Space Station to welcome 1st Female Russian Crewmember This Month

A Russian cosmonaut is poised to make a bit of history this when she launches to the International Space Station this month, even if she considers the mission a routine spaceflight.

When cosmonaut Elena Serova launches to the station on Sept. 25 with two other crew mates, she will become the International Space Station's first-ever female Russian crew member and only the fourth female cosmonaut to reach space.

She'll also be the first female Russian cosmonaut to fly in the 17 years since cosmonaut Yelena Kondakova's STS-84 space shuttle mission in May 1997 but Serova, 38, said she doesn't see her mission any differently than that of a male cosmonaut.

"I wouldn't say I am doing more ... than what my colleagues are doing," she said in translated remarks during a preflight briefing at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston in July.

Elena Serova will be the fourth female cosmonaut to fly in space during Expedition 41/42 in 2014.

Credit: NASA

Serova pointed out that women have gone into space before, and that her focus is on fulfilling her assigned duties as a flight engineer.

"I want to perform my job really well," she said.

In 1963, Russia (then part of the Soviet Union) was the first nation to fly a woman in space, sending Valentina Tereshkova aloft in June of that year on a mission that lasted nearly three days in Earth orbit.

The Expedition 41/42 crew includes, from left, Barry Wilmore (NASA), Alexander Samokutyaev (Roscosmos) and Elena Serova (Roscosmos).

Credit: NASA

Svetlana Savitskaya was the second Soviet female cosmonaut, making two flights into space in 1982 and 1984 and staying aboard the Salyut 7 space station.

She also was the first female to peform a spacewalk.

The United States didn't send its first woman to space until 1983, when Sally Ride blasted off.

Dozens of women from the United States and other nations have flown since, but only one other from Russia: Kondakova.

She made two trips to the Mir space station, in 1994 (on a Soyuz capsule) and 1997 (on a space shuttle).

Serova has said she's been fascinated by space since childhood, and that she always felt visiting the final frontier was possible.

"The door to space was opened to all women by Valentina Tereshkova," she said in a NASA interview.

Mars Probes MAVEN and MOM Arrive at Red Planet This Month

An artist's interpretation of NASA's MAVEN mission, with Mars in the background. 

The probe is scheduled to start orbiting Mars on Sept. 21.

Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center

The planet Mars is about to have some company. Two new spacecraft, one from the United States and the other from India, are closing in on the Red Planet and poised to begin orbiting Mars by the end of this month.

The U.S.-built probe, NASA's Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN (MAVEN) spacecraft, is expected to enter orbit around Mars on Sept. 21.

Just days later, on Sept. 24, India's Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) orbiter is due to make its own Mars arrival when it enters orbit. Both MOM and MAVEN launched to space in 2013.

MAVEN is the first mission devoted to probing the Martian atmosphere, particularly to understand how it has changed during the planet's history.

An artist's view of India's first Mars probe, the heart of the Mars Orbiter Mission, in orbit around the Red Planet. 

India's first Mars orbiter will arrive at its target on Sept. 24, 2014.

Credit: India Space Research Organisation

Before that happens, however, the spacecraft must burn its engines to go into orbit around the planet, and pass a commissioning phase while taking a few precautions for a "low-risk" situation where a comet will pass fairly close to Mars.

"We've been developing MAVEN for about 11 years, and it comes down to a 33-minute rocket burn on Sept. 21," MAVEN principal investigator Bruce Jakosky, of the University of Colorado, Boulder, told Space.com.

The spacecraft can change tracks as late as 6 hours before entering orbit, but right now, it is so close to the correct path that a planned orbital maneuver on Sept. 12 won't be needed, Jakosky said.

Comet Siding Spring will pass near Mars on Oct. 19, and around that time, MAVEN will take a break from its commissioning to do observations of the comet and the planet's upper atmosphere.

Although not much dust is predicted to result from the event, as a precaution, controllers will turn off nonessential instruments and move the solar panels edge-on to the dust.

The spacecraft will also be behind Mars for 20 minutes during the comet's closest approach.

ESA Rosetta: Historic comet landing site to be unveiled this month

An artist's impression released by the European Space Agency on December 3, 2012 depicts the Rosetta spacecraft orbiting comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko 

The European Space Agency (ESA) will on September 15 announce which of five possible sites it has chosen for the first-ever landing of a probe from Earth on a comet, it said Thursday.

"At present, the landing is scheduled for November 11," added an ESA statement.

The agency's Rosetta spacecraft met up with Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko last month after a 10-year chase through the Solar System.

The scout is carrying a fridge-sized laboratory dubbed Philae, designed to descend to the comet, harpoon itself to the surface and carry out experiments using a battery of 10 instruments.

Five "candidate" zones for the landing have been scrutinised intensely by Rosetta, zooming around the comet at a height of 50 kilometres (31 miles), ESA said.

The selected spot must be relatively flat, clear and stable and bathed in sufficient sunlight for the 100-kilo (220-pound) lab to land safely and operate properly, as well as offering scientifically interesting topography.

Comet "67P" comprises two lobes joined by a narrow neck, resembling the shape of a rubber duck.

Three of the candidate sites are on the smaller lobe, or head of the "duck," and two on the larger lobe, or body.

On September 15, the agency will announce the preferred landing site as well as a backup.

Comets are believed by astrophysicists to be made of ancient ice and dust left from the building of the Solar System.

Experts see them as time capsules of primeval material that may give insights into how the planets formed after the Sun flared into light.

A picture taken on August 4, 2014 by the navigation camera (NAVCAM) onboard ESA's space probe Rosetta shows Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko from a distance of 234 km.

33 'Cubesats' to Launch from Space Station This Month

Three small CubeSats float above the Earth after deployment from the International Space Station.

Astronaut Rick Mastracchio tweeted the photo from the station on Nov. 19, 2013.

Credit: Rick Mastracchio ‏(via Twitter as @AstroRM)

Astronauts aboard the International Space Station are preparing for the deployment of nearly three dozen tiny satellites from the orbiting lab over the coming weeks.

The spaceflyers have been installing special equipment that will launch 33 "cubesats" from the space station this month, with the first round of ejections scheduled to take place on Thursday (Feb. 6).

Mike Johnson

"We believe this will be a world-record deployment, of the number of satellites in one deployment," Michael Johnson, chief technology officer of the space-hardware firm NanoRacks, said in a NASA video last week.



NanoRacks helps organize and integrate some research activites aboard the space station. The company built eight new deployers that will launch the 33 cubesats, which were delivered to the orbiting lab Jan. 12 on the first contracted cargo mission of Orbital Sciences' unmanned Cygnus resupply spacecraft.

Six cubesats will be launched from the station Thursday, NASA officials said. The rest will begin flying freely over the course of the following two weeks or so.

Twenty-eight of the 33 cubesats were built by the San Francisco-based company Planet Labs.

Together, these spacecraft make up "Flock 1," which Planet Labs says will be the world's biggest constellation of Earth-imaging satellites.