Videos: “Space to Ground” + Other ISS reports – Sept.18.2020

Here is the latest episode in NASA’s Space to Ground weekly report on activities related to the International Space Station:

** Astronaut Jeanette Epps – First Operational Boeing Crew Mission to ISS – Space Snack

NASA has assigned astronaut Jeanette Epps to NASA’s Boeing Starliner-1 mission, the first operational crewed flight of Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner spacecraft on a mission to the International Space Station. Epps will join NASA astronauts Sunita Williams and Josh Cassada for a six-month expedition planned for a launch in 2021 to the orbiting space laboratory. The flight will follow NASA certification after a successful uncrewed Orbital Flight Test-2 and Crew Flight Test with astronauts. The spaceflight will be the first for Epps, who earned a bachelor’s degree in physics in 1992 from LeMoyne College in her hometown of Syracuse, New York. She completed a master’s degree in science in 1994 and a doctorate in aerospace engineering in 2000, both from the University of Maryland, College Park.

** Earth Views from the International Space Station – AmericaSpace

The International Space Station’s High Definition Earth Viewing (HDEV) experiment is an external camera platform located on the Columbus module of the space station. In addition to providing beautiful views of Earth, one of the goals of HDEV is to monitor the longevity and quality of its image sensors in the space environment. HDEV operations began April 30, 2014 and only a single bad pixel has been identified. Credit: NASA

** ISS transit of Mars, September 14, 2020 – Tom Glenn

The International Space Station (ISS) transits Mars, as captured from San Diego, CA on September 14, 2020 at 05:15:47 PDT (12:15:47 UT). This required being positioned exactly on the line shown in the map in the video, to within less than 100m accuracy on the ground. This is complicated by the fact that the ISS orbit is inherently unstable in low Earth orbit, which causes the predicted ground path to change by small amounts leading up to the event. Even at the time of the event, the best prediction is associated with a small amount of error, on the order of one ISS diameter (~100m). At the time of this image, my telescope was sitting directly on the GPS coordinates of the predicted centerline of the transit, but you can see the center of the ISS was ever so slightly below the disk of Mars. However, it was close enough, and part of the solar arrays appear to touch the planetary disk in one frame. Still images at higher quality are available at the following links https://flic.kr/p/2jH5Dnu https://flic.kr/p/2jH6zRa

** The International Space Station: A Remarkable Feat of Human Cooperation – Megaprojects

** International Space Station – Episode 55 – 2019 Missions – Kevin Gustafson – YouTube

In this episode we review the launches and departures to the International Space Station in 2019. This includes the Soyuz MS-14 test launch, and the record breaking Progress MS-11 and MS-12 fast track rendezvous.