Tag archives for iss
The crew aboard the International Space Station (ISS) is preparing for a spacewalk Saturday as it deals with what NASA calls, “a serious leak” of ammonia coolant in a power system. While NASA officials in a news briefing Friday afternoon said that the leak does not pose any danger to the six-person crew or the…
Looks like hailing frequencies were opened this week between Captain James T. Kirk of Star Trek TV and movie franchise fame and the International Space Station orbiting Earth. William Shatner, the actor who played the captain of the starship Enterprise had a lively conversation today with astronaut Chris Hadfield, currently aboard the ISS. Shatner spoke by…
If you have ever thought it would be cool to watch the International Space Station in the sky, NASA is making it a lot easier to do just that. A new website sends alerts to skywatchers wanting to catch the space outpost flying over their backyard.
Great Time to Spot the Space Station
Posted by Andrew Fazekas on April 16, 2012 
Skywatchers across most of North America and Europe are getting a chance to see the manned International Space Station (ISS) make a series of very bright flybys in the evening sky over the next couple of weeks. As long as you have some clear skies through the 26th, the orbiting laboratory will appear as a…
My God, It’s Full of Stars…
Posted by Jason Major on January 20, 2012 Here’s a wonderful time-lapse video made of photos taken from orbit as the International Space Station passed over Switzerland, western Europe and eventually Saudi Arabia on the night of December 22, 2011. A portion of the Station can be seen along the right side, reflecting the lights of the major cities passing 240 miles below.…
A Commanding View of a Comet
Posted by Jason Major on December 22, 2011 A time-lapse movie taken from the International Space Station shows a brightening view of Earth’s horizon at dawn on December 21. It features an orbital view of lightning storms, stars, airglow… and the dramatic appearance of “sungrazer” Comet Lovejoy as it rises above the atmosphere! Incredible!
Posted by That was the most asked question during an event this morning at the National Air and Space Museum featuring the crew of STS-132, the final flight of the space shuttle Atlantis to the International Space Station. A student asks a question of the STS-132 crew. —Image by Eric Long/NASM Well, the final “scheduled” flight, anyway.…
NASA announced today that they’ve officially decided to postpone the final two space shuttle launches, pushing Discovery’s launch to November and the [supposed] last-ever shuttle launch featuring Endeavour to February 2011. For followers of the intrepid space agency, news of the delay—or any delay, really—will surely come as no surprise. Space shuttle Atlantis lifts off…
On Monday U.S. President Barack Obama officially released his policy for the nation’s space program, a 14-pager that backs up what many media outlets have been covering as the likely direction for NASA and beyond. The highlights: cooperate with other governments on Earth- and sun-monitoring satellites that feed us vital data on climate change and…
Barring only the Hubble Space Telescope, Japanese astronaut Soichi Noguchi may go down in history as the most beloved orbiting space photographer. Bye! The Yokohama native spent just over five months as a flight engineer aboard the International Space Station, returning to Earth today via a Russian Soyuz spacecraft. That’s the longest time any Japanese…
After traveling more than 6.2 million miles in just over 15 days, the space shuttle Discovery glided back to Earth this morning, touching down at Florida’s Kennedy Space Center at 9:08 a.m. local time. —Photo courtesy NASA/Bill Ingalls The mission, known as STS-131 among NASA folk, marks the second of the “final five” launches of…
In 2 days, 23 hours, and 33 minutes [5:12] hundreds of cities around the world will switch off the lights at precisely 8:30 p.m. local time in honor of Earth Hour. This WWF campaign started in 2007 in Sydney as a kind of public statement on climate change: “By voting with their light switches, Earth…
Forget taking off your shoes and putting your liquids and gels in Ziploc bags. If you want to be a space tourist, better learn Russian and diaper up. Richard Garriott, a video game developer and son of astronaut Owen Garriott, became the sixth space tourist in October 2008, spending a year training in Russia and…
MICROGRAVITY Function: noun Etymology: micr- + gravity : a condition in space in which only minuscule gravitational forces are experienced : virtual absence of gravity ; broadly : WEIGHTLESSNESS —via Merriam-Webster Just as black holes do not suck, there is technically no such thing as zero gravity in low-Earth orbit. Earth’s gravitational influence, after all,…
On November 20, 1998, a bus-size hunk of electronics poetically named Zarya, Russian for “dawn,” blasted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. The module was the first piece of the International Space Station, which after ten years and 29 construction deliveries is the largest spacecraft ever built, comparable in size to a five-bedroom house—albeit…
Countdown to Shuttle Launch
Posted by Susan Poulton on November 10, 2008 On the 225-foot level of Launch Pad 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, the STS-126 crew poses for a group photo. —Image courtesy NASA What an exciting week! This is Susan Poulton sitting in for Victoria Jaggard who is hopefully loving every minute of her trip to Egypt. I’m very excited to be…
Next week me and my mummy are off to visit Egypt, a trip I’ve been looking forward to for more than a year. Sadly, our jam-packed itinerary doesn’t include much computer time, so blogging from the field is not an option. A guard watches over statues of Ramses II in Abu Simbel —Photo by David…
