ISS Astronauts Celebrate 'Cosmos' with Weightless Experiment in Space Station - Video

The new "Cosmos" science TV series on Fox has received an out-of-this-world from astronauts on the International Space Station in a new video showing how weightlessness works.

In the new video beamed from space, NASA astronaut Rick Mastracchio considers Isaac Newton's third law of motion - every action produces an equal and opposite reaction - and demonstrates how this works in microgravity, 260 miles (418 kilometers) above Earth.

To demonstrate this, Rick Mastracchio pushes his colleague and ISS Commander, Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata, along with a model of NASA's now-retired space shuttle.

As Wakata and the model spacecraft float forward, Mastracchio drifts backwards.

NASA astronaut Rick Mastracchio shows how Newton's third law of motion works in microgravity. 

Credit: YouTube | NASA

"This is simple science but the more complex science we're doing here on the space station will help us bring real world benefits back to humanity on Earth, as well as take us further into the cosmos than ever before, including to an asteroid, the moon or on to Mars," Mastracchio said.

Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, host of "Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey," introduced the video of his "friends in high places," saying, "when you're doing science, you have to do experiments."

ISS Astronauts wish Earth dwellers Happy New Year! - Video

A New Year's video greeting from Expedition 36 flight engineer Karen Nyberg, who recently returned from the International Space Station in November, and from three of the astronauts currently on board the space station: NASA's Rick Mastracchio and Mike Hopkins, and Koichi Wakata of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA).

ISS Astronauts complete Coolant Pump repair

Astronauts aboard the International Space Station have received a gift just in time for Christmas: a new pump module to repair their ailing cooling system and to restore the outpost to full power.

Rick Mastracchio and Mike Hopkins embarked on their second spacewalk together, setting out at 6:53 a.m. EST (1153 GMT) on Tuesday (Dec. 24) to complete the work they began Saturday to remove and replace an ammonia pump module with a faulty flow control valve.

NASA's Mike Hopkins holds the space station's new pump module while floating past a Russian Soyuz spacecraft. 

Hopkins is riding the orbiting outpost's robotic arm to install the new pump module and fix the laboratory's vital cooling system.

ISS Astronauts Prepare for EVA Spacewalks to Repair Coolant System

Expedition 38 crew member Mike Hopkins checks out the spacesuit he will wear outside the International Space Station on Saturday, Dec. 21, 2013. 

He and fellow astronaut Rick Mastracchio will conduct a series of spacewalks to replace an ammonia pump that is part of the station's coolant system. 

This will be Hopkins' first spacewalk, while Mastracchio has had six previous ones on STS-118 and STS-131

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Returning ISS Astronauts 'flew blind' after Soyuz sensors failed

The three crew of the International Space Station (ISS) who returned to Earth this week endured a hair-raising descent after their height sensors failed, a Russian cosmonaut revealed on Friday.

Pavel Vinogradov said that he and the two other crew of the Soyuz capsule which touched down in Kazakhstan Wednesday had groped their way through the landing after they lost all data about their height from the ground.

"There were problems. For some reason after the undocking all our parameters disappeared. Essentially, after the undocking, we flew blind," he said at the Star City cosmonaut training centre outside Moscow, quoted by Russian news agencies.

He said that the only data the crew could receive about their approach to the earth -- crucial for knowing when to fire the engines to soften the landing -- came from the salvage team on the ground.

He said the rescue teams were able to radio to the crew that they were 300 metres (1,000 feet) and then 100 metres (330 feet) from the ground in the Soyuz capsule, which lands vertically with the help of a parachute after reentering the atmosphere.

"I managed to count eight seconds and we touched down very softly," he said, adding that aside from the usual G-forces and jolting "everyone felt normal".

Vinogradov, fellow Russian cosmonaut Alexander Misurkin and NASA astronaut Chris Cassidy touched down on the Kazakh steppe on Wednesday morning, in a landing that at the time seemed hitch-free.

Russia is currently the only nation capable of transporting humans to the ISS in its Soyuz rocket and capsule system after the withdrawal of the US shuttle.

UPDATE
However, the head of Russia's Federal Space Agency denied the cosmonaut's claim Friday, RIA Novosti reported.

"It wasn't a blind landing," Vladimir Popovkin said, explaining mission control simply switched off an information display in the landing module of the Soyuz TMA-08M spacecraft.

The cosmonauts still had enough readings to complete the landing procedure without problems, he said.

"Two dates simply overlapped in a program, and we had to turn off the [information] display so that [the readings] would not be patchy on the screen," Popovkin said.

ISS Astronauts Parmitano and Cassidy EVA: Orbital repair men

Astronauts Luca Parmitano and Chris Cassidy switched their spacesuits to battery power and began their spacewalk outside the International Space Station.

The sortie was planned for six and half hours, but the astronauts proceeded faster than planned and had time for extra 'get-ahead' tasks, routing cables and staging equipment to help future spacewalkers.

The final duration of Tuesday's extravehicular activity was 6 hours and 7 minutes.

The primary goals were to replace a Ku-band communications transceiver, retrieve two science experiments that exposed material samples to space, install cables for Russia's coming Nauka laboratory module, and carry out routine maintenance.

An artist impression of Nauka in situ on the ISS.

Nauka will replace the Pirs module currently attached to the Station.

The highlight of the spacewalk for Luca was surely riding on the platform at the end of the Station's Canadarm2 robot arm - this moment is shown in the image.

Operated by Karen Nyberg inside the Station, the arm moved Luca to the port side of the Station's long central truss to remove a failed camera that will be returned to Earth for analysis.

Finally, Luca installed a multilayer insulation cover to protect the docking interface of the Pressurized Mating Adapter-2 on the Harmony module.

Luca and Chris will venture out to space again next week to continue work started during this spacewalk.