NASA TV to Broadcast Departure of Cygnus Cargo Spacecraft from International Space Station

After delivering almost 7,400 pounds of cargo to support dozens of science experiments from around the world, the Orbital ATK Cygnuscargo spacecraft is set to leave the International Space Station on Wednesday, Dec. 6. NASA Television and the agency’s website will provide live coverage of Cygnus' departure beginning at 7:45 a.m. EST.

On Tuesday, Dec. 5, ground controllers will use the Canadarm2 robotic arm to detach the Cygnus spacecraft from the Earth-facing side of the station's Unity module. The spacecraft, which arrived at the station Nov. 14, will be maneuvered above the Harmony module to gather data that will aid in rendezvous and docking operations for future U.S. commercial crew vehicles arriving for a linkup to Harmony’s international docking adapters. The maneuver will not be televised.

On Wednesday, Dec. 6, at approximately 8:10 a.m., Expedition 53 Flight Engineers Mark Vande Hei and Joe Acaba of NASA will give the command to release Cygnus. Cygnus is packed with more than 5,500 pounds of trash and other items marked for disposal.

Experiments delivered on Cygnus supported NASA and other research investigations during Expedition 53, including studies in biology, biotechnology, physical science and Earth science -- research that improves life on Earth. Investigations included studies on communication and navigation, microbiology, animal biology and plant biology.

Cygnus also will release 14 CubeSats from an external NanoRacks deployer on Dec. 7. The craft will remain in orbit until Monday, Dec. 18, when its engines will fire twice, pushing it into Earth's atmosphere, where it will burn up over the Pacific Ocean. NASA TV will not provide live coverage of these events.

The Cygnus launched Nov. 12 on Orbital ATK’s upgraded Antares 230 rocket from NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia for the company’s eighth NASA-contracted commercial resupply mission.

Quelle: NASA

---

Update: 6.12.2017

.

NASA Television to Air Launch of Next Space Station Resupply Mission

NASA commercial cargo provider SpaceX is targeting its 13th commercial resupply services mission to the International Space Station for no earlier than 1:20 p.m. EST Friday, Dec. 8.

Mission coverage will begin on NASA Television and the agency’s website Thursday, Dec. 7, with two news briefings.

Packed with almost 4,800 pounds of research, crew supplies and hardware, the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft will launch on a Falcon 9 rocket from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.

NASA TV mission coverage is as follows:

Thursday, Dec. 7

• 11 a.m. – Prelaunch news conference with representatives from NASA’s International Space Station Program, SpaceX, and the 45th Space Wing at Patrick Air Force Base
• 3:30 p.m. – “What’s on Board” science briefing, highlighting research testing: fiber optic filaments, how plants respond to microgravity, the accuracy of a biosensor used for diabetes management, a drug delivery system for combatting muscle atrophy and instruments to measure the Sun’s energy input to Earth and orbital debris.

Friday, Dec. 8

• 12:45 p.m. – Launch commentary coverage begins
• 3 p.m. – Post-launch news conference with representatives from NASA’s International Space Station Program and SpaceX

Sunday, Dec. 10

• 4:30 a.m. – Dragon rendezvous at the space station and capture
• 7:30 a.m. – Installation coverage

About 10 minutes after launch on Dec. 8, Dragon will reach its preliminary orbit and deploy its solar arrays. A carefully choreographed series of thruster firings are scheduled to bring the spacecraft to rendezvous with the space station. NASA astronauts Mark Vande Hei and Joe Acaba will capture Dragon using the space station’s robotic arm. Ground controllers will then send commands to robotically install the spacecraft on the station’s Harmony module.

The Dragon spacecraft will spend approximately one month attached to the space station, returning to Earth Jan. 6, with results of previous experiments.

Quelle: NASA

---

Update: 7.12.2017

.

Test-firing at repaired launch pad clears way for SpaceX cargo flight next week

SpaceX ignited a reused Falcon 9 first stage booster at Cape Canaveral’s Complex 40 launch pad Wednesday ahead of a planned space station resupply launch Dec. 12, a major step in restoring the repaired facility to service after a catastrophic explosion interrupted operations there last year.

Nine Merlin 1D engines on the Falcon 9’s first stage ignited at 3 p.m. EST (2000 GMT) Wednesday, sending a plume of exhaust out of the flame trench at pad 40. It was the first time a rocket has fired at pad 40, a former Titan rocket launch facility now operated by SpaceX, since a rocket exploded during fueling before a pre-flight static fire test Sept. 1, 2016.

SpaceX confirmed the completion of the customary pre-launch static fire test on Twitter.

The Falcon 9 will be returned to SpaceX’s hangar at pad 40 for attachment of a Dragon cargo capsule loaded with several tons of supplies and experiments heading to the International Space Station.

The fully-assembled launcher will return to pad 40 next week for liftoff, which is currently targeted for Tuesday, Dec. 12, at 11:46 a.m. EST (1646 GMT).

The launch slipped four days from its previous target to complete preparations on pad 40, among other concerns.

“This new launch date takes into account pad readiness, requirements for science payloads, space station crew availability, and orbital mechanics,” NASA said in a statement.

SpaceX will have a backup day Dec. 13 to launch if the countdown Dec. 12 is scrubbed.

Mission managers will have to work in SpaceX’s cargo launch around other space station traffic.

Space station commander Randy Bresnik and crewmates Sergey Ryazanskiy and Paolo Nespoli are scheduled to depart the station in their Soyuz MS-05 early Dec. 14. The trio will land in Kazakhstan several hours later to wrap up a 139-day flight, leaving behind new station commander Alexander Misurkin and astronauts Mark Vande Hei and Joe Acaba.

Three new crew members are set for launch from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Dec. 17, and will reach the orbiting research complex two days later.

NASA and its space station partners prohibit cargo and crew ships arriving and departing from the station on the same day, leaving limited launch opportunities for SpaceX’s resupply mission in mid-December.

Assuming the Dragon cargo capsule launches Dec. 12, it will reach the space station Dec. 15 for a month-long stay.

The upcoming cargo launch is the 13th resupply mission mounted by SpaceX under contract to NASA, and the first in which the space agency has agreed to fly its equipment on a previously-used Falcon 9 first stage. The booster assigned to next week’s mission first flew June 3 on another space station resupply launch.

The Dragon capsule’s pressurized module is also reused. SpaceX refurbished the spacecraft after a round-trip flight to the station in April and May of 2015.

Pad 40’s return to service frees up nearby pad 39A, where SpaceX has based all its East Coast launches so far this year, for final upgrades and modifications to accommodate the maiden flight of the Falcon Heavy rocket, a huge triple-body launcher made of up three Falcon 9 first stages mated together.

The Falcon Heavy’s first test launch could occur next month, a few weeks after its own static fire test at pad 39A.

SpaceX also confirmed Wednesday the launch of a mysterious U.S. government payload named Zuma is slated to occur from pad 40 in early January, next in line after the Dec. 12 cargo launch. Zuma’s launch was postponed from mid-November to study a technical concern with the Falcon 9’s payload fairing, a structure that shields satellites during liftoff.

The Zuma mission was originally supposed to launch from pad 39A, but pad 40’s reactivation allows SpaceX to move it there, clearing the former Apollo- and shuttle-era launch pad for the Falcon Heavy.

The Dragon cargo capsule does not use a fairing like other Falcon 9 payloads, allowing the resupply flight to go forward.

The last SpaceX launch of the year is scheduled for Dec. 22 from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California with 10 Iridium voice and data relay satellites.

Quelle: SN

---

Update: 10.12.2017

.

CU Boulder solar instruments, experiments headed for space

A solar instrument package known as TSIS designed and built by CU Boulder to help monitor the planet’s climate is set for launch aboard a SpaceX rocket from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Image courtesy of NASA.

-

A solar instrument package designed and built by CU Boulder to help monitor the planet’s climate is now set for launch Dec. 12 aboard a a rocket from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. 

The instrument suite is called the Total and Spectral Solar Irradiance Sensor (TSIS-1) and was designed and built by CU Boulder's Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP) for NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. The contract value to LASP is $90 million and includes the instrument suite and an associated mission ground system on the CU Boulder campus.

TSIS-1 will launch on a commercial SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying the Dragon cargo container for delivery to the International Space Station (ISS). It will monitor the total amount of sunlight hitting Earth, as well as how the light is distributed among the ultraviolet, visible and infrared wavelengths.

CU Boulder Professor Peter Pilewskie of LASP, lead mission scientist on the project, said TSIS will continue a 40-year record of measuring total solar radiation by CU Boulder, the longest continuous climate record from space.

“The sun drives all of Earth’s processes, from atmospheric and oceanic circulation to chemical and biological activity,” said Pilewskie, also a professor in the Department of Oceanic and Atmospheric Sciences. “Trying to understand Earth’s climate without measuring the sun is like trying to balance your checkbook without knowing your income. How the atmosphere responds to subtle changes in the sun’s output helps us distinguish between natural and human influences on climate.”  

Overall, satellite measurements of the sun from space have shown that changes in its radiation over time—during periods of both high and low solar activity—is only about 0.1 percent. While scientists believe changes in solar output cannot explain Earth’s recent warming, a longer dataset could reveal greater swings in solar radiation. 

TSIS consists of two instruments: the Total Irradiance Monitor that measures the total light coming from the sun at all wavelengths and the Spectral Irradiance Monitor to measure how sunlight is distributed by wavelength. The latter is important because light at different wavelengths is absorbed by different parts of the planet’s atmosphere and surface, helping to determine how the Earth system responds to solar variability.

At its peak, the project involved about 30 scientists and engineers at LASP, as well as another 300 people from Colorado and around the country, said TSIS-1 Project Manager Brian Boyle of LASP. All told, more than 1,000 people worked on TSIS in the past two decades. The mission, slated to run at least five years, also has involved about 15 to 20 CU Boulder students to date.

In addition, hardware designed and built by CU Boulder’s BioServe Space Technologies, headquartered in CU Boulder’s Ann and H.J. Smead Aerospace Engineering Sciences department, will be launched on the same SpaceX Dragon to facilitate two biomedical experiments on ISS. 

One, designed by LaunchPad Medical LLC in Lowell, Massachusetts, will carry high-tech BioServe culture plates to grow bone cells with a commercially used bone adhesive and a second, newly developed bone adhesive, said BioServe Associate Director Stefanie Countryman. Scientists know that astronauts living and working in the low gravity of space undergo the loss of bone mass over time.

The bone cell experiments will be imaged on board ISS and then returned to Earth for analysis and comparison to ground control experiments. 

BioServe hardware also will be used to test a drug delivery system on ISS for combating muscular breakdown, an experiment that has implications for both astronauts in space and for people with muscle disorders on Earth. Designed by the Houston Methodist Research Institute, the experiment will include two groups of mice: one implanted with a placebo, and the other a drug-delivery chip meant to help maintain muscle mass. 

BioServe has flown experiments or hardware on each of the 14 SpaceX cargo resupply missions to ISS since they began in 2012, said BioServe Director Louis Stodieck. 

Quelle: University of Colorado Boulder

---

Update: 11.12.2017

.