US Section of ISS suffers Ammonia leak: Astronauts evacuated to Russian module

The Expedition 42 crew members of the International Space Station were forced to evacuate the U.S. section Wednesday after a chemical leak, the American and Russian space agencies said.

All crew were safe and had moved to the Russian side of the facility after the leak of “harmful substances,” the Russian Federal Space Agency said on its website.

The U.S. section of the I.S.S. had been sealed off, it said.

NASA confirmed to reporters that the leak was ammonia. The space agency said the crew were safe.

Flight controllers at Mission Control in Houston saw readings that could indicate an ammonia leak in a worst case scenario and acted conservatively to protect the crew.

It is not yet known whether the alarm was triggered by a leak, a faulty sensor or a computer problem, as indicated by a recent podcast.

How NASA Censored Astronauts Swearing

During the early days of the space race the public relations handlers at NASA had an image to uphold.

America's astronauts were the new face of a nation: they were the bold, brave explorers of the beyond. But this image didn't always align with the more rough-and-tumble types who got the job.

Barring a couple of scientists, almost all of Americas early astronauts had moved over from the military.

Many having been experimental aircraft test pilots, a job not exactly known for its dependence on decorum.

As space history writer Amy Shira Teitel notes, some astronauts had trouble maintaining family-friendly language, and NASA went to sometimes great lengths to keep that fact under wraps.

In some cases, as Teitel covers in her Vintage Space video series, sometimes this censorship amounted to little more than scrubbing down transcripts, replacing “farts” with “gas” and cutting a few f-bombs. (Caution: the video contains cussing.)

In other cases, however, NASA took great pains to clean up astronauts' language. A few years ago Teitel wrote about the space agency's trick to harness one unnamed astronaut's filthy mouth:

One [astronaut] in particular had the unfortunate habit of filling space with profanities, when his mind wandered.  

This posed a problem for NASA - with the world watching astronauts walking around the lunar surface, how could the organization be sure the his transmissions from the Moon would be family-friendly? 

In preparing for his mission, NASA had the astronaut hypnotized. Rather than curse, a psychiatrist put the idea in his head that he would rather hum when his mind wandered.  

The hypnotized astronaut is rarely named, but only one man can be heard humming as he skipps across the lunar surface.  

Transmissions from Commander Pete Conrad are punctuated with "dum de dum dum dum" and "dum do do do, do do" making him the likliest candidate.

Even today astronauts maintain a largely squeaky clean image (best personified, perhaps, by former Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield's endearingly non-threatening mustache). But just as before, what we see on the surface isn't all there is, the inner lives of astronauts in orbit are filled with frustrations and annoyances, and, probably, a few interlaced swears.

Russian Soyuz Delivers Crew of 3 to International Space Station

A Russian Soyuz TMA-15M spacecraft carrying three new members of the Expedition 42 crew approaches the International Space Station ahead of docking on Nov. 23, 2014.

Credit: NASA

Three new crewmembers arrived at the International Space Station late Sunday (Nov. 23), doubling the orbiting lab's population back up to its full six-person strength.

NASA astronaut Terry Virts, European Space Agency astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti and cosmonaut Anton Shkaplerov blasted off atop a Russian Soyuz rocket from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 4:01 p.m. EST (2101 GMT, 3:01 a.m. local time in Baikonur).

The trio reached the space station about six hours later after a quick trip through space.

Virts, Cristoforetti and Shkaplerov's Soyuz spacecraft linked up with the space station at 9:48 p.m. EST (0248 GMT).

Virts is planning on sharing his experiences in space via social media websites like Twitter. The NASA astronaut is planning to take photos of his views of the planet to help people experience a little bit of what spaceflight is like.

"It's such a unique experience and such a small number of people ever get to leave Earth, so I'm going to be using Twitter and Instagram to share pictures," Virts told reporters before launch.

"@AstroTerry is the call-sign [Twitter handle]. And hopefully I can just share the adventure that I'm going on with as many people as possible around the world."

Russia's Soyuz spacecraft are currently the only spaceflight vehicle that can transport NASA astronauts to the space station.

Space Station Astronauts Grow a Water Bubble in Space

During Expedition 40 in the summer of 2014, NASA astronauts Steve Swanson and Reid Wiseman, along with European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut Alexander Gerst, explored the phenomenon of water surface tension in microgravity on the International Space Station.

The crew "submerged" a sealed GoPro camera into a floating ball of water the size of a softball and recorded the activity with a 3-D camera. (Video: NASA)

Note: You will need red-blue stereoscopic 3D vision glasses to view the video.

Expedition 41 crew selfie portrait on the International Space Station

Expedition 41 crew portrait on the International Space Station. 

From left: ESA astronaut Alexander Gerst, Roscosmos cosmonauts Elena Serova, Maxim Suraev and Alexander Samokutyaev, and NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman and Barry Wilmore.

The rear astronauts are dressed in the Sokol suits they will wear in their Soyuz spacecraft that will take them back to Earth on 9 November. Alexander, Max and Reid were making sure their suits still fit and have no leaks after having been stored on arrival at the Station almost six months ago.

Yelena, Alexander Samokutyaev and Barry will continue working in the weightless research centre, but they will not feel lonely for long.

ESA astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti, NASA astronaut Terry Virts and Roscosmos cosmonaut Anton Shkaplerov will join their colleagues on 24 November.

Alexander Gerst commented on this image: “The International Space Station Expedition 41 crew. My favourite selfie in space!”

Cosmic rays threaten future deep-space astronaut missions

Artist's rendition of the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) at the moon. 

The CRaTER telescope is seen pointing out at the bottom right center of the LRO spacecraft.

Credit: Illustration by Chris Meaney/NASA

Crewed missions to Mars remain an essential goal for NASA, but scientists are only now beginning to understand and characterise the radiation hazards that could make such ventures risky, concludes a new paper by University of New Hampshire (UNH) scientists.

In a paper published online in the journal Space Weather, associate professor Nathan Schwadron of the UNH Institute for the Study of Earth, Oceans, and Space (EOS) and the department of physics says that due to a highly abnormal and extended lack of solar activity, the solar wind is exhibiting extremely low densities and magnetic field strengths, which causes dangerous levels of hazardous radiation to pervade the space environment.

"The behaviour of the sun has recently changed and is now in a state not observed for almost 100 years," says Schwadron, lead author of the paper and principal investigator for the Cosmic Ray Telescope for the Effects of Radiation (CRaTER) on NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO).

He notes that throughout most of the space age, the sun's activity has shown a clockwork 11-year cycle, with approximately six- to eight-year lulls in activity (solar minimum) followed by two- to three-year periods when the sun is more active.

"However, starting in about 2006, we observed the longest solar minimum and weakest solar activity observed in the space age."

These conditions brought about the highest intensities of galactic cosmic rays seen since the beginning of the space age, which have created worsening radiation hazards that potentially threaten future deep-space astronaut missions.

"While these conditions are not necessarily a showstopper for long-duration missions to the moon, an asteroid, or even Mars, galactic cosmic ray radiation in particular remains a significant and worsening factor that limits mission durations," says Schwadron.

The study is the capstone article in the Space Weather CRaTER Special Issue, which provides comprehensive findings on space-based radiation as measured by the UNH-led detector.

The data provide critical information on the radiation hazards that will be faced by astronauts on extended missions to deep space such as those to Mars.

"These data are a fundamental reference for the radiation hazards in near Earth 'geospace' out to Mars and other regions of our sun's vast heliosphere," says Schwadron.

At the heart of CRaTER is material called "tissue equivalent plastic," a stand-in for human muscle capable of gauging radiation dosage. Ionizing radiation from galactic cosmic rays and solar energetic particles remains a significant challenge to long-duration crewed missions to deep space.

Human beings face a variety of consequences ranging from acute effects (radiation sickness) to long-term effects including cancer induction and damage to organs including the heart and brain.

The high radiation levels seen during the sun's last minimum cycle limits the allowable days for typical astronauts behind spacecraft shielding.

Given the trend of reducing solar output, the allowable days in space for astronauts is dropping and estimated to be 20 percent lower in the coming solar minimum cycle as compared to the last minimum cycle.

Journal Reference:
N. A. Schwadron, J. B. Blake, A. W. Case, C. J. Joyce, J. Kasper, J. Mazur, N. Petro, M. Quinn, J. A. Porter, C. W. Smith, S. Smith, H. E. Spence, L. W. Townsend, R. Turner, J. K. Wilson, C. Zeitlin. Does the worsening galactic cosmic radiation environment observed by CRaTER preclude future manned deep-space exploration? Space Weather, 2014; DOI: 10.1002/2014SW001084

International Space Station: Astronauts continue with Business as Usual

Commander Maxim Suraev and Flight Engineer Alexander Gerst are pictured in the Tranquility node of the International Space Station.

Image Credit: NASA

The six-person Expedition 41 crew of the International Space Station tackled a range of biomedical research and cargo transfers Friday, capping off a week that included the second of two U.S. spacewalks and preparations for a Russian spacewalk on Oct. 22.

For Flight Engineers Reid Wiseman of NASA and Alexander Gerst of the European Space Agency, most of the day’s science activity focused on a pair of protein crystal growth experiments, which utilize the station’s microgravity environment to grow protein crystals too fragile to form in Earth’s gravity.

Gerst used a reflective microscope to capture images of samples from the NanoRacks-Protein Crystal Growth-1 study, which uses commercial off-the shelf equipment to grow protein crystals on slides.

Later, Gerst joined Wiseman to deactivate and pack up the completed Commercial Protein Crystal Growth-HM experiment.

This investigation is expanding on an ongoing program into the complex realm of membrane proteins that help cells identify each other for immune responses and move molecules to and from a cell’s interior.

Pure crystals that yield information about the protein’s structure will open the way for a coherent, structure-based design of a broader range of medicines for treating diseases and disorders.

The Commercial Protein Crystal Growth-HM experiment, along with about 3,800 pounds of other cargo, is slated to return to Earth on Tuesday aboard the SpaceX Dragon cargo craft.

After the robotics team at Houston’s Mission Control Center uses the Canadarm2 robotic arm to detach Dragon from the Earth-facing port of the Harmony node, Wiseman, with assistance from Flight Engineer Barry Wilmore, will oversee the release of Dragon for its parachute-assisted splashdown off the coast of California.

ISS Astronauts Reid Wiseman and Barry Wilmore prepare for EVA

Flight Engineers Reid Wiseman (right) and Barry Wilmore spent most of the day on Tuesday, Oct. 14 completing preparations for their 6 ½-hour Oct. 15 spacewalk. 

The two astronauts set up their spacesuits and tools in the equipment lock of the Quest airlock. 

Flight Engineer Alexander Gerst of the European Space Agency, who is coordinating spacewalk activities from inside the station, joined Wiseman and Wilmore for a review of spacewalk procedures.

ISS Astronauts broadcast multimedia experience from Space Station - Video

Nasa's Reid Wiseman (@astro_reid) and ESA's Alexander Gerst (@Astro_Alex) posting incredible content captured from the International Space Station on their Twitter feeds.

In between conducting ISS experiments and research, the astronauts are taking videos, timelapses, Vines, photos and panoramas on the ISS.

The pair have so far shown off the Earth's beauty like never before, posting some fascinating demonstrations of zero gravity, inserting cameras into water bubbles and giving insight into daily life at the station.



This timelapse video from space was taken by ESA astronaut Alexander Gerst from the Cupola observatory module on the International Space Station as it orbited Earth at around 400 km altitude.

As the Space Station passes over Earth at night we can see city lights and lightning.

Below is a Vine clip of the spectacular Aurora Borealis taken from the ISS.

NASA Astronauts Wiseman and Wilmore Complete Spacewalk (EVA)

NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman and Barry Wilmore work outside the International Space Station during a spacewalk on Oct. 15, 2014.

Credit: NASA TV

Two NASA astronauts working outside the International Space Station raced against the clock during a spacewalk today (Oct. 15).

NASA's Reid Wiseman and Barry "Butch" Wilmore performed a 6.5-hour-long spacewalk that included one particularly tricky task that had to be started and completed when the orbiting outpost was in orbital night.

Wilmore and Wiseman managed to remove and replace a power regulator that shorted out in May during the short amount of time when the station experienced night.

"Whoop!" one of the astronauts exulted after the replacement regulator was installed. The regulator, which is used to regulate power from one of the station's solar arrays, needed to be changed out in order to restore the station to full power.

Mission controllers watched a clock ticking down the time the astronauts had to complete the task.

The spacewalk officially began at 8:16 a.m. EDT (1216 GMT) and ended 6 hours and 34 minutes later.

The two astronauts also removed a faulty camera from the outside of the station and installed a new one.

Wilmore and Wiseman also moved some equipment to get ready for the eventual relocation of the station's Permanent Multipurpose Module (PMM) in 2015, NASA officials said.

PMM was built by the Italian Space Agency and is attached to the Earth-facing side of Unity module.

Despite their hard day of work, the astronauts still had time to do a little sightseeing while outside the space station.

They both got some good views of Earth during the spacewalk.

"That is amazing," one of the astronauts said when the spacewalkers spotted a possibly erupting volcano while flying above Earth.

"I see Cairo," Wiseman said during a pass over Egypt. "Can't quite make out the pyramids, though."

The PMM needs to be moved in order to make way for a pair of commercial crewed vehicles that could begin flying astronauts to the orbiting outpost as early as in 2017.

Astronauts will also need to install a set of international docking adaptors that should fly to the station in 2015 for the commercial vehicles.

The two October spacewalks kick off a series of EVAs (extravehicular activities) designed to make way for the new private spaceships once they start delivering astronauts to the station.

"We're going to be doing the things we need to do on these EVAs to prep for moving some modules around," Kenny Todd, space station integration operations manager, said during a news conference before the spacewalks.

"All that is in preparation for being able to support future [commercial] crewed vehicles coming to [the] station. We're trying to get out in front of that … We'll be prepping for moving modules; we'll be installing a new docking adapter system. All of that will be happening throughout the next several months on board the station."

Astronauts resume routine spacewalks for the ISS, NASA and ESA - Video Update

In this image taken from NASA TV, American astronaut Reid Wiseman works outside the International Space Station on Tuesday, Oct. 7, 2014. 

Wiseman and German spaceman Alexander Gerst are performing NASA's first routine maintenance outside the International Space Station in more than a year. 

Credit: AP Photo/NASA

Spacewalker Alexander Gerst rides the Canadarm2 to a work site on the International Space Station.

Image Credit: NASA TV

Two spacewalking astronauts moved an old, broken pump into permanent storage Tuesday, NASA's first routine maintenance outside the International Space Station in more than a year.

American Reid Wiseman and German Alexander Gerst, both first-time spacewalkers, cheerfully completed the long overdue job 260 miles (418.41 kilometers) up.

"I can't wait to see these pictures," Gerst said.



U.S.-based spacewalks were curtailed in July 2013 after an Italian astronaut nearly drowned because of a flooded helmet. NASA solved the problem with the suit's water-cooling system. Then concern arose over the spacesuit batteries.

ESA Astronaut Alexander Gerst on the CanadArm-2 robotic arm during the latest EVA.

Credit: Nasa TV

New batteries arrived late last month, clearing the way for Tuesday's spacewalk and another one scheduled for next week.

Gerst clutched the 780-pound pump, about the size of a double-door refrigerator, as he rode on the end of the station's big robot arm.

NASA's Reid Wiseman and European Space Agency astronaut Alexander Gerst performed a spacewalk outside the International Space Station on Oct. 7, 2014.

Credit: NASA TV

The crane swung him from the pump's temporary location to the new permanent spot in about 12 minutes.

"You should see my view right now," Gerst said, referring to the sprawling space station, lit up like gold in the darkness.

The pump ended up in short-term storage during urgent spacewalking repairs to the station's ammonia-cooling system last December.

NASA did not want to waste time back then parking the pump in its long-term garage, given all the spacesuit worries.

So the job was deferred, until now.

With Wiseman looking on, Gerst slid the pump into its permanent slot, a large rectangular sheath formed by white protective blankets, and then bolted it down.

"Nice work," Mission Control radioed.

The spacewalkers hustled through their other chores, replacing a camera light and installing a power-relay device for the station's robot-arm railcar, before calling it quits.

As the six-hour excursion drew to a close, Wiseman thanked the hundreds if not thousands of people who worked on NASA's spacewalk recovery team over the past year.

"Alex and I, we'd like to express just our huge gratitude for getting us back into planned EVAs (spacewalks), safely outside, safely back in," Wiseman said. EVA is NASA talk for extra-vehicular activity.

"It's a good day for NASA" ... "and the European Space Agency." he added.

A follow-up spacewalk is scheduled for Oct. 15 to further whittle down NASA's lengthy to-do list, on hold since the 2013 close call.

That spacewalk will be conducted by Wiseman and fellow American Butch Wilmore, a newcomer.

A week after that, two of the three Russians on board will perform a spacewalk on their country's side of the orbiting outpost. The Moscow-led spacewalks were unaffected by NASA's spacesuit troubles.

ISS Astronauts continue preparations for Spacewalk (EVA)

NASA astronaut Reid Wiseman, Expedition 41 flight engineer, works with tools and equipment on a spacesuit in the Quest airlock of the International Space Station in preparation for two spacewalks scheduled in October 2014.

Image Credit: NASA

With the first planned excursion of Expedition 41 just a week away, the International Space Station’s six-person crew spent Tuesday preparing spacewalking tools and equipment, while managing a packed agenda of scientific research and maintenance.

Commander Max Suraev of the Russian Federal Space Agency and the team of five flight engineers began the day at 2 a.m. EDT, and after some time for morning hygiene, breakfast and an inspection of the station, they conducted a daily planning conference with the flight control teams around the world.

Afterward, NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman and Barry Wilmore and European Space Agency astronaut Alexander Gerst went to work in the equipment lock section of the Quest airlock to stage the equipment they’ll need in order to prepare for spacewalks set for Oct. 7 and 15.

During the first six-and-a-half-hour spacewalk, slated to begin on Oct. 7 around 8:10 a.m., Wiseman and Gerst will transfer a previously uninstalled pump module from its temporary stowage location to the External Stowage Platform-2.

The two spacewalkers also will install the Mobile Transporter Relay Assembly (MTRA) that adds the capability to provide “keep-alive” power to the system that moves the station’s robotic arm between worksites.

The two astronauts will venture out on the station’s starboard truss to replace a voltage regulator that failed in mid-May.

Although the station has since operated normally on seven of its eight power channels, replacement of the regulator, known as a sequential shunt unit, is considered a high priority.

Expedition 41 Astronauts Welcomed Aboard Space Station

The new six-member Expedition 41 crew gathers in the Zvezda service module for a welcoming ceremony with family and friends in Baikonur, Kazakhstan.

Image Credit: NASA TV

NASA astronaut Butch Wilmore and Russian cosmonauts Alexander Samokutyaev and Elena Serova joined their Expedition 41 crewmates when the hatches between the Soyuz TMA-14M spacecraft and the International Space Station officially opened at 1:06 a.m. EDT.

Expedition 41 Commander Max Suraev of the Russian Federal Space Agency and Flight Engineers Reid Wiseman of NASA and Alexander Gerst of the European Space Agency, who arrived at the station in May, welcomed the new crew members aboard their orbital home.

Shortly after docking with the International Space Station, the Soyuz TMA-14M spacecraft's port solar array deployed successfully.

Earlier, the solar array had failed to deploy when the Soyuz reached orbit.

The image of the spacecraft's approach, taken from the ISS, clearly shows only one solar array has been deployed.

NASA and Roscosmos officials have confirmed that the array poses no long term issue to either standard operations at the station for Expedition 41-42, or for the landing of Barry Wilmore, Alexander Samokutyaev and Elena Serova at the conclusion of their mission in March.

ESA’s “Georges Lemaître” ATV-5 docked at the ISS.

Credit: ESA

There are now five spacecraft docked to the station its maximum visiting vehicle capacity.

There are two Soyuz vehicles, one Progress 56 resupply ship, Europe’s “Georges Lemaître” ATV-5 and the SpaceX Dragon commercial space freighter which arrived Tuesday morning.

The new crew floated into their new home for a welcoming ceremony and congratulatory calls from family, friends and mission officials in Baikonur.

After the ceremony ended the new crew will underwent a mandatory safety orientation to familiarize themselves with escape paths and procedures and locations of safety gear.

International Space Station update: Astronauts' activity schedule

In this photo posted to Twitter by Flight Engineer Reid Wiseman, he and ESA Flight Engineer Alexander Gerst (right) pose for a picture with spacesuits in the International Space Station's Quest airlock.

Image Credit: NASA

Reid Wiseman and Alexander Gerst spent much of the afternoon in the Quest airlock to configure tools and equipment for a pair of U.S. spacewalks set for October.

Wiseman and Gerst are slated to suit up for the first Expedition 41 spacewalk on Oct. 7, while newly-arrived astronaut Barry Wilmore will join Wiseman for the Oct. 15 excursion.

Among the tasks scheduled for the spacewalks will be the transfer of a previously uninstalled pump module from its temporary stowage location to the External Stowage Platform-2 and the replacement of a failed sequential shunt unit designed to regulate current from one of the station’s solar arrays.

A Russian spacewalk on Oct. 21 is also on the schedule.

Throughout the day, Wiseman participated in the Pro K study, as nutritionists monitor how dietary changes may affect the loss of bone density that occurs during long-duration spaceflight.

Wiseman has been following a prescribed diet and testing his urine samples to provide data for the researchers.

On Sunday, Wiseman and Gerst will once again review the procedures for grappling Dragon and conduct a final Canadarm2 robotics training session with the Robotics Onboard Trainer.

Over the weekend, all three crew members also will take care of weekly housekeeping chores and continue their daily 2.5-hour exercise sessions to stay fit.

ISS Expedition 40/41 Crew members

Expedition 40/41 astronauts on the International Space Station. Clockwise from 12:00: Maxim Suraev, Reid Wiseman, Oleg Artemyev, Steve Swanson, Alexander Skvortsov and Alexander Gerst. 

Shortly after this picture was taken Oleg, Steve and Alexander Skvortsov left the Station in their Soyuz spacecraft for Earth, leaving the others on their own in space for two weeks.

ESA astronaut Alexander Gerst is spending six months in space for his Blue Dot mission.

NASA ISS Astronauts Answer Twitter Questions - Video

NASA astronauts Don Pettit and Mike Massimino answer questions submitted via Twitter.

MIT Spacesuits: A streamlined second skin

The MIT BioSuit, a skintight spacesuit that offers improved mobility and reduced mass compared to modern gas-pressurized spacesuits. Credit: Jose-Luis Olivares/MIT

For future astronauts, the process of suiting up may go something like this: Instead of climbing into a conventional, bulky, gas-pressurized suit, an astronaut may don a lightweight, stretchy garment, lined with tiny, musclelike coils.

She would then plug in to a spacecraft's power supply, triggering the coils to contract and essentially shrink-wrap the garment around her body.

The skintight, pressurized suit would not only support the astronaut, but would give her much more freedom to move during planetary exploration.

To take the suit off, she would only have to apply modest force, returning the suit to its looser form.



Now MIT researchers are one step closer to engineering such an active, "second-skin" spacesuit: Dava Newman, a professor of aeronautics and astronautics and engineering systems at MIT, and her colleagues have engineered active compression garments that incorporate small, springlike coils that contract in response to heat.

The coils are made from a shape-memory alloy (SMA), a type of material that "remembers" an engineered shape and, when bent or deformed, can spring back to this shape when heated.

Dava Newman

The team incorporated the coils in a tourniquet-like cuff, and applied a current to generate heat. At a certain trigger temperature, the coils contract to their "remembered" form, such as a fully coiled spring, tightening the cuff in the process.

In subsequent tests, the group found that the pressure produced by the coils equaled that required to fully support an astronaut in space.

Several actuators aligned into a 3-D-printed cartridge structure, paired with passive fabric to form an active tourniquet, and mounted on a rigid object approximating a human limb. 

Credit: Jose-Luis Olivares/MIT

"With conventional spacesuits, you're essentially in a balloon of gas that's providing you with the necessary one-third of an atmosphere [of pressure,] to keep you alive in the vacuum of space," says Newman, who has worked for the past decade to design a form-fitting, flexible spacesuit of the future.

"We want to achieve that same pressurisation, but through mechanical counterpressure, applying the pressure directly to the skin, thus avoiding the gas pressure altogether."

"We combine passive elastics with active materials. … Ultimately, the big advantage is mobility, and a very lightweight suit for planetary exploration."

The coil design was conceived by Bradley Holschuh, a postdoc in Newman's lab. Holschuh and Newman, along with graduate student Edward Obropta, detail the design in the journal IEEE/ASME: Transactions on Mechatronics.

More information: "Low Spring Index NiTi Coil Actuators for Use in Active Compression Garments." Holschuh, B Obropta, E. ; Newman, D. Mechatronics, IEEE/ASME Trans, Volume: PP Issue:99, DOI: 10.1109/TMECH.2014.2328519

Lunar explorers will walk at higher speeds

This is a composite image of the lunar nearside taken by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter in June 2009, note the presence of dark areas of maria on this side of the moon. 

Credit: NASA

Anyone who has seen the movies of Neil Armstrong's first bounding steps on the moon couldn't fail to be intrigued by his unusual walking style, but, contrary to popular belief, the astronaut's peculiar walk was not the result of low gravity.

John De Witt

Wyle Science, Engineering and Technology scientist John De Witt explains that the early space suits were not designed for walking, so the astronauts adapted their movements to the restrictions of the suit.

Michael Gernhardt, the head of NASA's Extravehicular Activity Physiology, Systems and Performance Project, wants to learn more about how humans move in low gravity, including the speed at which we break from a walk into a run, to design a modern space suit that permits freer movement.

However, the only way to test the effects of true lunar gravity on our movements while based on earth is to hop aboard NASA's adapted DC-9 aircraft, which reduces the gravity on board by performing swooping parabolic flights, and get running.

EVA Physiology, Systems, & Performance (EPSP) Project 

Credit: NASA HACD

De Witt and his colleagues publish their discovery that astronauts will remain walking at higher speeds on the moon than had been previously thought in The Journal of Experimental Biology.

To make this discovery, De Witt and colleagues Brent Edwards, Melissa Scott-Pandorf and Jason Norcross recruited three astronauts and five other registered test subjects that could tolerate the discomfort of the aircraft's bucking flight to test their running.

'There is some unpleasantness,' recalls De Witt, adding, 'if you get sick you're done…. We wanted to be sure we had people that were used to flying.'

An astronaut performs a 10 km "Walk back" to test his ability to return to a habitat in the event of a rover vehicle failure on the Moon.

Credit: NASA HACD

Once the subjects were airborne, the team only had 20s during each roller-coaster cycle, when the gravity on-board fell to one-sixth of that on Earth, when they could test the runner's walking and running styles on a treadmill as the volunteers shifted over a range of speeds from 0.67 to 2m/s.

However, De Witt recalls that the experiments ran smoothly once the team had settled into a routine after the first few parabolas.

Back on the ground, De Witt and colleagues analysed the speed at which the walkers gently transitioned into a run.

'Running is defined as a period of time with both feet off the ground', explains De Witt, adding that the walk to run transition was expected to occur at 0.8m/s in lunar gravity, based on theoretical calculations.

However, when the team calculated the transition speed from their experiments, they were in for a surprise: 'The average was 1.4m/s', recalls De Witt.

A NEEMO crewmember wearing a mock-up of the EVA portable life support system (PLSS) walks up and down a ladder outside the underwater Aquarius habitat. 

The PLSS mock-up was placed in different configurations to test astronauts' ability to perform EVA tasks when their center of gravity is moved up, down, forward, and/or backward. 

Credit: NASA HACD

'This difference is, to me, the most interesting part of the experiment; to try to figure out why we got these numbers', says De Witt, who suggests that the acceleration forces generated by the counter-swinging arms and legs could account for the shift in transition speed.

'What I think ends up happening is that even though the atmosphere is lunar gravity, the effective gravity on our system is lunar gravity plus the forces generated by our swinging arms and legs', says De Witt.

He explains that this arm-and-leg swinging effect probably happens here on Earth too, but the forces generated by the swinging limbs are negligible relative to our gravity.

However, he suspects that they are more significant in weaker lunar gravity, saying, 'They contribute more to the gravity keeping you attached to the ground.'

De Witt also adds that the higher transition value is not without precedent. He explains that scientists on Earth have simulated lunar gravity by supporting five-sixths of a runner's weight in a sling, and the athletes also transitioned from a walk to a run at speeds of around 1.4m/s1.

'This tells researchers [that] what they have in the lab, which is a fraction of the cost of the airplane, is probably adequate at giving you the information you need', he says.

More information: De Witt, J. K. , Edwards, W. B. , Scott-Pandorf, M. M., Norcross, J. R. and Gernhardt, M. L. (2014). The preferred walk to run transition speed in actual lunar gravity. J. Exp. Biol. 217, 3200-3203. jeb.biologists.org/content/217/18/3200.abstract

Russian and American astronauts: ISS Crew return to Earth

Russian doctors help US NASA astronaut Steven Swanson after he returned with two Russian cosmonauts from the International Space Station, near the Kazakhstan city of Zhezkazgan on September 11, 2014

Credit: ROCOSMOS

Two Russian cosmonauts and an American astronaut returned to Earth on Thursday after spending more than six months working together aboard the International Space Station, as tensions between their countries soared over the Ukraine crisis.

Alex Skvortsov

American Steven Swanson and Russians Alexander Skvortsov and Oleg Artemyev, who left on March 26, landed in the Kazakh steppe at 0223 GMT aboard a Soyuz capsule, the Russian space agency Roscosmos and NASA said in joint statements.

The trio, who worked together in cramped quarters aboard the ISS, smiled broadly, gave thumbs up signs and waved in the sunshine as they spent their first minutes back on the planet.

The three spent a total of "169 days of science and technology research in space, including a record 82 hours of research in a single week" in July, NASA said in a statement.

The crew orbited the Earth more than 2,700 times and travelled more than 71.7 million miles, NASA said.

"One of several key research focus areas during Expedition 40 was human health management for long duration space travel as NASA and Roscosmos prepare for two crew members to spend one year aboard the orbiting laboratory in 2015," it said.

The ISS is now being commanded by Russian Cosmonaut Max Suraev, with crewmates Reid Wiseman of NASA and Alexander Gerst of the European Space Agency.

Three new crew members, Barry Wilmore of NASA and Alexander Samokutyaev and Elena Serova of Roscosmos, are due to arrive in two weeks, blasting off from Kazakhstan on September 25.

Elena Serova is the first Russian female cosmonaut to serve as an ISS crew member.

Amid the political tensions in Ukraine, NASA announced, in April, that it was cutting space cooperation with Russia over Moscow's Ukraine policies, but that work at the space station would not be affected.

Use of the space station depends very much on Russia, which is the only country with the capability of reliably transporting astronauts and cosmonauts to and from the facility.

The ISS was launched in 1998 as an international effort and has been a symbol of cooperation, particularly between the US (NASA), Russia (ROCOSMOS), Europe (ESA) and Japan (JAXA).

Aerial shot of the Expedition 40 Soyuz TMA-12M landing site.

Credit: ROCOSMOS 

Boeing CST-100 spacecraft favoured in NASA Space Taxi Decision

A Boeing CST-100 spacecraft is shown near the International Space Station in this artist's rendering of the commercial manned spacecraft for astronauts.

Credit: Boeing

The private spaceflight company Boeing has been hard at work designing a capsule that could deliver NASA astronauts to the International Space Station sometime in the next three years, and pretty soon, everyone will find out if all that hard work has paid off.

NASA is expected to announce its pick (or picks) for a contract that will enable a commercial company (or companies) to fly manned missions to the International Space Station by 2017 any day now, and Boeing's astronaut-carrying CST-100 capsule is in the running.

People working with the commercial spaceflight company's capsule have been working diligently to make sure that they meet their goals ahead of the commercial crew announcement.

"Obviously, we're very anxious to get to the announcement, but the team has just been outstanding," John Mulholland, Boeing commercial crew program manager, told reporters.



Boeing is competing with three other spaceflight companies for the commercial crew contract, technically called the Commercial Crew Transportation Capability contract (CCtCap).

Sierra Nevada Corp., SpaceX and Blue Origin are also still in the running for the chance to fly humans to the International Space Station from the United States for the first time since the end of the space shuttle program in 2011.

At the moment, NASA astronauts fly to space aboard Russian-built Soyuz space capsules.

The upcoming announcement marks the last in a series of awards put in place by NASA in 2010.