It’s easy to forget that the International Space Station isn’t just a place for astronauts to hang out and take epic selfies. Because of its unique microgravity environment, the station is actually a valuable hub for research and development, housing hundreds of ongoing experiments that involve everything from human tissue growth to protein crystal formation. Except there’s one little snag when it comes to conducting experiments on the ISS: It’s kind of far away. Getting critical samples from the station to Earth can be a lengthy process, and researchers usually have to wait anywhere from six months to a year before samples can make the trip to laboratories on the ground. These long waits can be risky, as live biological samples have a perishable lifespan and often need to be reviewed quickly before they degrade.
Russian deputy prime minister Dmitry Rogozin announced on May 13 that his country will end cooperation on the International Space Station after 2020. The comments spurred gloomy headlines: “Russia's retaliation could doom Space Station,” wrote one science news outlet, while NBC News ran with “Russia Makes Plans to Kill Space Station in 2020.”
During an update to flight computers earlier this morning, the International Space Station lost communications with ground controllers in Houston, but now everything is back up, according to NASA. The blackout lasted about three hours, during which time the station was able to communicate with ground control in Moscow.
An ambitious effort to broadcast real-time streaming video of Earth from space is closer to reality, after a new influx of cash and some new partnerships. By spring 2013, everyone on Earth will be able to watch the planet from the most unique vantage point ever built, the International Space Station.
It was both a high drama rescue and a defining moment for implements of oral hygiene. During a hastily scheduled six-and-a-half hour spacewalk yesterday, a NASA astronaut and her Japanese counterpart fixed the broken $150 billion dollar International Space Station. Key to their success: a toothbrush.
The journey toward a Chinese space station has taken a huge step forward. Yesterday China's Shenzou 8 spacecraft, which launched earlier this week, successfully docked with the country's Tiangong-1 space module, which was placed in orbit by an earlier launch. The successful docking maneuver demonstrated a leap forward for China's manned space program, and the first in a series of missions designed to test technologies that China hopes to cultivate into a manned space station by decade's end.
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