How Scientists Used NASA Data to Predict the Corona of the Aug. 21 Total Solar Eclipse

NASA & ESA - SOHO Mission patch / NASA - STEREO Mission logo / NASA - Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) patch.

Oct. 14, 2017

When the total solar eclipse swept across the United States on Aug. 21, 2017, NASA satellites captured a diverse set of images from space. But days before the eclipse, some NASA satellites also enabled scientists to predict what the corona — the Sun’s outer atmosphere — would look like during the eclipse, from the ground. In addition to offering a case study to test our predictive abilities, the predictions also enabled some eclipse scientists to choose their study targets in advance.

Animation of comparison of the model’s predictions to a photo taken the day of the total eclipse. Animation Credits: Predictive Science, Inc./Paul Holdorf/Joy Ng.

Predictive Science, Inc., San Diego, Calif. — a private computational physics research company supported by NASA, the National Science Foundation and the Air Force Office of Scientific Research — used data from NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory, or SDO, to develop an improved numerical model that simulated what the corona would look like during the total eclipse. Their model uses observations of magnetic fields on the Sun’s surface and requires a wealth of supercomputing resources to predict how the magnetic field shapes the corona over time. 

As the corona and solar material spread outward from the Sun, they can manifest themselves as disturbances in near-Earth space, known as space weather. “Space weather models must be able to characterize the structure of the corona in order to improve forecasts of the path and possible impacts of these events,” Predictive Science president and scientist Jon Linker said.

One key tool are computer models that simulate events on the Sun before they even happen. This comparing of models and observations is a core aspect of heliophysics — the field of science dedicated to understanding the Sun and its dynamic influence throughout the solar system. Without the ability to measure the corona directly, heliophysicists test their theories by using complex computer simulations.

Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO). Image Credit: NASA

Eclipses offer a unique opportunity for scientists to test such models. During the total eclipse, the Moon completely obscured the Sun’s bright face, revealing the innermost part of the corona — the region where solar eruptions such as coronal mass ejections originate, but is difficult to observe under ordinary circumstances. By comparing their predictions to the observations gathered during the eclipse itself, researchers can assess and improve the performance of their coronal models.

The model the Predictive Science researchers used for their final prediction of the August 2017 eclipse was their most complex yet. In addition to SDO’s maps of the Sun’s magnetic field, it also utilized SDO observations of filaments — serpentine structures on the Sun’s surface comprised of cool, dense solar material.

Greater complexity demands more computing hours, and each simulation required thousands of processers and took about two days of real time to complete. The research group ran their model on several supercomputers including facilities at the Texas Advanced Computer Center in Austin, Texas; the San Diego Supercomputer Center in California; and the Pleiades supercomputer at the NASA Advanced Supercomputing facility at NASA’s Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley, California.

Images above: Predictive Science, Inc. developed a numerical model that simulated what the corona would look like during the Aug. 21, 2017 total solar eclipse. Comparison of the model’s predictions (above) to a photo taken the day of the total eclipse (below). Images Credits: Predictive Science, Inc./Paul Holdorf/Joy Ng.

“Based on a very preliminary comparison, it looks like the model did very well in capturing features of the large-scale corona,” Linker said. In its increased complexity, the model demonstrates that even the Sun’s fine magnetic structures are intimately related to the vast structure of the corona.

STEREO's spacecrafts. Image Credit: NASA

While scientists were running their models, NASA’s own Solar and Terrestrial Relations Observatory, or STEREO-A spacecraft, was also able to peer into the future and provide clues as to what the corona would look like the day of the eclipse. As the eclipse drew closer, due to STEREO-A’s position behind the Sun and the particular rotation rates of the Sun and Earth, STEREO-A’s view of the corona on Aug. 12, 2017, was virtually the same those within the path of totality would see nine days later on Aug. 21. That is, STEREO-A’s vantage point is roughly nine days in advance of Earth’s.

STEREO’s key instruments include a pair of coronagraphs — telescopes that use a metal disk called an occulting disk to study the corona. Just like a total eclipse, the occulting disk blocks the Sun’s bright light, making it possible to discern the surrounding corona.

Images above: Due to NASA’s STEREO-A’s position behind the Sun and the particular rotation rates of the Sun and Earth, STEREO-A’s view of the corona on Aug. 12, 2017, was virtually the same those within the path of totality would see nine days later on Aug. 21. Comparison of STEREO-A’s eclipse prediction (above) to observations from ESA/NASA’s SOHO (Below) — which was positioned to share Earth’s view of the corona — the day of the total eclipse. Images Credits: NASA/ESA/Goddard/STEREO/SOHO/Joy Ng.

Coronagraph images from Aug. 12 and 21 show great similarity; both feature a dominant three-streamer shape. Here, the STEREO image is compared to an image from the joint ESA/NASA Solar and Heliospheric Observatory, or SOHO, which was positioned to share Earth’s view of the corona on Aug. 21. The slight difference in the location of the streamers is due to the fact that STEREO-A and SOHO view the Sun from slightly different angles.

Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO). Image Credits: NASA/ESA

“The small difference between the Aug. 12 and Aug. 21 images show the Sun’s atmosphere evolves very slowly — as we expect it to, in its declining phase toward solar minimum,” said Angelos Vourlidas, a STEREO science team member and heliophysicist at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland. “The Sun is slowly going to sleep — but not quietly, as the recent spate of solar activity reminded us!”

Solar minimum is the period of lower solar activity in the Sun’s natural approximately 11-year cycle. In times of greater solar activity, the dynamic corona could have evolved too quickly to make such a prediction useful. But in these times nearing solar minimum, both Predictive Science and STEREO’s eclipse predictions offered an opportunity for researchers to improve models and our understanding of the Sun’s current activity.

Related links:

Predictive Science’s Coronal Prediction for the Total Solar Eclipse: http://www.predsci.com/corona/aug2017eclipse/home.php

Studying the Sun’s Atmosphere with the Total Solar Eclipse of 2017: https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2017/studying-the-sun-s-atmosphere-with-the-total-solar-eclipse-of-2017/

How to Read a STEREO Image: http://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2016/how-to-read-a-stereo-image/

Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO): http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/sdo/main/index.html

Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO): https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/soho/overview/index.html

Solar and Terrestrial Relations Observatory (STEREO): https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/stereo/mission/index.html

Predictive Science, Inc.: http://www.predsci.com/portal/about.php

Animation (mentioned), Images (mentioned), Text, Credits: NASA/Karl Hille/Goddard Space Flight Center, by Lina Tran.

Greetings, Orbiter.ch

Cargo Mission Launches Carrying Food, Fuel and Supplies to Station

ROSCOSMOS - Russian Vehicles patch.

October 14, 2017

Image above: The Russian Progress 68 cargo craft lifts off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Image Credit: NASA TV.

Carrying almost three tons of food, fuel, and supplies for the International Space Station crew, the unpiloted Russian Progress 68 cargo spacecraft launched at 4:46 a.m. EDT (2:46 p.m. local time in Baikonur) from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

At the time of launch, the International Space Station was flying about 250 miles over the south Atlantic Ocean north of the Falkland Islands.

Russian Cargo Craft Launches for Journey to International Space Station

Less than 10 minutes after launch, the resupply ship reached preliminary orbit and deployed its solar arrays and navigational antennas as planned. The Expedition 53 crew will monitor key events during Progress 68’s approach and docking.

Following a 34-orbit, two-day trip, Progress will arrive at the Pirs docking compartment of the International Space Station for docking on Monday, Oct. 16, at 7:09 a.m. NASA TV coverage of rendezvous and docking will begin on NASA’s website at 6:15 a.m.

Related links:

NASA’s website: http://www.nasa.gov/live

Roscosmos: http://en.roscosmos.ru/

Expedition 53: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/expeditions/expedition53/index.html

Space Station Research and Technology: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/index.html

International Space Station (ISS): https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/main/index.html

Image (mentioned), Video, Text, Credits: NASA/Roscosmos/Mark Garcia.

Best regards, Orbiter.ch

For one day only LHC collides xenon beams

CERN - European Organization for Nuclear Research logo.

13 Oct 2017

Image above: One of the xenon ion collisions recorded by the ALICE detector. (Image: ALICE/CERN).

Today, the LHC is getting a taste of something unusual. For eight hours, the Large Hadron Collider is accelerating and colliding xenon nuclei, allowing the large LHC experiments, ATLAS, ALICE, CMS and LHCb, to record xenon collisions for the first time.

Xenon is a noble gas, present in miniscule quantities in the atmosphere. Its atoms consist of 54 protons and between 70 and 80 neutrons, depending on the isotope. The xenon collisions in the LHC (of atoms with 54 protons and 75 neutrons) are therefore similar to the heavy-ion collisions that are regularly carried out at the LHC. Normally, lead nuclei, which have a much greater mass, are used. “But a run with xenon nuclei was planned for the NA61/SHINE fixed-target experiment at the SPS (Super Proton Synchrotron),” explains Reyes Alemany Fernandez, who is in charge of heavy-ion runs. “We are therefore taking the opportunity for a short run with xenon at the LHC.”

“It’s a unique opportunity both to explore the LHC’s capabilities with a new type of beam and to obtain new physics results,” says John Jowett, the physicist in charge of heavy-ion beams at the LHC.

And who knows? Maybe this unprecedented run will lead to some surprising discoveries. “The experiments will conduct the same kind of analyses with xenon ions as they do with lead ions, but, because the xenon nuclei have less mass, the geometry of the collision is different,” explains Jamie Boyd, LHC programme coordinator, who is responsible for liaison between the LHC machine and experiment teams. Heavy-ion collisions allow physicists to study quark-gluon plasma, a state of matter that is thought to have briefly existed just after the Big Bang. In this extremely dense and hot primordial soup, quarks and gluons moved around freely, without being confined by the strong force of protons and neutrons, as they are in our Universe today.

Image above: Some of the teams who contributed to the xenon run, in the CERN control centre. (Image: Jules Ordan/CERN).

Switching from protons to xenon isn’t a piece of cake, however. A team has been preparing the accelerator complex for the xenon run since the start of the year. Atoms of the gas are accelerated and stripped of their 54 electrons in four successive accelerators before being launched into the LHC. “The number of bunches and the revolution frequency varies a lot between protons and xenon nuclei,” explains Reyes Alemany Fernandez. “One of the difficulties is adjusting and synchronising the accelerators’ radiofrequency systems.”

Graphic above: A chart showing different types of stable nuclei, with their atomic number, i.e. the number of protons, Z, shown on the horizontal axis and the number of neutrons, N, shown on the vertical axis. The three types already accelerated in the LHC, i.e. protons (hydrogen), lead nuclei and xenon nuclei, are shown in red with their mass number, A (N + Z).

After the xenon run in the LHC lasting a few hours, xenon nuclei will continue to circulate in the accelerator complex, but only as far as the SPS. For eight weeks, the SPS will supply xenon ions to the NA61/SHINE experiment, which is also studying quark-gluon plasma, but whose analyses will complement those carried out by the LHC experiments. More specifically, NA61/SHINE is interested in the deconfinement point, a collision-energy threshold above which the creation of quark-gluon plasma would be possible. NA61/SHINE is thus systematically testing many collision energies using ions of different masses. After lead, beryllium and argon, it’s now xenon’s turn to take the stage.

Note:

CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, is one of the world’s largest and most respected centres for scientific research. Its business is fundamental physics, finding out what the Universe is made of and how it works. At CERN, the world’s largest and most complex scientific instruments are used to study the basic constituents of matter — the fundamental particles. By studying what happens when these particles collide, physicists learn about the laws of Nature.

The instruments used at CERN are particle accelerators and detectors. Accelerators boost beams of particles to high energies before they are made to collide with each other or with stationary targets. Detectors observe and record the results of these collisions.

Founded in 1954, the CERN Laboratory sits astride the Franco–Swiss border near Geneva. It was one of Europe’s first joint ventures and now has 22 Member States.

Related links:

Large Hadron Collider (LHC): http://home.cern/topics/large-hadron-collider

NA61/SHINE: http://home.web.cern.ch/about/experiments/na61shine

Super Proton Synchrotron (SPS): http://home.cern/about/accelerators/super-proton-synchrotron

Heavy-ion collisions: http://home.cern/about/updates/2015/11/lhc-collides-ions-new-record-energy

Quark-gluon plasma: http://home.cern/about/physics/heavy-ions-and-quark-gluon-plasma

For more information about European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), Visit: http://home.cern/

Images (mentioned), Text, Credits: CERN/Corinne Pralavorio.

Best regards, Orbiter.ch

Station Cargo Mission and Spacewalk Rescheduled

ISS - Expedition 53 Mission patch.

October 13, 2017

Roscosmos has rescheduled the launch of the Russian Progress 68 cargo spacecraft for Saturday, Oct. 14 at 4:46 am EDT (2:46 p.m. local time in Baikonur). The spacecraft is carrying almost three tons of food, fuel and supplies for the Expedition 53 crew aboard the International Space Station.

Launch coverage on NASA TV will begin at 4:15 a.m. Following a 34-orbit, two-day trip, Progress will arrive at the Pirs docking compartment of the International Space Station for docking on Monday, Oct. 16, at 7:09 a.m., with NASA TV coverage beginning at 6:15 a.m.

Image above: Astronaut Mark Vande Hei is pictured attached to the outside of the space station during a spacewalk on Oct. 10, 2017. Image Credit: NASA.

In addition, NASA has rescheduled the Expedition 53 crew’s third and final spacewalk in the current series to next Friday, Oct. 20. Expedition 53 Commander Randy Bresnik and Flight Engineer Joe Acaba will begin the spacewalk at approximately 8:05 a.m., and NASA TV coverage will begin at 6:30 a.m.

The tasks for the crew members to conduct have been adjusted. Bresnik and Acaba will replace a fuse on Dextre’s enhanced orbital replacement unit temporary platform; install an enhanced HD camera on the Starboard 1 lower outboard truss; remove thermal insulation on two spare units to prepare those components for future robotic replacement work, if required; and replace a light on the Canadarm2’s new latching end effector installed during the first spacewalk Oct. 5. The final lubrication of the new end effector and the replacement of a camera system on the Destiny Lab will be deferred for a future spacewalk.

Related links:

NASA TV: http://www.nasa.gov/live

Expedition 53: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/expeditions/expedition53/index.html

Space Station Research and Technology: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/index.html

International Space Station (ISS): https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/main/index.html

Image (mentioned), Text, Credits; NASA/Mark Garcia.

Best regards, Orbiter.ch

NASA Satellite Sees a Tail of Smoke Over 500 Miles Long from California Fires

NASA - EOS Terra Mission patch.

Oct. 13, 2017

NASA’s Terra satellite saw a stream of smoke that extended over 500 miles from various fires raging in northern California out over the Eastern Pacific Ocean.

The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer or MODIS instrument aboard Terra passed over California on Oct. 12 and captured a visible light image of the smoke plume. The MODIS image showed the stream of smoke extending from Santa Rosa, California, located north of San Francisco, out into the Eastern Pacific, parallel to San Diego. A stream that stretched over 550 miles.

Image above: NASA’s Terra satellite saw a stream of smoke that extended over 500 miles from various fires raging in northern California out over the Eastern Pacific Ocean. Image Credits: NASA image courtesy Jeff Schmaltz, MODIS Rapid Response Team.

The CAL Fire website noted in the California Statewide Fire Summary of Friday, Oct. 13, 2017, “Overnight firefighters continued their battle against 17 wildfires that have burned 221,754 acres. Several of the wildfires merged with other fires, while full containment was made on three other.”

The Central LNU Complex of fires is being managed in Unified Command by CAL FIRE Incident Management Team 1 and the city of Santa Rosa. The Tubbs Fire in Sonoma and Napa Counties had destroyed 34,770 acres and was 25 percent contained. The Nuns Fire in Sonoma County consumed 44,381 acres and was 5 percent contained. The Pocket Fire in Sonoma County has burned 9,996 acres and was 5 percent contained.

A Red Flag warning remains over the entire Sonoma Valley/Napa Valley area for Oct. 13. CAL Fire noted on Oct. 13 that the death toll had risen to 31 across four fires as estimates remain that 3,500 homes and other structures have been destroyed.

For updates on all fires, visit the CAL Fire Website: http://www.calfire.ca.gov/

For wildfire preparation tips, visit: http://www.readyforwildfire.org/

NASA image courtesy Jeff Schmaltz, MODIS Rapid Response Team. Caption: NASA/Goddard, Rob Gutro with information from the CAL Fire website: http://www.calfire.ca.gov/

Terra Satellite: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/terra/index.html

Image (mentioned), Text, Credits: NASA/Sara Blumberg.

Greetings, Orbiter.ch

NASA Sounding Rocket Instrument Spots Signatures of Long-Sought Small Solar Flares

NASA - FOXSI logo.

Oct. 13, 2017

Like most solar sounding rockets, the second flight of the FOXSI instrument – short for Focusing Optics X-ray Solar Imager – lasted 15 minutes, with just six minutes of data collection. But in that short time, the cutting-edge instrument found the best evidence to date of a phenomenon scientists have been seeking for years: signatures of tiny solar flares that could help explain the mysterious extreme heating of the Sun’s outer atmosphere.

FOXSI detected a type of light called hard X-rays – whose wavelengths are much shorter than the light humans can see – which is a signature of extremely hot solar material, around 18 million degrees Fahrenheit. These kinds of temperatures are generally produced in solar flares, powerful bursts of energy. But in this case, there was no observable solar flare, meaning the hot material was most likely produced by a series of solar flares so small that they were undetectable from Earth: nanoflares. The results were published Oct. 9, 2017, in Nature Astronomy.

“The key to this result is the sensitivity in hard X-ray measurements,” said Shin-nosuke Ishikawa, a solar physicist at the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, or JAXA, and lead author on the study. “Past hard X-ray instruments could not detect quiet active regions, and combination of new technologies enables us to investigate quiet active regions by hard X-rays for the first time.”

Image above: The NASA-funded FOXSI instrument captured new evidence of small solar flares, called nanoflares, during its December 2014 flight on a suborbital sounding rocket. Nanoflares could help explain why the Sun’s atmosphere, the corona, is so much hotter than the surface. Here, FOXSI’s observations of hard X-rays are shown in blue, superimposed over a soft X-ray image of the Sun from JAXA and NASA’s Hinode solar-observing satellite. Image Credits: JAXA/NASA/Hinode/FOXSI.

These observations are a step toward understanding the coronal heating problem, which is how scientists refer to the extraordinarily – and unexpectedly – high temperatures in the Sun’s outer atmosphere, the corona. The corona is hundreds to thousands of times hotter than the Sun’s visible surface, the photosphere. Because the Sun produces heat at its core, this runs counter to what one would initially expect: normally the layer closest to a source of heat, the Sun’s surface, in this case, would have a higher temperature than the more distant atmosphere.

“If you’ve got a stove and you take your hand farther away, you don’t expect to feel hotter than when you were close,” said Lindsay Glesener, project manager for FOXSI-2 at the University of Minnesota and an author on the study.

The cause of these counterintuitively high temperatures is an outstanding question in solar physics. One possible solution to the coronal heating problem is the constant eruption of tiny solar flares in the solar atmosphere, so small that they can’t be directly detected. In aggregate, these nanoflares could produce enough heat to raise the temperature of the corona to the millions of degrees that we observe.

FOXSI Sounding Rocket launch. Image Credit: NASA

One of the consequences of nanoflares would be pockets of superheated plasma. Plasma at these temperatures emits light in hard X-rays, which are notoriously difficult to detect. For instance, NASA’s RHESSI satellite – short for Reuven Ramaty High Energy Solar Spectroscopic Imager – launched in 2002, uses an indirect technique to measure hard X-rays, limiting how precisely we can pinpoint the location of superheated plasma. But with the cutting-edge optics available now, FOXSI was able to use a technique called direct focusing that can keep track of where the hard X-rays originate on the Sun.

“It’s really a completely transformative way of making this type of measurement,” said Glesener. “Even just on a sounding rocket experiment looking at the Sun for about six minutes, we had much better sensitivity than a spacecraft with indirect imaging.” 

FOXSI’s measurements – along with additional X-ray data from the JAXA and NASA Hinode solar observatory – allow the team to say with certainty that the hard X-rays came from a specific region on the Sun that did not have any detectable larger solar flares, leaving nanoflares as the only likely instigator.

“This is a proof of existence for these kinds of events,” said Steve Christe, the project scientist for FOXSI at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, and an author on the study. “There’s basically no other way for these X-rays to be produced, except by plasma at around 10 million degrees Celsius [18 million degrees Fahrenheit]. This points to these small energy releases happening all the time, and if they exist, they should be contributing to coronal heating.”

There are still questions to be answered, like: How much heat do nanoflares actually release into the corona?

FOXSI to Observe X-Rays From Sun. Image Credits: NASA/JAXA

“This particular observation doesn’t tell us exactly how much it contributes to coronal heating,” said Christe. “To fully solve the coronal heating problem, they would need to be happening everywhere, even outside of the region observed here.”

Hoping to build up a more complete picture of nanoflares and their contribution to coronal heating, Glesener is leading a team to launch a third iteration of the FOXSI instrument on a sounding rocket in summer 2018. This version of FOXSI will use new hardware to eliminate much of the background noise that the instrument sees, allowing for even more precise measurements. 

A team led by Christe was also selected to undertake a concept study developing the FOXSI instrument for a possible spaceflight as part of the NASA Small Explorers program.

FOXSI is a collaboration between the United States and JAXA. The second iteration of the FOXSI sounding rocket launched from the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico on Dec. 11, 2014. FOXSI is supported through NASA’s Sounding Rocket Program at the Goddard Space Flight Center’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia. NASA’s Heliophysics Division manages the sounding rocket program.

Related links:

Nature Astronomy: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41550-017-0269-z

JAXA press release on these findings (Japanese): http://www.isas.jaxa.jp/topics/001146.html

NASA-funded FOXSI to Observe X-rays from Sun: https://www.nasa.gov/content/goddard/nasa-funded-foxsi-to-observe-x-rays-from-sun

NASA’s Sounding Rocket program: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/sounding-rockets/index.html

FOXSI instrument: https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-selects-proposals-to-study-sun-space-environment

Sounding Rockets: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/sounding-rockets/index.html

Images (mentioned), Text, Credits: NASA/Sara Blumberg/Goddard Space Flight Center, by Sarah Frazier.

Greetings, Orbiter.ch

Air quality-monitoring satellite in orbit

Eurockot - Sentinel-5P Launch patch / ESA - Sentinel-5P Mission logo.

13 October 2017

Sentinel-5P liftoff

The first Copernicus mission dedicated to monitoring our atmosphere, Sentinel‑5P, has been launched from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in northern Russia.

The 820 kg satellite was carried into orbit on a Rockot launcher at 09:27 GMT (11:27 CEST) today.

The first stage separated 2 min 16 sec after liftoff, followed by the fairing and second stage at 3 min 3 sec and 5 min 19 sec, respectively. The upper stage then fired twice, delivering Sentinel-5P to its final orbit 79 min after liftoff.

Sentinel-5P liftoff

After separating from the upper stage, Sentinel-5P deployed its three solar panels and began communications with Earth. The first signal was received 93 min after launch as the satellite passed over the Kiruna station in Sweden.

Telemetry links, command and control were then established by controllers at ESA’s operations centre in Darmstadt, Germany, allowing them to monitor the health of the satellite.

The launch and the early orbit phase will last three days, during which controllers will check the satellite’s key systems and configure it for flight in space.

ollowing this, a commissioning phase will check all elements of the satellite’s systems and the main instrument will be decontaminated. Once completed after a few weeks, the cooler door will be opened and the calibration and validation of Sentinel-5P’s main Tropomi instrument will be performed.

The mission is expected to begin full operations six months from now.

“Launching the sixth Sentinel satellite for the Copernicus programme is testament to the extensive competence we have here at ESA, from its moment of conception to well into operations,” said ESA Director General Jan Woerner.

Solar panel opening

“The Sentinel-5P satellite is now safely in orbit so it is up to our mission control teams to steer this mission into its operational life and maintain it for the next seven years or more.”

Sentinel-5P – the P standing for Precursor – is the first Copernicus mission dedicated to monitoring our atmosphere.

The mission is one of six families of dedicated missions that make up the core of Europe’s Copernicus environmental monitoring network. Copernicus relies on the Sentinels and contributing missions to provide data for monitoring the environment and supporting civil security activities. Sentinel-5P carries the state-of-the-art Tropomi to do just that.

Sentinel-5P

Developed jointly by ESA and the Netherlands Space Office, Tropomi will map a multitude of trace gases such as nitrogen dioxide, ozone, formaldehyde, sulphur dioxide, methane, carbon monoxide and aerosols – all of which affect the air we breathe and therefore our health, and our climate.

Sentinel-5P was developed to reduce data gaps between the Envisat satellite – in particular the Sciamachy instrument – and the launch of Sentinel-5, and to complement the GOME-2 sensor on the MetOp satellite.

“Having Sentinel-5P in orbit will give us daily and global views at our atmosphere with a precision we never had before,” said Josef Aschbacher, ESA’s Director of Earth Observation Programmes.

Bringing air pollution into focus

“Our historic data records, together with the long-term perspective of the Copernicus satellite programme, opens the doors for generating datasets spanning decades – a prerequisite to understanding our ever-changing Earth. ”

In the future, both the geostationary Sentinel-4 and polar-orbiting Sentinel‑5 missions will monitor the composition of the atmosphere for Copernicus Atmosphere Services. Both missions will be carried on meteorological satellites operated by Eumetsat.

Until then, the Sentinel-5P mission will play a key role in monitoring and tracking air pollution.

Related links:

Airbus Defence and Space: http://airbusdefenceandspace.com/

Netherlands Space Office: http://www.spaceoffice.nl/en/

Eurockot: http://www.eurockot.com/

Khrunichev: http://www.khrunichev.ru/

Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service: http://atmosphere.copernicus.eu/

Images, Videos, Text, Credits: ESA/ATG medialab.

Best regards, Orbiter.ch

Weekly Recap From the Expedition Lead Scientist, week of October 2, 2017

ISS - Expedition 53 Mission patch.

Oct. 12, 2017

(Highlights: Week of October 2, 2017) - Science continued aboard the International Space Station as crew members prepared for an executed a spacewalk to work on the Canadarm2 last week.

European Space Agency astronaut Paolo Nespoli configured the Fluids Integrated Rack’s (FIR) newly-upgraded Light Microscopy Module (LMM) in preparation for the upcoming Advanced Colloids Experiment-Temperature-6 (ACE-T6) operations. The LMM microscope is a state-of-the-art light imaging microscope facility that allows research of microscopic phenomena in microgravity. Understanding how matter is organized and moves on a microscopic level could help scientists and engineers develop more efficient materials and machines for both Earth and space environments. The recent upgrade will enable 3D imaging of complex fluid structures and will allow for modeling the movement of individual particles at the micron level.

Image above: Crew members captured this view of the Japanese Experiment Module - Exposed Facility (JEM-EF), which holds up to 10 experiment payloads at a time outside the Japanese Experiment Module. Image Credit: NASA.

The ACE-T6 investigation will be the first experiment run with the upgraded LMM, and will study the microscopic behavior of colloids, which are suspensions of microscopic particles in a liquid. Common colloids include things ranging from milk to fabric softener, gels and creams. On Earth, these particles separate quickly under the force of gravity. However, in the microgravity environment of the orbiting laboratory, the movements and interactions of the particles can be observed more clearly. The addition of the ability to conduct 3D imaging will provide improved images that can be rotated and studied from every angle, potentially offering understanding that could improve product shelf life.

From microscopy to spectroscopy, the crew also swapped out a hard drive on the Meteor Composition Determination (Meteor) laptop in support of the ongoing observation of meteors in Earth orbit. The Meteor camera is house in the Window Observational Research Facility (WORF) in the Destiny Lab, and uses image analysis to provide information on the physical and chemical properties - such as size, density and chemical composition - of the meteoroid dust. Studying the elemental composition of meteors is important to our understanding of how the planets developed.

Image above: NASA astronaut Joe Acaba is seen with the Meteor camera, which monitors and records meteors in Earth’s orbit, and provides information on the physical and chemical properties of meteoroid dust. Image Credit: NASA.

Nespoli also completed a session of the Effects of Long-Duration Microgravity on Fine Motor Skills (Fine Motor Skills) investigation. Crew members periodically perform a series of interactive tasks on a touchscreen tablet as part of the study to measure long-term microgravity exposure, different phases of microgravity adaptation and – upon return to Earth – sensorimotor recovery. The Fine Motor Skills investigation could help researchers develop better countermeasures to protect crew safety and efficiency on future long-duration missions. Additionally, since computer-based games and tasks are frequently used to measure and improve fine motor abilities in elderly patients, people with motor disorders, and patients with brain injuries, the tasks developed for the Fine Motor Skills investigation could also benefit patients on Earth undergoing rehabilitation for conditions that impair fine motor control.

Space to Ground: Out the Door: 10/06/2017

Progress was made on other investigations last week, including: MagVector, RaDI-N, Veg-03, Story Time From Space, Space Headaches and MobiPV.

Related links:

Canadarm2: http://orbiterchspacenews.blogspot.ch/2017/10/spacewalkers-wrap-up-robotic-arm-work.html

Light Microscopy Module (LMM): https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/541.html

Advanced Colloids Experiment-Temperature-6 (ACE-T6): https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/1968.html

Enable 3D imaging: https://www.nasa.gov/feature/from-2d-to-3d-space-station-microscope-gets-an-upgrade

Meteor Composition Determination (Meteor): https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/1323.html

Window Observational Research Facility (WORF): https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/358.html

Fine Motor Skills: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/1767.html

MagVector: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/1176.html

RaDI-N: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/197.html

Veg-03: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/1294.html

Story Time From Space: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/1287.html

Space Headaches: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/news/infographic_space_headache

MobiPV: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/2080.html

Expedition 53: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/expeditions/expedition53/index.html

Space Station Research and Technology: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/index.html

International Space Station (ISS): https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/main/index.html

Images (mentioned), Video, Text, Credits: NASA/Erling. G. Holm/John Love, Lead Increment Scientist Expeditions 53 & 54.

Greetings, Orbiter.ch

NASA Pinpoints Cause of Earth's Recent Record Carbon Dioxide Spike

NASA - Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 (OCO-2) logo.

October 12, 2017

A new NASA study provides space-based evidence that Earth's tropical regions were the cause of the largest annual increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration seen in at least 2,000 years.

Scientists suspected the 2015-16 El Nino -- one of the largest on record -- was responsible, but exactly how has been a subject of ongoing research. Analyzing the first 28 months of data from NASA's Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 (OCO-2) satellite, researchers conclude impacts of El Nino-related heat and drought occurring in tropical regions of South America, Africa and Indonesia were responsible for the record spike in global carbon dioxide. The findings are published in the journal Science Friday as part of a collection of five research papers based on OCO-2 data.

Image above: The last El Nino in 2015-16 impacted the amount of carbon dioxide that Earth's tropical regions released into the atmosphere, leading to Earth's recent record spike in atmospheric carbon dioxide. The effects of the El Nino were different in each region. Image Credit: NASA-JPL/Caltech.

"These three tropical regions released 2.5 gigatons more carbon into the atmosphere than they did in 2011," said Junjie Liu of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, who is lead author of the study. "Our analysis shows this extra carbon dioxide explains the difference in atmospheric carbon dioxide growth rates between 2011 and the peak years of 2015-16. OCO-2 data allowed us to quantify how the net exchange of carbon between land and atmosphere in individual regions is affected during El Nino years." A gigaton is a billion tons.

In 2015 and 2016, OCO-2 recorded atmospheric carbon dioxide increases that were 50 percent larger than the average increase seen in recent years preceding these observations. These measurements are consistent with those made by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). That increase was about 3 parts per million of carbon dioxide per year -- or 6.3 gigatons of carbon. In recent years, the average annual increase has been closer to 2 parts per million of carbon dioxide per year -- or 4 gigatons of carbon. These record increases occurred even though emissions from human activities in 2015-16 are estimated to have remained roughly the same as they were prior to the El Nino, which is a cyclical warming pattern of ocean circulation in the central and eastern tropical Pacific Ocean that can affect weather worldwide.

Using OCO-2 data, Liu's team analyzed how Earth's land areas contributed to the record atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration increases. They found the total amount of carbon released to the atmosphere from all land areas increased by 3 gigatons in 2015, due to the El Nino. About 80 percent of that amount -- or 2.5 gigatons of carbon -- came from natural processes occurring in tropical forests in South America, Africa and Indonesia, with each region contributing roughly the same amount.

The team compared the 2015 findings to those from a reference year -- 2011 -- using carbon dioxide data from the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency's Greenhouse Gases Observing Satellite (GOSAT). In 2011, weather in the three tropical regions was normal and the amount of carbon absorbed and released by them was in balance.

"Understanding how the carbon cycle in these regions responded to El Nino will enable scientists to improve carbon cycle models, which should lead to improved predictions of how our planet may respond to similar conditions in the future," said OCO-2 Deputy Project Scientist Annmarie Eldering of JPL. "The team's findings imply that if future climate brings more or longer droughts, as the last El Nino did, more carbon dioxide may remain in the atmosphere, leading to a tendency to further warm Earth."

While the three tropical regions each released roughly the same amount of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, the team found that temperature and rainfall changes influenced by the El Nino were different in each region, and the natural carbon cycle responded differently. Liu combined OCO-2 data with other satellite data to understand details of the natural processes causing each tropical region's response.

In eastern and southeastern tropical South America, including the Amazon rainforest, severe drought spurred by El Nino made 2015 the driest year in the past 30 years. Temperatures also were higher than normal. These drier and hotter conditions stressed vegetation and reduced photosynthesis, meaning trees and plants absorbed less carbon from the atmosphere. The effect was to increase the net amount of carbon released into the atmosphere.

In contrast, rainfall in tropical Africa was at normal levels, based on precipitation analysis that combined satellite measurements and rain gauge data, but ecosystems endured hotter-than-normal temperatures. Dead trees and plants decomposed more, resulting in more carbon being released into the atmosphere. Meanwhile, tropical Asia had the second-driest year in the past 30 years. Its increased carbon release, primarily from Indonesia, was mainly due to increased peat and forest fires -- also measured by satellite instruments.

"We knew El Ninos were one factor in these variations, but until now we didn't understand, at the scale of these regions, what the most important processes were," said Eldering. "OCO-2's geographic coverage and data density are allowing us to study each region separately."

Scott Denning, professor of atmospheric science at Colorado State University in Fort Collins and an OCO-2 science team member who was not part of this study, noted that while scientists have known for decades that El Nino influences the productivity of tropical forests and, therefore, the forests' net contributions to atmospheric carbon dioxide, researchers have had very few direct observations of the effects.

NASA's Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 (OCO-2) satellite. Image Credit: NASA

"OCO-2 has given us two revolutionary new ways to understand the effects of drought and heat on tropical forests: directly measuring carbon dioxide over these regions thousands of times a day; and sensing the rate of photosynthesis by detecting fluorescence from chlorophyll in the trees themselves," said Denning. "We can use these data to test our understanding of whether the response of tropical forests is likely to make climate change worse or not."

The concentration of carbon dioxide in Earth's atmosphere is constantly changing. It changes from season to season as plants grow and die, with higher concentrations in the winter and lower amounts in the summer. Annually averaged atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations have generally increased year over year since the early 1800s -- the start of the widespread Industrial Revolution. Before then, Earth's atmosphere naturally contained about 595 gigatons of carbon in the form of carbon dioxide. Currently, that number is 850 gigatons.

The annual increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide levels and the magnitude of the seasonal cycle are determined by a delicate balance between Earth's atmosphere, ocean and land. Each year, the ocean, plants and trees take up and release carbon dioxide. The amount of carbon released into the atmosphere as a result of human activities also changes each year. On average, Earth's land and ocean remove about half the carbon dioxide released from human emissions, with the other half leading to increasing atmospheric concentrations. While natural processes are responsible for the exchange of carbon dioxide between the atmosphere, ocean and land, each year is different. In some years, natural processes remove as little as 20 percent of human emissions, while in other years they scrub as much as 80 percent.

OCO-2, launched in 2014, gathers global measurements of atmospheric carbon dioxide with the resolution, precision and coverage needed to understand how this important greenhouse gas -- the principal human-produced driver of climate change -- moves through the Earth system at regional scales, and how it changes over time. From its vantage point in space, OCO-2 is able to make roughly 100,000 measurements of atmospheric carbon dioxide each day, around the world.

Institutions involved in the Liu study include JPL; the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado; the University of Toronto; Colorado State University; Caltech in Pasadena, California; and Arizona State University in Tempe.

For more information on NASA's Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 mission, visit: https://www.nasa.gov/oco2

Images (mentioned), Text, Credits: NASA/Dwayne Brown/JPL/Alan Buis.

Greetings, Orbiter.ch

Launch of Russian Cargo Mission Scrubbed

ROSCOSMOS - Russian Vehicles patch.

October 12, 2017

Image above: The Progress 68 resupply rocket stands at it launch pad at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Image Credit: Roscosmos.

Launch of the Russian Progress 68 cargo craft has been scrubbed for today. The next launch attempt will be no earlier than Saturday Oct. 14 at 4:46 am EDT (2:46 p.m. local time in Baikonur).

Rollout of Soyuz-2.1a with Progress MC-07 (68P). Video Credit: Roscosmos

Following a 34-orbit, two-day trip, Progress 68 would arrive at the Pirs Docking Compartment of the International Space Station for docking on Monday, Oct. 16. Roscosmos technicians in Baikonur are analyzing the cause of the scrubbed launch.

Related articles:

Roscosmos Press Release: http://en.roscosmos.ru/20699/

NASA to Televise International Space Station Cargo Ship Launch, Docking
https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-to-televise-international-space-station-cargo-ship-launch-docking-0

Related links:

Expedition 53: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/expeditions/expedition53/index.html

Space Station Research and Technology: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/index.html

International Space Station (ISS): https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/main/index.html

Images (mentioned), Video (mentioned), Text, Credits: NASA/Mark Garcia.

Best regards, Orbiter.ch

Reconstructing Cassini's Plunge into Saturn

NASA - Cassini Mission to Saturn patch.

October 12, 2017

As NASA's Cassini spacecraft made its fateful dive into the upper atmosphere of Saturn on Sept. 15, the spacecraft was live-streaming data from eight of its science instruments, along with readings from a variety of engineering systems. While analysis of science data from the final plunge will take some time, Cassini engineers already have a pretty clear understanding of how the spacecraft itself behaved as it went in. The data are useful for evaluating models of Saturn's atmosphere the team used to predict the spacecraft's behavior at mission's end, and they help provide a baseline for planning future missions to Saturn.

Image above: Cassini spacecraft is shown during its Sept. 15, 2017, plunge into Saturn's atmosphere in this artist's depiction. Image Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech.

Chief among these engineering data, or telemetry, are measurements indicating the performance of the spacecraft's small attitude-control thrusters. Each thruster was capable of producing a force of half a newton, which is roughly equivalent to the weight of a tennis ball on Earth.

During the final moments of its plunge, Cassini was traveling through Saturn's atmosphere, which was about the same density as the tenuous gas where the International Space Station orbits above Earth. In other words, there's barely any air there at all. Despite the fact that this air pressure is close to being a vacuum, Cassini was traveling about 4.5 times faster than the space station. The higher velocity greatly multiplied the force, or dynamic pressure, that the thin atmosphere exerted on Cassini. It's like the difference between holding your hand outside the window of a car moving at 15 mph versus one moving at 65 mph.

Data show that as Cassini began its final approach, in the hour before atmospheric entry it was subtly rocking back and forth by fractions of a degree, gently pulsing its thrusters every few minutes to keep its antenna pointed at Earth. The only perturbing force at that time was a slight tug from Saturn's gravity that tried to rotate the spacecraft.

Animation above: Cassini Grand Finale, penetration of Saturn's upper atmosphere. Animation Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute.

"To keep the antenna pointed at Earth, we used what's called 'bang-bang control,'" said Julie Webster, Cassini's spacecraft operations chief at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California. "We give the spacecraft a narrow range over which it can rotate, and when it bangs up against that limit in one direction, it fires a thruster to tip back the other way." (This range was indeed small: just two milliradians, which equals 0.1 degree. The reconstructed data show Cassini was subtly correcting its orientation in this way until about three minutes before loss of signal.)

At this point, about 1,200 miles (1,900 kilometers) above the cloud tops, the spacecraft began to encounter Saturn's atmosphere. Cassini approached Saturn with its 36-foot-long (11-meter) magnetometer boom pointing out from the spacecraft's side. The tenuous gas began to push against the boom like a lever, forcing it to rotate slightly toward the aft (or backward) direction. In response, the thrusters fired corrective gas jets to stop the boom from rotating any farther. Over the next couple of minutes, as engineers had predicted, the thrusters began firing longer, more frequent pulses. The battle with Saturn had begun.

With its thrusters firing almost continuously, the spacecraft held its own for 91 seconds against Saturn's atmosphere -- the thrusters reaching 100 percent of their capacity during the last 20 seconds or so before the signal was lost. The final eight seconds of data show that Cassini started to slowly tip over backward. As this happened, the antenna's narrowly focused radio signal began to point away from Earth, and 83 minutes later (the travel time for a signal from Saturn), Cassini's voice disappeared from monitors in JPL mission control. First, the actual telemetry data disappeared, leaving only a radio carrier signal. Then, 24 seconds after the loss of telemetry, silence.

Animation above: Cassini Grand Finale, disintegration of the spacecraft. Animation Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute.

These data explain why those watching the signal -- appearing as a tall green spike on a squiggly plot of Cassini's radio frequency -- in mission control and live on NASA TV -- saw what appeared to be a short reprieve, almost as though the spacecraft was making a brief comeback. The spike of the signal first began to diminish over a few seconds, but then rose briefly again before disappearing with finality.

"No, it wasn't a comeback. Just a side lobe of the radio antenna beam pattern," Webster said. Essentially, the reprieve was an unfocused part of the otherwise narrow radio signal that rotated into view as the spacecraft began to slowly tip over.

"Given that Cassini wasn't designed to fly into a planetary atmosphere, it's remarkable that the spacecraft held on as long as it did, allowing its science instruments to send back data to the last second," said Earl Maize, Cassini project manager at JPL. "It was a solidly built craft, and it did everything we asked of it."

(Click on the image to see animation)

Animated graphics above: This animation shows the last 30 seconds of Cassini's X- and S-band radio signals as they disappeared from mission control on Sept. 15, 2017. The video has been sped up by a factor of two. Animation Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech.

The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, ESA (European Space Agency) and the Italian Space Agency. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of Caltech in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. JPL designed, developed and assembled the Cassini orbiter.

More information about Cassini:

https://www.nasa.gov/cassini

https://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov

http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Science/Cassini-Huygens

Image (mentioned), Animations (mentioned), Text, Credits: NASA/JPL/Preston Dyches.

Best regards, Orbiter.ch

SpaceX - EchoStar 105/SES-11 Mission Success

SpaceX - Falcon 9 / EchoStar 105/SES-11 Mission patch.

Oct. 11, 2017

Falcon 9 carrying EchoStar 105/SES-11 payload, launch from Kennedy Space Center

On October 11th, SpaceX successfully launched the EchoStar 105/SES-11 payload from Launch Complex 39A (LC-39A) at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, Florida. The satellite was deployed approximately 36 minutes after liftoff into its targeted orbit. EchoStar. Liftoff, from Launch Complex 39A at the Kennedy Space Center took place at the opening of a two-hour window at 18:53 Eastern Time (22:53 UTC).

Echostar 105 / SES-11 Launch replay

Following stage separation, Falcon 9’s first stage successfully landed on the “Of Course I Still Love You” droneship, which is stationed in the Atlantic Ocean. Falcon 9’s first stage for the EchoStar 105/SES-11 mission previously supported SpaceX’s 10th resupply mission to the International Space Station (CRS-10) in February of this year.

EchoStar 105/SES-11 hybrid communications satellite

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launches the SES-11/EchoStar 105 hybrid communications satellite to replace the AMC-15 and AMC-18 satellites. As SES-11, the spacecraft’s C-band capacity will provide replacement capacity for SES of Luxembourg for AMC-18. EchoStar Corp. of Englewood, Colorado, will market the Ku-Band transponder capacity, with coverage of the 50 U.S. states, the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean, as EchoStar 105, replacing AMC-15.

For more information about SpaceX, visit: http://www.spacex.com/

Images, Video, Text, Credits: SpaceX/SES/EchoStar Corp.

Best regards, Orbiter.ch

Spacewalk Review Ahead of Thursday’s Cargo Delivery

ISS - Expedition 53 Mission patch.

October 11, 2017

Image above: NASA Television will provide live coverage of the launch and docking of a Russian cargo spacecraft delivering almost three tons of food, fuel and supplies to the International Space Station. Image Credit: NASA.

Two astronauts checked in with ground engineers today after completing the second of three spacewalks yesterday that are planned for this month. Meanwhile, a Russian cargo ship stands at its launch pad ready to blast off Thursday morning on a short delivery trip to the International Space Station.

Commander Randy Bresnik and Flight Engineer Mark Vande Hei called down to Mission Control today to discuss the elements of Tuesday’s successful spacewalk. During the excursion, they began the lubrication process on the Canadarm2’s newly-installed latching end effector and swapped out a degraded video camera. Today, the spacewalkers are servicing their spacesuits’ water system and recharging the batteries.

Image above: The Russian Progress 68 resupply rocket stands at it launch pad at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Image Credit: Roscosmos.

Bresnik will conduct another spacewalk Oct. 18 with NASA astronaut Joe Acaba to finalize the servicing on the Canadarm2 robotic arm. The duo will also perform some electrical maintenance work and replace another degraded video camera. NASA TV will broadcast the third and final spacewalk on Oct. 18 beginning at 6:30 a.m.

International Space Station (ISS). Animation Credit: NASA

Three tons of food, fuel and supplies are loaded inside a Russian resupply ship (ISS Progress 68) ready to lift off to the orbital complex Thursday at 5:32 a.m. The 68P will take just two orbits around Earth and dock to the station less than three-and-a-half hours later. This will be the shortest delivery mission for a Progress mission which usually takes a near six-hour trip, and in the past has taken up to two days to assist in the resupply of the complex.

Related article:

NASA to Televise International Space Station Cargo Ship Launch, Docking
https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-to-televise-international-space-station-cargo-ship-launch-docking-0

Related links:

Expedition 53: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/expeditions/expedition53/index.html

Space Station Research and Technology: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/index.html

International Space Station (ISS): https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/main/index.html

Images (mentioned), Animation (mentioned), Text, Credits: NASA/Mark Garcia.

Best regards, Orbiter.ch