“Here’s some of the stories trending This Week at NASA!”
The SpaceX Dragon cargo capsule was recently
detached from the International Space Station for its return to Earth, just over a month
after delivering about 5,000 pounds of supplies and experiments to the ISS. Dragon safely
returned to Earth with more than 3,200 pounds of NASA cargo and science samples – completing
the company’s fourth resupply mission to the station.
A Destination Station forum on October 27
at the U.S. Space & Rocket Center, near Marshall Space Flight Center featured a series of live,
interactive panel discussions about some of the cutting-edge technologies being tested
on the space station. Research performed on the ISS provides benefits to life on Earth,
and prepares NASA to send humans farther into the solar system than ever before.
NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden visited
Marshall during the week of October 27. While there, he toured Marshall’s Payload Operations
Integration Center, which oversees science experiments on the station.
“Station, this is Payload Ops Center, Charlie Bolden for a voice check, how do you read?”
The administrator put in a long distance call to NASA’s Butch Wilmore and Reid Wiseman,
to discuss recent activities on the orbiting laboratory, and the crew’s busy schedule.
Bolden also attended the 7th annual Wernher Von Braun Memorial Symposium with other NASA
leaders and commented on the work conducted on the space station in support of our journey
to Mars, and the progress in developing technologies and systems needed to get us there.
Orbital Sciences’ is conducting an investigation
into what went wrong shortly after liftoff of its Antares rocket on October 28 at NASA’s
Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia. Antares was carrying the Cygnus cargo craft to orbit
for its resupply flight to the space station. No injuries were reported and the crew onboard
the ISS is fine; there are enough supplies to sustain the crew well into next year. Despite
the accident, NASA remains committed to expanding the capability of launching cargo and crew
from American shores to the International Space Station.
After a three-month stay at the station, the
Russian Progress 56 cargo ship left on October 27, loaded with trash and unwanted items.
That made room for the Progress 57, which launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan
on October 29 -- docking later the same day with almost three tons of food and materials.
NASA astronaut Terry Virts participated in
final qualification training October 30 and 31, in Star City, Russia with his Expedition
42/43 crewmates, Anton Shkaplerov of the Russian Federal Space Agency and European Space Agency
astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti. They are the next crew headed to the ISS – launch
is scheduled for November 23, eastern time.
Testing of a 35-inch-long Space Launch System booster separation model in Langley Research
Center’s Unitary Plan Wind Tunnel, is helping NASA engineers better understand the aerodynamic
forces the real SLS rocket will encounter as it flies through the atmosphere. The wind
tunnel produces air speeds over 2,400 mph. The SLS will be the world’s most powerful
rocket, capable of launching astronauts aboard the Orion spacecraft to deep space destinations.
A naturally occurring trick on Jupiter produced
a celestial treat of an image – befitting Halloween. The photo taken by the Hubble Space
Telescope appears to show Jupiter staring back at Hubble like a one-eyed giant Cyclops.
However, the dark spot inside the planet’s Great Red Spot storm isn’t a pupil – but
a shadow that was cast by Jupiter’s moon, Ganymede as it orbited the planet.
And that’s what’s up this week @NASA …
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