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.

NASA Curiosity Mars Rover Prepares for Fourth Rock Drilling

In this image from NASA's Curiosity Mars rover looking up the ramp at the northeastern end of "Hidden Valley," a pale outcrop including drilling target "Bonanza King" is at the center of the scene. 

The rover's Navcam captured this northward view on Aug. 4, 2014, from the valley's sandy floor.

Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

The team operating NASA's Curiosity Mars rover has chosen a rock that looks like a pale paving stone as the mission's fourth drilling target, if it passes engineers' evaluation.

They call it "Bonanza King."

It is not at the "Pahrump Hills" site the team anticipated the rover might reach by mid-August.

Unexpected challenges while driving in sand prompted the mission to reverse course last week after entering a valley where ripples of sand fill the floor and extend onto sloping margins.

However, the new target outcrop's brightness and its position within the area's geological layers resemble the Pahrump Hills outcrop.

This Aug. 14, 2012, image from the Mastcam on NASA's Curiosity Mars rover shows an outcrop that includes the "Bonanza King" rock under consideration as a drilling target. 

Raised ridges on the flat rocks are visible at right. 

Tread marks from a rover wheel are in the lower half.

Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

"Geologically speaking, we can tie the Bonanza King rocks to those at Pahrump Hills. Studying them here will give us a head start in understanding how they fit into the bigger picture of Gale Crater and Mount Sharp," said Curiosity Deputy Project Scientist Ashwin Vasavada of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

Mount Sharp is the mission's long-term science destination, offering a stack of layers holding evidence about environmental changes on ancient Mars.

The mountain rises from inside Gale Crater, where Curiosity landed in August 2012.

All three rocks the rover has drilled so far have been geologically associated with the crater floor, rather than the mountain.

Sample material pulled from the first two and delivered to Curiosity's onboard analytical laboratories in 2013 provided evidence for ancient environmental conditions favorable for microbial life.

A drilled sample from Bonanza King may add understanding about how environments varied and evolved.

This image from NASA's Curiosity Mars rover looks down the ramp at the northeastern end of "Hidden Valley" and across the sandy-floored valley to lower slopes of Mount Sharp on the horizon. 

The rover's Navigation Camera captured this southward view on Aug. 12, 2014, after exiting the valley. 

Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

ESA: First Two Galileo Full Operational Capability satellites (SAT 5-6) during launch preparations

Credits: ESA–S. Corvaja, 2014

The first two Galileo Full Operational Capability satellites (SAT 5-6) during preparations inside the S5A building, before fuelling operations, on 30 July 2014. 

The launch of the two Galileo satellites, aboard a Soyuz rocket, is set for August 2014, from Europe's Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana. 

The definition, development and in-orbit validation phases of the Galileo programme were carried out by ESA and co-funded by ESA and the EU. 

The Full Operational Capability phase is managed and fully funded by the European Commission. 

The Commission and ESA have signed a delegation agreement by which ESA acts as design and procurement agent on behalf of the Commission. 

Credit: ESA

NASA Preparations for Second Orion Underway Recovery Test

At the U.S. Naval Base San Diego in California, the NASA Orion boilerplate test vehicle and support hardware are secured in the well deck of the USS Anchorage on July 29, 2014 for Underway Recovery Test 2.

NASA, Lockheed Martin and the U.S. Navy will conduct tests in the Pacific Ocean to prepare for recovery of the Orion crew module, forward bay cover and parachutes on its return from a deep space mission. 

The second underway recovery test will allow the teams to demonstrate and evaluate the recovery processes, procedures, new hardware and personnel in open waters. 

The Ground Systems Development and Operations (GSDO) Program is conducting the underway recovery tests.

Image Credit: NASA/Kim Shiflett

Orion is the exploration spacecraft designed to carry astronauts to destinations not yet explored by humans, including an asteroid and Mars.

It will have emergency abort capability, sustain the crew during space travel and provide safe re-entry from deep space return velocities.

After traveling 3,600 miles into space in December on the uncrewed Exploration Flight Test-1, Orion will return to Earth at a speed of 20,000 miles per hour and endure temperatures near 4,000 degrees Fahrenheit before landing in the Pacific Ocean.

For the team tasked with recovering it, that is where the work begins.

NASA and Orion prime contractor Lockheed Martin are teaming up with the U.S. Navy and Department of Defense's Human Space Flight Support Detachment 3 to test techniques for recovering Orion from the water during Underway Recovery Test (URT) 2, Aug. 1-4, off the coast of San Diego, California.

URT 2 will pick up where URT 1 left off. During that first underway recovery test in February, dynamic conditions caused activities to conclude before all of the test objectives were met.

Since then, the team has been working on concepts that would allow them to safely recover Orion despite such conditions.

"During this test, the team will investigate alternative procedures and recovery methods," said Mike Generale, Orion Recovery Operations manager and Recovery Test director at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. "One of the goals of the test is to have a primary and alternate means of recovering the Orion crew module for Exploration Flight Test-1 later this year."

The data gathered during Exploration Flight Test-1 will influence design decisions, validate existing computer models and innovative new approaches to space systems development, and reduce overall mission risks and costs for later Orion flights.

The recovery of the vehicle is one of the things the flight will test, and the underway recovery tests prepare the combined NASA, Lockheed, and U.S. Navy team for the task.

Read the full article here

Watch the complete photostream of NASA preparations on Flickr

Preparations for Expedition 40/41 Launch to International Space Station

Image Credit: NASA

Three new Expedition 40/41 crew members are counting down to their May 28, 2014 (U.S. time) launch to the orbital laboratory.

The trio is in its crew quarters at the Cosmonaut Hotel in Baikonur, Kazakhstan, finalizing mission preparations.

Soyuz Commander and cosmonaut Maxim Suraev, NASA astronaut Reid Wiseman and European astronaut Alexander Gerst will launch aboard the Soyuz TMA-13M spacecraft at 3:57 p.m. EDT from the Baikonur Cosmodrome.

Alexander Gerst

They are scheduled to dock to Rassvet after just four orbits at 9:48 p.m. returning the space station to its full complement of six crew members.

Pictured here, Wiseman gives the thumbs up during launch preparations on May 19 in Kazakhstan.

SpaceX Falcon 9 Launch: Dragon Preparations Continue

International Space Station Program officials and representatives of SpaceX decided Saturday to continue preparations for the launch of the Falcon 9 rocket and the Dragon cargo craft to the space station.

The launch is slated for Monday 14th April from Launch Complex 40 at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla.

The launch will go ahead despite the failure Friday of a backup MDM computer communications component that provides redundancy for commanding the Mobile Transporter rail car on the truss of the station. 

A final decision on whether to launch Dragon Monday will not be made until another status meeting is conducted Sunday morning.

NASA has rescheduled its SpaceX prelaunch briefing allow for operational reviews in the morning.

It now will be held at 1 p.m. EDT at the agency's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. For updates on the schedule of events for Sunday, call the Kennedy News Center recording at 321-867-2525.

The component, called a multiplexer demultiplexer (MDM) is one of more than a dozen housed on the truss of the station that routes computer commands to various systems on the outpost.

The failure Friday to a box called EXT-2, a backup box to a prime component in the S0 truss that measures 10.5 x 14.9 x 16.4 inches and weighs 50.8 pounds, occurred during a routine health check of the device.

The prime multiplexer continues to operate flawlessly, and there has been no impact to station operations.

The crew was informed of the problem and is in no danger, continuing its normal complement of research work and routine maintenance.

A reboost of the station using the ISS Progress 53 thrusters was conducted Saturday as planned and placed the laboratory at the correct altitude for Soyuz crew landing and launch operations in May.

TDRS-L Tracking and Data Relay Satellite Prepared For Launch

Inside the Astrotech payload processing facility in Titusville, Fla., NASA's Tracking and Data Relay Satellite (TDRS-L), spacecraft has been encapsulated in its payload fairing. 

It is being lifted by crane for mounting on a transporter for its trip to Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. 

The TDRS-L satellite will be a part of the second of three next-generation spacecraft designed to ensure vital operational continuity for the NASA Space Network. 

TDRS-L is scheduled to launch from Cape Canaveral's Space Launch Complex 41 atop a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket at 9:05 p.m. EST on Jan. 23, 2014, the start of a 30-minute launch window.

The current Tracking and Data Relay Satellite system consists of eight in-orbit satellites distributed to provide near continuous information relay contact with orbiting spacecraft ranging from the International Space Station and Hubble Space Telescope to the array of scientific observatories.

Image Credit: NASA/Kim Shiflett

ISS Astronauts preparations for next EVA

NASA astronaut Chris Cassidy (left) and European Space Agency astronaut Luca Parmitano, both Expedition 36 flight engineers, attired in their Extravehicular Mobility Unit (EMU) spacesuits, participate in a “dry run” in the International Space Station’s Quest airlock in preparation for the first of two sessions of extravehicular (EVA) scheduled for July 9 and July 16. NASA astronaut Karen Nyberg, flight engineer, assists Cassidy and Parmitano.