OrbitalHub

NASA dixit:

“Loaded with more than 2.5 tons of supplies and science experiments, Orbital ATK’s Cygnus cargo craft arrived at the International Space Station Oct. 23 following its launch on a refurbished Antares rocket from the Wallops Flight Facility, Virginia Oct. 17. Expedition 49 crewmembers Takuya Onishi of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency and Kate Rubins of NASA captured Cygnus using the station’s Canadian-built robotic arm. Ground controllers then maneuvered Cygnus to the Earth-facing port of the Unity module where it was installed and bolted into place for a month-long stay.”

From CASIS press release:

“The most recent series of payloads berthed with the International Space Station (ISS) Sunday morning onboard the Orbital ATK Cygnus capsule. Many of the investigations launched from Wallops Island, VA onboard the Antares rocket are sponsored by the ISS U.S. National Laboratory. The Center for the Advancement of Science in Space (CASIS) is tasked by NASA with managing and promoting research onboard the ISS National Laboratory for the benefit of Earth. Below provides a summary of the ISS National Laboratory-sponsored payloads delivered today:

CONTROLLED DYNAMICS LOCKER FOR MICROGRAVITY EXPERIMENTS ON ISS

Controlled Dynamics

Principal Investigator: Dr. Scott Green

Dr. Green and his team have developed a hardware platform that will provide research payloads with a “controlled dynamic acceleration environment”—in other words, a technology that will dampen fluctuations/disturbances in the microgravity environment that occur onboard moving spacecraft. This technology promises to attract a new class of research experiments and private funding aimed at exploiting this controlled acceleration environment in microgravity, which has the potential to improve space experiments in crystallization; fluid physics; cell, tissue, and plant culturing; and other studies that require precise control of motion. This investigation stems from a CASIS grant supporting enabling technology development onboard the ISS National Lab.

NANORACKS BLACK BOX

NanoRacks, LLC

Principal Investigator: Mary Murphy

NanoRacks Black Box is a key part of NanoRacks’ next-generation ISS platforms. This new hardware is specially designed to provide near-launch payload turnover of autonomous payloads while providing advanced science capabilities for customers, including the use of robotics, new automated MixStix, and NanoLab-style research. OA-5 provides the first technology demonstration mission to test the NanoRacks Black Box platform, NanoRacks’ own payload hardware, and customer technology demonstration experiments. Technology demonstration payloads onboard OA-5 include multiple education-focused experiments, one of which features a partnership between Valley Christian High School in California and Microsoft, in which students will leverage the Microsoft Windows 10 IoT (internet of things) platform to run experiments on a cell phone motor to test the behaviors of different metals and materials in microgravity environments with status and magnetic forces.

NANORACKS EXTERNAL DEPLOYER

NanoRacks, LLC

Principal Investigators: Conor Brown and Henry Martin

NanoRacks provides opportunities for CubeSat deployment from Cygnus after the vehicle departs from the ISS. The NanoRacks deployer is installed on the exterior of the Cygnus service module, and after completion of its primary ISS resupply mission, Cygnus is intended to move into a higher orbit, and then deploy small satellites. Four satellites are part of the OA-5 mission intended to launch from Cygnus in partnership with the space-based data company, Spire. Spire’s solutions offer organizations near-real-time insights into weather and climate, shipping and supply chain, and maritime domain awareness. Ships carry 90% of global trade over the oceans, but the ships and those that rely on them are open to risks caused by delays, piracy, poor data for search and rescue operations, and incomplete data sets. The ship tracking payload reduces those risks by relaying critical metadata about oceangoing vessels to a network of ground stations. The weather observation payload gathers incredibly accurate temperature, pressure, and humidity data by recording and processing signals from GPS satellites as they “bend” through the Earth’s atmosphere. The data is fed into weather models, where it provides large improvements to short- and medium-term forecasts. This mission will incrementally increase Spire’s satellite constellation, providing additional coverage from a mid-inclination orbit.

SOLIDIFICATION USING A BAFFLE IN SEALED AMPOULES (SUBSA) FURNACE

NASA Marshall Space Flight Center

Material melt-growth experiments have been difficult to run in the space environment because there is just enough residual micro-acceleration (g-jitter) to produce natural convection that interferes with the structure and purity of the material. This convection is responsible for the lack of reliable and reproducible solidification data and, thus, for gaps in solidification theory. The Solidification Using a Baffle in Sealed Ampoules (SUBSA) experiment tested an automatically moving baffle (driven by melt expansion during freezing) that was designed to reduce thermal convection inside an ampoule to determine whether the baffle significantly reduces convection. Ground studies showed that the baffle reduces the movement of the material during its liquid phase, making the process easier to analyze and allowing more homogenous crystals to form. The key goal of SUBSA was to clarify the origin of the melt convection in space and to reduce the magnitude to the point that it does not interfere with the transport phenomena. This mission will provide updates to the hardware onboard the ISS to include modifications to the furnace and inserts to ensure future investigations run nominally.”

Video credit: NASA

Wikipedia dixit:

“Hurricane Nicole is currently a strong tropical cyclone moving away from the British Overseas Territory of Bermuda. It is the first major hurricane to directly impact or make landfall on the island since Hurricane Fabian in 2003. The fourteenth named storm, sixth hurricane and third major hurricane of the active 2016 Atlantic hurricane season, Nicole formed in the central Atlantic on October 4. The small, slow-moving storm defied forecasts by steadily organizing in spite of strong wind shear, and it rapidly intensified to a Category 2 hurricane on October 7. The wind shear finally took its toll by October 8, reducing Nicole to a weak tropical storm, but more favorable conditions allowed the cyclone to reintensify into a hurricane a couple days later. The storm’s approach to Bermuda forced schools, businesses, and government offices to close, while flight, bus, and ferry services were interrupted. On October 13, the eye of Category 3 Hurricane Nicole passed over Bermuda, producing damaging winds.”

Video credit: NASA

NASA dixit:

“On Sept. 6, after bidding farewell to the crew remaining aboard the International Space Station, Expedition 48 Commander Jeff Williams of NASA and Soyuz Commander Alexey Ovchinin and Flight Engineer Oleg Skripochka of Roscosmos undocked from the orbital outpost to begin their return trip to Earth. They spent 172 days aboard the ISS, conducting research and operational work in support of the station.”

Video credit: NASA

NASA dixit:

“The SpaceX CRS-9 Dragon cargo craft departed the International Space Station Aug. 26 after five weeks at the complex. Dragon delivered critical science experiments and the first International Docking Adapter to which U.S. commercial spacecraft will link up to in the future. Using the Canadarm2 robotic arm, Expedition 48 Commander Jeff Williams and Flight Engineer Kate Rubins released the Dragon and monitored the resupply spacecraft as it backed away to a safe distance from the station for its deorbit engine firing that would enable the ship to enter the Earth’s atmosphere for a parachute-assisted splashdown in the Pacific Ocean west of Baja California. Dragon returned about one and a half tons of science experiments and other cargo that will be collected once it reaches port in Long Beach, California. Dragon launched July 18 atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida and arrived at the station July 20.”

Video credit: NASA

NASA dixit:

“The SpaceX Dragon spacecraft launched on the company’s Falcon 9 rocket on July 18 from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station (CCAFS) in Florida, carrying science research, crew supplies and hardware in support of the Expedition 48 and 49 crew aboard the International Space Station. About 10 minutes after launch, Dragon reached its preliminary orbit, deployed its solar arrays and began a carefully choreographed series of thruster firings to begin its two-day journey to the station. […]

On July 20, two days after launching from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station (CCAFS) in Florida , the SpaceX Dragon cargo spacecraft arrived at the International Space Station, carrying science research, crew supplies and hardware in support of the station’s Expedition 48 and 49 crews. NASA astronaut Jeff Williams used the station’s robotic arm, which he controlled from the station’s cupola, to capture the Dragon. Ground controllers in Houston then sent commands instructing the robot arm to install Dragon on the Earth-facing side of the station’s Harmony module. During the next five weeks, crew members will unload the spacecraft and reload it with cargo to return to Earth. About five-and-a-half hours after it departs the station Aug. 29, it will splash down in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Baja California.”

Video credit: NASA

NASA dixit:

“Two days after its launch from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, the unpiloted Russian ISS Progress 64 cargo ship automatically docked to the Pirs Docking Compartment on the Russian segment of the International Space Station July 18. The new Progress is delivering three tons of food, fuel and supplies to the six crewmembers comprising the Expedition 48 crew. The Progress will remain attached to the station until late January, when it will undock and commanded to deorbit so it can burn up in the Earth’s atmosphere.”

Video credit: NASA / Roscosmos