Tag: Human Spaceflight

NASA delays ISS spacewalks indefinitely to investigate spacesuit coolant leak

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NASA says its next spacewalk will be delayed indefinitely until engineers understand more about what caused a coolant leak on June 24. Tracy Dyson, a NASA astronaut, had a brief spacesuit leak a month ago while still in the hatch of the International Space Station (ISS). She and Mike Barrett had just opened the door for a 6.5-hour spacewalk for maintenance activities, when showers of ice particles erupted from a spacesuit connection to the ISS. The spacewalk was suspended, but the astronauts were never in any danger, NASA has emphasized.…

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SpaceX launches to ISS are under independent NASA review after rare Falcon 9 rocket failure

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NASA will perform its own re-authorization of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 before the rocket launches its next astronaut crew or cargo mission, the agency confirmed Wednesday (July 17). Falcon 9 experienced a rare failure during an engine burn of SpaceX rocket’s second stage, due to an oxygen leak, during a launch on Thursday (July 11). A mandatory mishap investigation is ongoing. SpaceX, however, asked the Federal Aviation Administration Monday (July 15) to allow for future launches under a “public safety determination”, meaning the launch posed no risk to public safety. On…

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A new, deadly era of space junk is dawning, and no one is ready

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Originally published at Scientific American. Samantha Lawler is an assistant professor of Astronomy at the University of Regina. The e-mail arrived, like a bolt from blue, on the otherwise typical Thursday afternoon of May 9. The message was from a journalist, asking me, an astronomer, for an interview about a farmer who had reportedly found space junk while prepping his fields for springtime seeding, just an hour’s drive from my home in Saskatchewan. “Yeah, right,” I said to myself as I tapped out my affirmative reply. The odds are already…

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‘Drawn to our planet:’ How spaceflight changed SpaceX Inspiration4 astronaut Chris Sembroski

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Inspiration4 was the world’s first all-civilian orbital mission, sending a four-person crew skyward atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. The privately funded commercial mission took place from Sept. 16 to Sept. 18, 2021. Inspiration4 used a SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft called “Resilience,” which was commanded by billionaire entrepreneur Jared Isaacman, the founder and CEO of Shift4 Payments. You should get familiar with that name, as he’s also leading the upcoming Polaris Dawn mission, the first effort in the three-flight Polaris program, which is funded and commanded by Isaacman. Isaacman booked…

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Astronaut ice cream turns 50: freeze-dried treat still popular (even if it never flew)

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Perhaps the most popular example of space food that possibly never was, astronaut ice cream is now 50 years old. The crunchy, room temperature treat, which melts as the freeze-dried ice cream rehydrates in your mouth, was first introduced in 1974 by American Outdoor Products. According to Astronaut Foods, the brand under which the Space Age snack is still marketed, the idea came about after a NASA center requested it for its visitors. “Our founder, Ron Smith, told Serious Eats that in 1974, ‘Goddard Air and Space Museum contacted us…

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Former cryptocurrency company plans reality TV competition to pick next Blue Origin spaceflight crew

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A former cryptocurrency company plans to launch a reality television series that will follow its efforts to send people from underrepresented nations to space aboard a Blue Origin suborbital vehicle. The Space Exploration and Research Agency (SERA), formerly called the Crypto Space Agency, plans to send people from India, Nigeria and a region known as the Small Island Developing States on a future Blue Origin flight, the U.S. company announced Monday (July 1). Spaceflight candidates will first be chosen through a public voting system, then the finalists will participate in…

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NASA astronaut gives tips to Baseball Hall of Fame from ISS (video)

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Curveballs could be even tougher to hit in space than they are here on Earth.  International Space Station (ISS) astronaut Jeanette Epps says baseballs could have more spin in space, based on her NASA experience. She shared gameplay tips live with the Baseball Hall of Fame, during a live conversation on Tuesday (June 25). “The biggest difference is that we just don’t have gravity, so everything floats, but you can swing a bat as hard as you can swing it,” Epps said during the conversation, which was broadcast on NASA…

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If we really want people living on the moon, we need an astronaut health database

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Scientists have created the first-ever aerospace medicine biobank to help outline the impact spaceflight has on astronauts’ health. This repository integrates data and samples from various missions, including those performed by SpaceX and NASA, enabling researchers to compare and standardize space medicine findings and apply their results to future missions.  “This represents a breakthrough in the study of human adaptation and life in space,” said Guy Trudel, one of the scientists behind the study and a professor in the Faculty of Medicine at the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute, in a…

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Soviet-era cosmonaut Vyacheslav Zudov, who survived only Soyuz splashdown, dies

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Soviet-era cosmonaut Vyacheslav Zudov, whose failed docking with a Russian space station ended with the first and only emergency splashdown in a Soyuz spacecraft, has died at the age of 82. Zudov’s death on Wednesday (June 12) was reported by Roscosmos, Russia’s federal space corporation. “[His] two-day spaceflight became, without exaggeration, dramatic,” read a statement from the space agency. “The landing of ‘Radon’ (the call sign that the cosmonaut chose for himself) turned out to be no less dangerous.” The Soyuz 23 descent module, dragging its parachute, is lifted by…

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Boeing’s 1st Starliner astronaut mission return delayed to June 22

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Boeing’s first crewed Starliner mission, that ferried astronauts to the International Space Station, will need to wait a little longer before returning its crew to Earth.  On June 5, the Crew Flight Test (CFT) for Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft launched with NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams on board; the spacecraft docked at the International Space Station (ISS) the next day. The mission’s objective was to complete a full on-orbit shakedown of the spacecraft, and it was originally set to last about a week. Now, the pair won’t return home…

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