ESA’s Mars rover has a name – Rosalind Franklin

ESA - ExoMars Mission logo.

7 February 2019

The ExoMars rover that will search for the building blocks of life on the Red Planet has a name: Rosalind Franklin. The prominent scientist behind the discovery of the structure of DNA will have her symbolic footprint on Mars in 2021. 

A panel of experts chose ‘Rosalind Franklin’ from over 36 000 entries submitted by citizens from all ESA Member States, following a competition launched by the UK Space Agency in July last year.

ExoMars rover

The ExoMars rover will be the first of its kind to combine the capability to roam around Mars and to study it at depth. The Red Planet has hosted water in the past, but has a dry surface exposed to harsh radiation today.

The rover bearing Rosalind Franklin’s name will drill down to two metres into the surface to sample the soil, analyse its composition and search for evidence of past – and perhaps even present – life buried underground.

The rover is part of the ExoMars programme, a joint endeavour between ESA and the Russian State Space Corporation, Roscosmos.

What’s in a name?

Rosalind Elsie Franklin was a British chemist and X-ray crystallographer who contributed to unravelling the double helix structure of our DNA. She also made enduring contributions to the study of coal, carbon and graphite. ESA has a long tradition of naming its missions for great scientists, including Newton, Planck and Euclid.

Rosalind Franklin

“This name reminds us that it is in the human genes to explore. Science is in our DNA, and in everything we do at ESA. Rosalind the rover captures this spirit and carries us all to the forefront of space exploration,” says ESA Director General Jan Woerner.

The name was revealed this morning in the ‘Mars Yard’ at Airbus Defence and Space in Stevenage, in the United Kingdom, where the rover is being built. ESA astronaut Tim Peake met the competition entrants who chose the winning name, and toured the facility with UK Science Minister Chris Skidmore.

“This rover will scout the martian surface equipped with next-generation instruments – a fully-fledged automated laboratory on Mars,” says Tim.

ExoMars rover name announced

“With it, we are building on our European heritage in robotic exploration, and at the same time devising new technologies.”

The rover will relay data to Earth through the Trace Gas Orbiter, a spacecraft searching for tiny amounts of gases in the martian atmosphere that might be linked to biological or geological activity since 2016.

Rosalind has already a proposed landing site. Last November a group of experts chose Oxia Planum near the martian equator to explore an ancient environment that was once water-rich and that could have been colonised by primitive life.

On our way to Mars, and back

Looking beyond ExoMars, bringing samples back from Mars is the logical next step for robotic exploration. ESA is already defining a concept for a sample return mission working in cooperation with NASA.

“Returning martian samples is a huge challenge that will require multiple missions, each one successively more complex than the one before,” says David Parker, ESA’s Director of Human and Robotic Exploration.

ExoMars Rover: from concept to reality

“We want to bring the Red Planet closer to home. We want to delve into its mysteries and bring back knowledge and benefits to people on Earth. Returned planetary samples are truly the gift that keeps on giving – scientific treasure for generations to come,” he adds.

Long-term planning is crucial to realise the missions that investigate fundamental science questions like could life ever have evolved beyond Earth?

ESA has been exploring Mars for more than 15 years, starting with Mars Express and continuing with the two ExoMars missions, keeping a European presence at the Red Planet into the next decade.

Related links:

ExoMars: http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Human_and_Robotic_Exploration/Exploration/ExoMars

Robotic exploration of Mars: http://exploration.esa.int/

ESA Member States: https://www.esa.int/About_Us/Welcome_to_ESA/New_Member_States

Mars Express: http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Science/Mars_Express

Sample return mission: http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Human_and_Robotic_Exploration/Exploration/ESA_and_NASA_to_investigate_bringing_martian_soil_to_Earth

Images, Video, Text, Credits: ESA/S. Corvaja/ATG medialab/MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology.

Best regards, Orbiter.ch

Transforming LHCb: What’s in store for the next two years?

CERN - European Organization for Nuclear Research logo.

6 February, 2019

The LHCb detector will undergo a metamorphosis during CERN’s second long shutdown (LS2) 

Opening of the LHCb detector in early December 2018 (Image: Maximilien Brice/CERN)

The LHCb experiment will undergo a metamorphosis over the coming two years, during CERN’s maintenance and upgrade period known as Long Shutdown 2 (LS2). When the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) restarts in 2021, the proton–proton collision rate at LHCb will be increased by a factor of five, and the collaboration is upgrading its detector to be ready for it.

The LHCb experiment is trying to solve the mystery of why nature prefers matter over antimatter: small asymmetries between the two could explain why matter emerged from the aftermath of the Big Bang while antimatter did not. In particular, LHCb is hunting for beauty or bottom (b) quarks, which were common at the infancy of the Universe and can be generated in their billions by the LHC, along with their antimatter counterparts, beauty antiquarks.

Forty is better than one

As every second of the LHC corresponds to several million proton–proton collisions, a detector’s trigger system needs to decide which data are important to keep and which can be discarded.

Within the LHC, bunches of protons travel in two beams, clockwise and anticlockwise, at almost the speed of light. The beams cross one another in a detector every 25 nanoseconds, corresponding to a frequency of 40 MHz (40 million times per second). In previous years, LHCb filtered down this “event rate” to 1 MHz, using fast electronics to select the most interesting events. Those events were then processed and sifted further. But from 2021 onwards, this will change radically: the whole detector will read at the full rate of 40 MHz to allow event selection to be done more precisely and flexibly by the software. For this reason, the electronics of essentially all the subdetectors will be modified and the computing power of the LHCb event selection system (trigger) will become more powerful.

Flowing at an immense rate of 4 terabytes per second, data will travel from the underground hall, straight from the detector electronics, via some 9000 300-metre-long optical fibres, into a new computer centre that is nearing completion. There, around 500 powerful custom-made boards will receive and transfer data to thousands of processing cores.

Highlights of the many LHCb upgrades taking place during LS2

A faster VELO

The vertex locator (VELO) – the subdetector that measures the distance between the collision point and the point where B hadrons (composite particles containing at least one b quark or antiquark) transform into other particles – is one of the key components being upgraded during LS2. The new VELO consists of pixel tracking layers, which offer improved hit resolution and simpler track reconstruction. It will also be closer to the beam axis: 5.1 mm as opposed to 8.4 mm. A new chip, the VELOPIX, capable of collecting signal hits from 256×256 pixels and sending data at a staggering rate of up to 20 Gb/s, was developed for this purpose.

Image above: Prototype vertex locator (VELO) pixel modules were developed last year ahead of the upgrade (Image: Julien Marius Ordan/CERN).

Mirror, mirror on the detector

The ring-imaging Cherenkov (RICH) detectors, which determine particles’ identities, will be equipped with a new mirror system. This is required to deflect, focus and detect cones of light emitted by travelling particles in an environment with much larger particle densities.

New silicon-microstrip sensors and SciFi tracking

Currently, the main tracking system reconstructs the path of charged particles in four tracking stations: one between RICH-1 and the LHCb dipole magnet, and three between the magnet and RICH-2. In the future, a new upstream tracker (UT) with innovative silicon-microstrip sensors will be installed in place of the station before the magnet. The three tracking stations after the magnet will be replaced by a new type of station based on scintillating fibres (SciFi), read out at one extremity by silicon photomultiplier (SiPM) arrays.

The SciFi tracker represents a major challenge for the collaboration, not only due to its complexity, but also because the technology has never been used for such a large area in such a radiation environment. Scientists ordered more than 11 000 km of fibre, which they meticulously verified and even cured of a few rare and local imperfections.

Image above: Removing the beam pipe of the LHCb experiment in early January 2019 (Image: Julien Marius Ordan/CERN).

With the planned higher luminosity and a greatly improved ability to pick the most interesting events, the transformed LHCb can look forward to unprecedented results in the future.

Read more in “LHCb’s momentous metamorphosis” in the latest CERN Courier, which also has LS2 highlights from ALICE, ATLAS and CMS: https://cerncourier.com/lhcbs-momentous-metamorphosis/

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:

LHCb experiment: https://home.cern/science/experiments/lhcb

Long Shutdown 2 (LS2): https://home.cern/tags/long-shutdown-2

Large Hadron Collider (LHC): https://home.cern/science/accelerators/large-hadron-collider

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

Images (mentioned), Text, Credits: CERN, by Letizia Diamante.

Best regards, Orbiter.ch

Mind and Body Studies as Crew Finalizes Cygnus Packing

ISS - Expedition 58 Mission patch.

February 6, 2019

The astronauts onboard the International Space Station continued exploring today how living in space affects their minds and bodies. The Expedition 58 crew also researched fluid physics and prepared a resupply ship for its departure.

Anne McClain of NASA collected blood and urine samples this morning for the Repository physiology study. She spun the samples in a centrifuge then stowed them in a science freezer. She later took a cognition test in support of the Lighting Effects experiment that seeks to improve health and wellness.

Image above: Astronaut Anne McClain of NASA peers into a microscope and takes photographs for the Protein Crystal Growth-16 experiment that is exploring therapies for Parkinson’s disease. Image Credit: NASA.

Canadian Space Agency astronaut David Saint-Jacques along with McClain answered a pair of questionnaires in support of the Standard Measures and Behavioral Core Measures psychology studies. He also wrapped up a physics study observing the mechanics of fluids in hardware that represents a spacecraft fuel tank.

International Space Station (ISS). Animation Credit: NASA

McClain will be in the cupola Friday at 11:10 a.m. EST and release the U.S. Cygnus resupply ship from the Canadarm2 robotic arm. Saint-Jacques will back her up Friday and monitor the cargo vessel’s departure. The duo is finalizing packing, will install a small satellite deployer in Cygnus then close the hatches on Thursday.

Over in the station’s Russian segment, Commander Oleg Kononenko of Roscosmos worked on power supply and battery maintenance in the Zarya module. The long-serving cosmonaut also researched crew psychology and studied radiation exposure.

Related links:

Expedition 58: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/expeditions/expedition58/index.html

Repository: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/explorer/Investigation.html?#id=954

Lighting Effects: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/explorer/Investigation.html?#id=2013

Standard Measures: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/explorer/Investigation.html?#id=7711

Behavioral Core Measures: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/explorer/Investigation.html?#id=7537

Mechanics of fluids: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/explorer/Investigation.html?#id=2043

Cupola: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/structure/elements/cupola.html

Canadarm2 robotic arm: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/structure/elements/mobile-servicing-system.html

Small satellite deployer: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/explorer/Facility.html?#id=7847

Zarya module: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/structure/elements/zarya-cargo-module

Radiation exposure: https://go.nasa.gov/2GcuT1J

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

Greetings, Orbiter.ch

Magnetic North rushes from Canada to Siberia

NOAA - National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration logo.

February 6, 2019

An urgent update of the global magnetic model, essential for many navigation systems, was released this week.

Image above: very cool interactive tool for the current magnetic recession and historic location of the north magnetic pole.

Geographic North is not Magnetic North. The latter is currently traveling at a speed of 55 km per year. This discovery forced scientists to publish this week a new magnetic model, essential to many navigation systems.

The global magnetic model is used for aerial and naval navigation of armies, but also by phone compasses. It is updated every five years, but the latest model, dating back to 2015, was out of step with the observations made at the end of 2018.

NCEI has released an out-of-cycle World Magnetic Model to ensure safe navigation

The Earth's magnetic field is generated mainly by the movement of the liquid iron that makes up the majority of the Earth's core, 3000 km below the surface. This is what makes the magnetic poles derive. The model makes it possible to correct the direction indicated by the compass in order to find the geographic North, which is fixed. The discovery of magnetic north in northern Canada dates back to 1831.

From 15 km per year to 55 km per year

Scientists from US and British atmospheric agencies (NOAA and BGS) released an urgent update of the model on Monday, before a normal update in late 2019.

Concretely, if one compared the direction indicated by the needle of a compass of France between today and two centuries ago, there would be a difference of about twenty degrees, explains to AFP Arnaud Chulliat, geophysicist at the University of Colorado at Boulder and NOAA.

Position of the north magnetic pole since 1590

"It's a very slow movement, but it's very real. Over several decades, this can reach several degrees, "he says. This shift does not matter much in the most populated latitudes, but "near the magnetic pole, change is faster".

Magnetic North has, over the centuries, moved more or less unpredictably into the archipelagos of Canada's far north. Since the end of the 19th century, he has been heading for Siberia. Since the 1990s, the movement has accelerated, across the Arctic Ocean, from about 15 km/year (9.32 miles/year) to 55 km/year (34.17 miles/year) today.

NOAA / NCEI: World Magnetic Model Out-of-Cycle Release:
https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/news/world-magnetic-model-out-cycle-release

NOAA - National Centers for Environmental Information: https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/

Images, Text, Credits: ATS/NOAA/NCEI/Orbiter.ch Aerospace/Roland Berga.

Best regards, Orbiter.ch

Beyond Mars, the Mini MarCO Spacecraft Fall Silent

NASA - MarCO Mission patch.

February 6, 2019

Before the pair of briefcase-sized spacecraft known collectively as MarCO launched last year, their success was measured by survival: If they were able to operate in deep space at all, they would be pushing the limits of experimental technology.

Now well past Mars, the daring twins seem to have reached their limit. It's been over a month since engineers have heard from MarCO, which followed NASA's InSight to the Red Planet. At this time, the mission team considers it unlikely they'll be heard from again.

Animation above: MarCO-B, one of the experimental Mars Cube One (MarCO) CubeSats, took these images as it approached Mars. Animation Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech.

MarCO, short for Mars Cube One, was the first interplanetary mission to use a class of mini-spacecraft called CubeSats. The MarCOs - nicknamed EVE and WALL-E, after characters from a Pixar film - served as communications relays during InSight's landing, beaming back data at each stage of its descent to the Martian surface in near-real time, along with InSight's first image. WALL-E sent back stunning images of Mars as well, while EVE performed some simple radio science.

All of this was achieved with experimental technology that cost a fraction of what most space missions do: $18.5 million provided by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, which built the CubeSats.

WALL-E was last heard from on Dec. 29; EVE, on Jan. 4. Based on trajectory calculations, WALL-E is currently more than 1 million miles (1.6 million kilometers) past Mars; EVE is farther, almost 2 million miles (3.2 million kilometers) past Mars.

Image above: Engineer Joel Steinkraus uses sunlight to test the solar arrays on one of the Mars Cube One (MarCO) spacecraft at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Image Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech.

The mission team has several theories for why they haven't been able to contact the pair. WALL-E has a leaky thruster. Attitude-control issues could be causing them to wobble and lose the ability to send and receive commands. The brightness sensors that allow the CubeSats to stay pointed at the Sun and recharge their batteries could be another factor. The MarCOs are in orbit around the Sun and will only get farther away as February wears on. The farther they are, the more precisely they need to point their antennas to communicate with Earth.

The MarCOs won't start moving toward the Sun again until this summer. The team will reattempt to contact the CubeSats at that time, though it's anyone's guess whether their batteries and other parts will last that long.

Even if they're never revived, the team considers MarCO a spectacular success.

"This mission was always about pushing the limits of miniaturized technology and seeing just how far it could take us," said Andy Klesh, the mission's chief engineer at JPL. "We've put a stake in the ground. Future CubeSats might go even farther."

Image above: An artist's rendering of the twin Mars Cube One (MarCO) spacecraft Cruise in Deep Space. Image Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech.

A number of the critical spare parts for each MarCO will be used in other CubeSat missions. That includes their experimental radios, antennas and propulsion systems. Several of these systems were provided by commercial vendors, making it easier for other CubeSats to use them as well.

More small spacecraft are on the way. NASA is set to launch a variety of new CubeSats in coming years.

"There's big potential in these small packages," said John Baker, the MarCO program manager at JPL. "CubeSats - part of a larger group of spacecraft called SmallSats - are a new platform for space exploration that is affordable to more than just government agencies."

Related article & links:

NASA Hears MarCO CubeSats Loud and Clear from Mars
https://orbiterchspacenews.blogspot.com/2018/11/nasa-hears-marco-cubesats-loud-and.html

CubeSats: https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/news/834/10-things-cubesats-going-farther/

For more information, visit: https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/cubesat/missions/marco.php

Image (mentioned), Animation (mentioned), Text, Credits: NASA/JoAnna Wendel/JPL/Andrew Good.

Greetings, Orbiter.ch

Arianespace orbits two telecommunications satellites on first Ariane 5 launch of 2019

ARIANESPACE - Ariane 5 / Flight VA247 Mission poster.

February 5, 2019

Flight VA247 was performed by an Ariane 5 ECA version

Arianespace has successfully orbited two telecommunications satellites: the Saudi Geostationary Satellite 1/Hellas Sat 4 condosat for operators KACST and Hellas Sat; and GSAT-31 for the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO).

Arianespace’s first launch of the year took place on Tuesday, February 5 at 6:01 p.m. (local time) from the Guiana Space Center (CSG), Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana (South America).

Today’s launch was the 103rd Ariane 5 mission, bringing the number of geostationary satellites launched by Arianespace to 374.

Arianespace Flight VA247 – GSAT-31 - Successful Mission

Following the announcement of this first successful launch of the year, Stéphane Israël, Chief Executive Officer of Arianespace, said: “This year we kick off the 40th anniversary celebration of the first launch of Europe’s Ariane rocket with a successful launch of Ariane 5. Through this emblematic flight, Arianespace underscores the reliability of our heavy launcher, the benchmark in the launch segment for geostationary telecommunications satellites. By carrying out a mission for long-lasting customers from three continents – Arabsat, KACST, Hellas Sat and ISRO – we continue to prove the attractiveness of Arianespace’s launch services for customers from around the world, both institutional and commercial.”

Saudi Geostationary Satellite 1/Hellas Sat 4

Composed of two payloads, Saudi Geostationary Satellite 1/Hellas Sat 4, also called HS- 4/SGS-1, is a geostationary condosat for KACST (King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology – Saudi Arabia) and Hellas Sat (Greece – Cyprus). To be installed as Flight VA247’s upper passenger, HS-4/SGS-1 will provide telecommunications capabilities, including television, Internet, telephone and secure communications in the Middle East, South Africa and Europe.

The Saudi Geostationary Satellite 1 communications payload will provide advanced Ka-band spot beam communications services for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s KACST, including secure communications for the Gulf Cooperative Council region. KACST is an independent scientific organization of the government of Saudi Arabia that is responsible for the promotion of science and technology in the Kingdom.

GSAT-31

Following the launch of GSAT-11 for the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) using the yearending Ariane 5 of 2018, Arianespace will orbit GSAT-31 utilizing the initial Ariane 5 in 2019.

To be installed as Flight VA247’s lower passenger, GSAT-31 is a telecommunications satellite designed and manufactured by the Indian space agency. To be positioned at a longitude of 48° East, GSAT-31 is configured on ISRO’s enhanced I-2K bus structure to provide communications services from geostationary orbit in Ku-band for a lifetime greater than 15 years.

By operating GSAT-31, ISRO will – once again – foster the use of space to help bridge the digital divide in the Indian subcontinent as part of its ambitious space program, whose objectives are to develop India while pursuing science research and planetary exploration.

For more information about Arianespace, visit: http://www.arianespace.com/

Images, Video, Text, Credit: Arianespace.

Greetings, Orbiter.ch

Human, Physics Research as U.S. Spaceship Preps for Departure

ISS - Expedition 58 Mission patch.

February 5, 2019

The Expedition 58 crew participated in a suite of psychological, biomedical and physics experiments today. The orbital residents are also getting ready to send off a U.S. cargo craft on Friday.

International Space Station (ISS). Image Credit: NASA

Astronauts Anne McClain and David Saint-Jacques collaborated today on an experiment that observes how living in a spacecraft for long periods impacts crew behavior. The duo typed personal impressions about working in space in a private journal then took a robotics test to measure cognition. The astronauts also answered a questionnaire to gather more cognitive data before going to sleep.

McClain also collected and stored biological samples for a pair of human research studies looking at physiological changes and negative effects on bone marrow and blood cells. Saint-Jacques looked at how fluid mechanics affects fuel tanks in spaceships and ocean systems on Earth.

Image above: Anne McClain of NASA looks at a laptop computer screen inside the U.S. Destiny laboratory module during ground conference operations. Image Credit: NASA.

Commander Oleg Kononenko focused his day inside the station’s Russian segment. The veteran cosmonaut worked on computers, maintained life support systems and photographed Earth landmarks today.

Friday at 11:10 a.m. EST, Northrop Grumman’s Cygnus space freighter will depart the station after 81 days attached to the Unity module. Robotics controllers will remotely guide the Canadarm2 robotic arm to grapple Cygnus overnight. McClain will then command the Canadarm2 on Friday to release Cygnus back into Earth orbit as Saint-Jacques backs her up and monitors the activities.

Cygnus has more to do after its release. It will begin to deploy several sets of CubeSats after it reaches a safe distance from the space station. The U.S. resupply ship will then reenter Earth’s atmosphere in late February over a remote portion of the Pacific Ocean for a fiery but safe destruction.

NASA Airs Departure of US Cargo Ship from International Space Station

Three months after delivering several tons of supplies and science to the International Space Station, Northrop Grumman’s Cygnus cargo craft will depart the complex at 11:10 a.m. EST Friday, Feb. 8. Live coverage will begin at 10:45 a.m. on NASA Television and the agency’s website.

Expedition 58 Flight Engineers Anne McClain of NASA and David Saint-Jacques of the Canadian Space Agency will use the station’s Canadarm2 robotic arm to release Cygnus after ground controllers unbolt the spacecraft from the Earth-facing port of the Unity module and maneuver it to the release position.

Image above: Northrop Grumman's Cygnus spacecraft, with its prominent cymbal-shaped UltraFlex solar arrays, is pictured Nov. 19, 2018, in the grips of the International Space Station's Canadarm2 robotic arm after it was captured by Expedition 57 Flight Engineer Serena Auñón-Chancellor and ESA (European Space Agency) astronaut Alexander Gerst. Image Credit: NASA.

Cygnus will depart the station with 5,500 pounds of trash and carry out an extended mission over about two weeks. The spacecraft will maneuver to a higher altitude where an CubeSat deployer will release two CubeSats into orbit through a service provided by industry partner NanoRacks to provide increased commercial access to space. Cygnus then will move to a lower orbit to deploy a third CubeSat, KickSat-2, which carries 100 tiny satellites called femtosatellites. The femtosatellites each include a power, sensor and communication system on a printed circuit board that measures 3.5 by 3.5 cm, with a thickness of a few millimeters and a mass of less than 3.5 ounces. These deployments demonstrate additional commercial activity and technology advancements enabled by the partnerships forged through the orbiting laboratory and the potential for future opportunities. 

Cygnus is scheduled to deorbit Feb. 25 and enter the Earth’s atmosphere, burning up harmlessly over the Pacific Ocean. There will be no television coverage of Cygnus’ deorbit.

Related links:

Expedition 58: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/expeditions/expedition58/index.html

Crew behavior: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/explorer/Investigation.html?#id=7537

Bone marrow and blood cells: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/explorer/Investigation.html?#id=1673

Fluid mechanics: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/explorer/Investigation.html?#id=2043

CubeSat deployer: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/2281.html

NanoRacks: http://nanoracks.com/products/satellite-deployment/

KickSat-2: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/explorer/Investigation.html?#id=7339

Commercial Resupply: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/structure/launch/index.html

Cygnus space freighter: https://www.nasa.gov/feature/northrop-grumman-cygnus-launches-arrivals-and-departures/

Unity module: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/structure/elements/unity

Canadarm2 robotic arm: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/structure/elements/mobile-servicing-system.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), Text, Credits: NASA/Mark Garcia/Karen Northon/JSC/Gary Jordan.

Best regards, Orbiter.ch