are part of Gateway’s Power and Propulsion Element, which will make the lunar space station the most powerful solar electric spacecraft ever flown. Once fully assembled and launched to lunar orbit, the Power and Propulsion Element’s roll-out solar arrays will harness the Sun’s energy to energize xenon gas and produce the thrust to get Gateway to the Moon’s orbit where it will await the arrival of its first crew on the Artemis IV mission.
Image credit: Maxar Space Systems
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By NASA
Dec. 2, 2024
NASA astronauts Matthew Dominick, Mike Barratt, Jeanette Epps, and Tracy C. DysonNASA RELEASE: J24-015
Expedition 71 Astronauts to Discuss Mission in NASA Welcome Home Event
Four NASA astronauts will participate in a welcome home ceremony at Space Center Houston after recently returning from a mission aboard the International Space Station.
NASA astronauts Matthew Dominick, Mike Barratt, Jeanette Epps, and Tracy C. Dyson will share highlights from their mission beginning at 6 p.m. CST Wednesday, Dec. 4, during a free, public event at NASA Johnson Space Center’s official visitor center. The crew will also recognize key contributors to mission success in an awards ceremony following the presentation.
The astronauts will be available at 5 p.m. for media interviews before the event. Media may request an in-person interview no later than 5 p.m. Tuesday, Dec. 3, by emailing Dana Davis at dana.l.davis@nasa.gov.
Expedition 71
NASA’s SpaceX Crew-8 mission launched to the space station in March 2024 as the eighth commercial crew rotation mission. The crew spent 235 days in space, traveled 100 million miles, and completed 3,760 orbits around the Earth, splashing down off the coast of Pensacola, Florida, on Oct. 25, 2024. This was the first spaceflight for Dominick and Epps and the third spaceflight for Barratt, who has logged 447 days in space over the course of his career. The crew also saw the arrival and departure of eight visiting vehicles during their mission.
Dyson flew with an international crew, launching aboard the Soyuz MS-25 in March 2024. The six-month research mission was the third spaceflight of her career, and her second long-duration spaceflight. Dyson’s third spaceflight covered 2,944 orbits of the Earth and a journey of 78 million miles as an Expedition 70/71 flight engineer. She has now logged a total of 373 days in space, including more than 23 hours in four spacewalks. Dyson and her crewmembers landed safely in Kazakhstan on Sept. 24, 2024.
While aboard the station, the Expedition 71 crew contributed to hundreds of technology demonstrations and experiments including the bioprinting of human tissues. These higher quality tissues printed in microgravity could help advance the production of organs and tissues for transplant and improve 3D printing of foods and medicines on future long-duration space missions. The crew also looked at neurological organoids, created with stem cells from patients to study neuroinflammation, a common feature of neurodegenerative conditions such as Parkinson’s disease. The organoids provide a platform to study these diseases and their treatments and could help address how extended spaceflight affects the brain.
Stay current on space station activities by following @space_station and @ISS_Research on X, as well as the station Facebook and Instagram accounts and the space station blog.
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Jaden Jennings
Johnson Space Center, Houston
713-281-0984
jaden.r.jennings@nasa.gov
Dana Davis
Johnson Space Center, Houston
281-244-0933
dana.l.davis@nasa.gov
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