Tag: ISS

Canada Commits to 2030 ISS Extension

Space News reported that the Canadian government “formally committed March 24 to an extension of the International Space Station to 2030, joining other Western partners but not Russia.” As part of last week’s meeting between US President Biden and Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau, Canada confirmed it would participate in the ISS through 2030 “as part of a renewed commitment to space exploration that includes contributions to the NASA-led lunar Gateway.” The US announced that it intended to make the same commitment in 2021.
Full Story (Space News)

SpaceX Launches Cargo Dragon Ship to ISS

CBS News reports that a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket “boosted a Dragon cargo ship into orbit Tuesday evening, carrying 6,300 pounds of research gear, crew supplies, spare parts and other hardware on a two-day flight to the International Space Station.” The Falcon 9 “roared to life at 8:30 p.m. EDT and raced away from historic pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida atop 1.7 million pounds of thrust, and a torrent of fiery exhaust visible for scores of miles around.” The booster rocket “shot off on a northeasterly trajectory paralleling the East Coast of the United States, dimming to an ember-like speck, as it accelerated away from Florida and out of the lower atmosphere.”
Full Story (CBS News)

 

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CRS-27 Mission

On Tuesday, March 14 at 8:30 p.m. ET, a SpaceX Falcon 9 launches Dragon’s 27th Commercial Resupply Services mission (CRS-27) to the ISS from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
(SpaceX; YouTube)

NASA Looks to Develop a ‘Deorbit Tug’ to Bring ISS in Controlled Destruction in 2030

SPACE reports that NASA is looking “to develop a spacecraft capable of steering the International Space Station (ISS) to a controlled destruction in Earth’s atmosphere when its time in orbit is up.” The plans were revealed when NASA’s $27.2 billion allocation included $180 million “to initiate development of a new space tug” that could safely “deorbit the ISS over the open ocean after its operational life ends in 2030, as well as potentially perform other activities.” NASA’s human spaceflight chief Kathy Lueders said the cost estimate was just under $1 billion and added, “Our goal is to go out with an RFP [request for proposals], and then, obviously, when we get the proposals, then we’re hoping to get a better price than that. But this gives us a healthy start in ‘24 to get that critical capability onboard.”airplanes.”
Full Story (SPACE)

NASA’s SpaceX Crew-5 Mission Nearly Over

Aviation Week reports that NASA’s four-person Crew-5 Dragon crew is “scheduled to depart the International Space Station (ISS) early March 11 for a splashdown in the ocean waters off the Florida peninsula at 9:19 p.m. EST, to bring a more than five-month mission to a close.”
Full Story (Aviation Week)

 

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Crew-5 Mission | Undocking

SpaceX and NASA are targeting no earlier than Saturday, March 11 at 2:05 a.m. ET for Dragon to autonomously undock from the ISS.
(SpaceX; YouTube)

ISS Adjusts Orbit to Avoid Collision

Space News reports that the International Space Station “adjusted its orbit March 6 to avoid a close approach by an imaging satellite operated by Satellogic, the latest evidence of growing congestion in low Earth orbit.” A March 6 blog post from NASA said “that the Progress MS-22 spacecraft docked to the station fired its thrusters for a little more than six minutes, raising the station’s orbit to move out of the way of what the agency called an Earth observation satellite.” The satellite would have passed within 3 kilometers of the ISS without the maneuver.
Full Story (Space News)

Russian Spacecraft Leak Caused by External Impact

The AP reports that Roscosmos said a coolant leak “from an uncrewed Russian supply ship docked at the International Space Station resulted from an external impact and not a manufacturing flaw.” The leak was spotted on the Progress MS-21 cargo ship on February 11, and came after a similar leak from a Soyuz capsule last December. Russian space officials “said that December’s leak was caused by a tiny meteoroid that left a small hole in the exterior radiator and sent coolant spewing into space.” The new leak “from another ship raised doubts about that theory, and Russia’s state space corporation Roscosmos launched a probe into the incident to check whether it could have resulted from a manufacturing defect.”
More Info (Associated Press)

ISS National Lab Looks for Projects

Aviation Week reports that demand for conducting experiments “on board the International Space Station (ISS) National Laboratory remains strong after 75 payloads were sent to the orbiting platform last year.” The laboratory, “which hosts non-NASA experiments, is looking for its next crop of in-space projects.”
Full Story (Aviation Week)

Airbus Partners With Nanoracks for Commercial Space Station

Aviation Week reports that Europe’s Airbus Defense and Space “is joining a U.S. partnership led by Voyager Space-owned Nanoracks to develop and operate a commercial space station in low Earth orbit (LEO), one of four NASA-backed projects vying to host government research and commercial ventures after the International Space Station” is transitioned away from.
Full Story (Aviation Week)

Astronauts Install Hardware on Outside of ISS

CNN reports, “First-time spacewalkers and NASA astronauts Josh Cassada and Frank Rubio began their excursion outside the space station at 9:14 a.m. ET and ended at 4:25 p.m. ET, lasting for 7 hours and 11 minutes.” The purpose of the excursion was to assemble a mounting bracket on the space station’s starboard side, which will allow for more rollout solar arrays (iROSAs), which will increase the power to the space station. “The first two rollout solar arrays were installed outside the station in June 2021. Six iROSAs total have been planned and will likely boost the space station’s power generation by more than 30% once all are operational.”
Full Story (CNN)