This week’s issue of NASA’s Space To Ground report on ISS related activities this week:
Today the Japanese HTV cargo module, which reached the ISS last December, departed from the Station today:
Category Archives: Space Systems
Videos: ‘Space to Ground’ ISS update – Jan.20.2017 + Research on the station
Here is this week’s episode of NASA’s Space to Ground report on activities related to the International Space Station:
In this video, ISS chief scientist Dr. Julie Robinson talks about the science research on the station, including an example where a project contributed to better understanding of an osteoporosis drug now in use:
Videos: ‘Space to Ground’ ISS report for Jan.13.2017 + ISS EVA to replace batteries
Here is this week’s Space to Ground report from NASA on activities related to the International Space Station
Astronauts carried out another spacewalk today-
Outside the International Space Station, Expedition 50 Commander Shane Kimbrough of NASA and Flight Engineer Thomas Pesquet of the European Space Agency conducted a spacewalk in U.S. spacesuits to upgrade the system for the 1A power channel of the orbital laboratory’s starboard 4 (S4) truss solar arrays. Moving adapter plates and batteries, Kimbrough completed the work to hook up electrical connections for the last three of six new lithium-ion batteries recently delivered to the station, and to move the last of the old nickel-hydrogen batteries that will be stored on the station. It was the second spacewalk in a week for Kimbrough and the fourth of his career, and the first for Pesquet in the refurbishment of two of the station’s eight power channels. On Jan. 6, Kimbrough and Flight Engineer Peggy Whitson of NASA conducted similar work for the 3A power channel of the station’s S4 solar arrays.
Videos: “Space to Ground” ISS report + Today’s spacewalk to install new batteries
Here is NASA’s latest Space to Ground weekly report on activities related to the International Space Station:
Today ISS Commander Shane Kimbrough and Flight Engineer Peggy Whitson made an EVA outside the station “to swap out nickel-hydrogen batteries on the station’s truss with new lithium-ion batteries”. The work involved installing
adapter plates on the truss and [hooking] up electrical cables as part of a complex robotics and spacewalk plan to shore up the station’s power supply for the future. It was the third spacewalk of Kimbrough’s career and the seventh for Whitson, who equaled the mark for most spacewalks by a woman previously set by NASA’s Suni Williams. Kimbrough will venture outside the station again on Jan. 13 with Flight Engineer Thomas Pesquet of ESA (European Space Agency) to continue and complete the battery work.
Video: Overview of the TESS mission to look for exoplanets around nearby stars
Dr. George Ricker is the Principle Investigator of the TESS (Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite) Mission, which will succeed Kepler as the primary US space observatory looking for exoplanets. He reviews the mission, which will launch in 2017, in this video:
From the caption:
The Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) will discover thousands of exoplanets in orbit around the brightest stars in the sky. In its two-year prime survey mission, TESS will monitor more than 200,000 bright stars in the solar neighborhood for temporary drops in brightness caused by planetary transits. This first-ever spaceborne all-sky transit survey will identify planets ranging from Earth-sized to gas giants, around a wide range of stellar types and orbital distances.
TESS stars will typically be 30-100 times brighter than those surveyed by the Kepler satellite; thus, TESS planets will be far easier to characterize with follow-up observations. For the first time it will be possible to study the masses, sizes, densities, orbits, and atmospheres of a large cohort of small planets, including a sample of rocky worlds in the habitable zones of their host stars.
An additional data product from the TESS mission will be full frame images (FFI) with a cadence of 30 minutes. These FFI will provide precise photometric information for every object within the 2300 square degree instantaneous field of view of the TESS cameras. These objects will include more than 1 million stars and bright galaxies observed during sessions of several weeks. In total, more than 30 million objects brighter than magnitude I=16 will be precisely photometered during the two-year prime mission. In principle, the lunar-resonant TESS orbit could provide opportunities for an extended mission lasting more than a decade, with data rates in excess of 100 Mbits/s.
An extended survey by TESS of regions surrounding the North and South Ecliptic Poles will provide prime exoplanet targets for characterization with the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), as well as other large ground-based and space-based telescopes of the future.
A NASA Guest Investigator program is planned for TESS. The TESS legacy will be a catalog of the nearest and brightest main-sequence stars hosting transiting exoplanets, which should endure as the most favorable targets for detailed future investigations.
TESS is currently targeted for launch in late 2017 as a NASA Astrophysics Explorer mission.
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