In a daring maneuver, Russian astronauts will take a six-hour walk outside the International Space Station today to remove an explosive bolt from their Soyuz spacecraft. Russian scientists believe the bolt failed to perform properly on the craft’s last two entries into the Earth’s atmosphere, and want it removed to prevent endangering astronauts on the craft’s next trip home later this year.
To get to the bolt, astronauts will ride a hand-powered crane from the Space Station to the docked Soyuz, and will then use a knife for the first time during a spacewalk to cut away insulation…. [Cosmonaut Sergei Volkov will then] detach an electrical connector before unscrewing the bolt. He will remove the explosive bolt — which has power roughly equivalent to a large M-80 firecracker — and place it inside a stainless steel case that should hold against any unlikely firing of the bolt [SPACE.com].
(more…)
NASA’s space shuttles are known for being shipshape — efficiency and neatness are the bywords, and everything is kept neatly stowed. So when astronauts headed home on the Discovery noticed a stray object outside the shuttle floating away into space this morning, they took note. When they next noted a strange new “little bump” on the side of the vessel’s rudder, their earthbound colleagues got a bit nervous.
As the shuttle continues on its course back towards Earth after a successful mission to the International Space Station, both astronauts and NASA’s ground staff have been scrambling to figure out what it all means, and whether these developments could pose any threat to the shuttle on its reentry to the Earth’s atmosphere. After a morning of exhaustive analysis, NASA says it’s got a preliminary answer to these pressing questions: Discovery probably lost a part, but it probably doesn’t matter.
(more…)
Against the classic backdrop of New York City’s Explorers Club, a brash entrepreneurial space company held a press conference today to announce its latest customers, who have pledged to pay exorbitant prices to take pleasure cruises to space. In a sign that the space tourism market is taking off, the company’s executives also declared that business is so strong that they’re leasing more seats from their partner, the Russian space agency.
The company, Space Adventures, is playing up the scientific and educational possibilities of each mission, seemingly trying to dispel the notion that astronomically wealthy folks are spending bushels of money just to take pretty pictures of Earth from the International Space Station.
(more…)
The toilet on the International Space Station was finally fixed yesterday, provoking a sigh of relief from astronauts and a wave of giggles from the earthlings here below.
The zero-gravity toilet broke two weeks ago, and couldn’t be fixed until the space shuttle Discovery arrived at the station with a load of spare parts.
Discovery had a trip to the station scheduled anyway, to deliver a $1 billion science lab that’s now the largest component of the station. But while mission command may have hoped to use the shuttle’s trip to educate the public on zero-gravity science experiments, the emergency toilet repair took the spotlight instead.
(more…)
The space shuttle Discovery docked at the International Space Station this afternoon, two days after its launch through cloudless Florida skies on Saturday. But before the shuttle cozied up to the station and threw open the doors, the pilot guided the shuttle in an elegant backflip, allowing the station’s astronauts to photograph the Discovery‘s belly to check for damage.
This maneuver has become standard over the past five years. However, NASA engineers are particularly eager to get these photos back, because several pieces of foam insulation fell from the shuttle during its launch.
(more…)
If the shuttle Discovery blasts off as planned this Saturday, it will deliver a $1 billion science lab to the International Space Station, where astronauts will be able to use furnaces to grow crystals and bio-chambers to grow cells.
But the space lab isn’t the shuttle‘s only precious cargo. It will also carry spare parts to allow astronauts to fix their malfunctioning space toilet.
News of the broken space toilet has captivated the earth-bound masses, as people imagine, with horror, being confronted with a balky toilet in a zero gravity environment. NASA has admitted that the toilet broke last Wednesday, when the fan-and-vacuum system that sucks away liquid waste stopped working.
(more…)
