TECH & INNOVATIONDuring a risky spacewalk, two astronauts successfully dodged over specks of highly toxic ammonia last Friday to repair the cooling system at the International Space Station.
The International Space Station (ISS) is a low Earth orbiting, habitable artificial space station. The International Space Station is considered as the most complex international engineering and scientific project in the history of the structures humans have set in space.
Since the retirement of the shuttle program, the restoration of launching American astronauts to the International Space Station from American soil by 2017 has been a goal of NASA. Now, that goal has taken a giant leap forward as NASA has ordered its first commercial spaceflight mission from Boeing.
SpaceX is one step closer to being the first privately-owned company to send astronauts to space. And one of the most important aspects of any mission is protecting the lives of the crew. So they recently tested an abort system that would propel astronauts to safety in the event of an emergency. And a point-of-view camera let us come along for the ride.
SpaceX confirmed yesterday that their Dragon capsule successfully departed the International Space Station and successfully splashed down in the Pacific Ocean both on time and on target.
NASA and the National Additive Manufacturing Innovation Institute, known as America Makes, are hoping that additive construction innovators will design a deep space exploration habitat and then fabricate it in a new competition worth US $1.1 million for each of two winners. Phase One registration opened at the Bay Area Maker Faire on Saturday, and the second stage begins September 27.
Fans of shoot-em-up sci fi everywhere will be thrilled with the latest proposal for freeing the International Space Station (ISS) from the need to repeatedly alter its trajectory to avoid crashing into space junk. Researchers from the Riken Computational Astrophysics Laboratory of Japan want to use a laser system to zap dangerous space debris on a collision course with the ISS.
The problems for Russia's space agency seem to continue. The Russian Space Agency said that after a failed first attempt to start the engines of the Progress spacecraft on the International Space Station, they managed to get them started on the second attempt to correct the orbit of the ISS.
Following the failed launch of a Russian resupply rocket, NASA and its space agency partners have decided to delay the return of three astronauts from the International Space Station.
The unmanned Russian cargo spacecraft that malfunctioned causing the Russian space program to lose control of the craft as it made its way to the International Space Station last week, will fall to Earth later this evening.
The Dragon Capsule, a commercial spacecraft designed by SpaceX to ferry U.S. astronauts into orbit by 2017 is set for a major test on Wednesday, when the private space company plans to blast the capsule away from the launch mount at Cape Canaveral on a mile-high demo flight designed to test the craft's ability to protect occupants in the event of a catastrophic rocket failure on the pad.
The government has made a commitment to extend Canada's support and participation in the International Space Station mission for another four years, or until 2024. The announcement was included as part of the new federal budget.
Since 1998, the International Space Station has stood has a symbol of global cooperation even at times when the participating countries weren't seeing eye to eye. It's 15 modules have been inhabited continuously since 2000 and over the years it has played host to almost 200 astronauts and cosmonauts from 15 different nations. However, despite countries extending support until 2024, this could all still come to an end.
One of the biggest hurdles to interplanetary space travel has always been fuel: how can you possibly carry enough to get you to the outer reaches of the solar system? Well, the fuel-conscious scientists at NASA may have cause to celebrate.
Russia is trying to determine what it is going to do after losing contact with the unmanned cargo craft on route to the International Space Station for a resupply mission. Currently the craft is spinning out of control, NASA said.
For the second time this month, the Elon Musk led SpaceX launched cargo into space. This time the privately owned company delivered its first satellite into orbit owned and operated by the former Soviet republic of Turkmenistan.
The exploration to space has been paved with litter as missions after mission and satellite after satellite has left much of Earth's orbit as nothing more than a glorified garbage dump. Now, scientists have proposed a new way to deal with the trash problem - blast it.
It appears that, as usual, everyone is excited about coffee on a Friday morning. Yes the International Space Station now has an espresso machine for the Americans, but the Italians won the race to the first ISSpresso in space and that’s not even the most important stuff that arrived today thanks to SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft. And though the coffee may claim the spotlight, the nanotech, food and mice (yes, we said mice in space) are the really important things aboard this NASA payload.
Just because the first stage of the Falcon 9 went up in flames when it returned back to Earth, doesn’t mean that the entire mission wasn’t a success. In fact, even though the near miss may have made headlines all this week, as the second attempt by SpaceX proved to be as unsuccessful as the first, the Dragon cargo capsule is still on its way to the International Space Station for its resupply mission, and it’s carrying quite a few surprises in store, as well.