Shadow Below

NASA - Cassini Mission to Saturn patch.

June 20, 2016

As Saturn's northern hemisphere summer approaches, the shadows of the rings creep ever southward across the planet. Here, the ring shadows appear to obscure almost the entire southern hemisphere, while the planet's north pole and its six-sided jet stream, known as "the hexagon," are fully illuminated by the sun.

When NASA's Cassini spacecraft arrived at Saturn 12 years ago, the shadows of the rings lay far to the north on the planet (see PIA06077). As the mission progressed and seasons turned on the slow-orbiting giant, equinox arrived and the shadows of the rings became a thin line at the equator (see PIA11667).

This view looks toward the sunlit side of the rings from about 16 degrees above the ring plane. The image was taken in red light with the Cassini spacecraft wide-angle camera on March 19, 2016.

The view was obtained at a distance of approximately 1.7 million miles (2.7 million kilometers) from Saturn and at a Sun-Saturn-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 92 degrees. Image scale is 100 miles (160 kilometers) per pixel.

The Cassini mission is a cooperative project of NASA, ESA (the European Space Agency) and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colorado.

Related links:

PIA06077: http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA06077

PIA11667: http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA11667

For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov and http://www.nasa.gov/cassini. The Cassini imaging team homepage is at http://ciclops.org and ESA's website: http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Science/Cassini-Huygens

Image, Text, Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute/Tony Greicius.

Greetings, Orbiter.ch

NASA's K2 Finds Newborn Exoplanet Around Young Star

NASA - Kepler Space Telescope patch.

June 20, 2016

Astronomers have discovered the youngest fully formed exoplanet ever detected. The discovery was made using NASA's Kepler Space Telescope and its extended K2 mission, as well as the W. M. Keck Observatory on Mauna Kea, Hawaii. Exoplanets are planets that orbit stars beyond our sun.

Young Star and Its Planet (Artist's animation

Video above: When a planet such as K2-33b passes in front of its host star, it blocks some of the star's light. Observing this periodic dimming, called a transit, from continual monitoring of a star's brightness, allows astronomers to detect planets outside our solar system with a high degree of certainty. This Neptune-sized planet orbits a star that is between 5 and 10 million years old. In addition to the planet, the star hosts a disk of planetary debris, seen as a bright ring encircling the star.

The newfound planet, K2-33b, is a bit larger than Neptune and whips tightly around its star every five days. It is only 5 to 10 million years old, making it one of a very few newborn planets found to date.

"Our Earth is roughly 4.5 billion years old," said Trevor David of Caltech in Pasadena, lead author of a new study published online June 20, 2016, in the journal Nature. "By comparison, the planet K2-33b is very young. You might think of it as an infant." David is a graduate student working with astronomer Lynne Hillenbrand, also of Caltech.

Planet formation is a complex and tumultuous process that remains shrouded in mystery. Astronomers have discovered and confirmed roughly 3,000 exoplanets so far; however, nearly all of them are hosted by middle-aged stars, with ages of a billion years or more. For astronomers, attempting to understand the life cycles of planetary systems using existing examples is like trying to learn how people grow from babies to children to teenagers, by only studying adults.

Image above: K2-33b, shown in this illustration, is one of the youngest exoplanets detected to date. It makes a complete orbit around its star in about five days. Image Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech.

"The newborn planet will help us better understand how planets form, which is important for understanding the processes that led to the formation of Earth," said co-author Erik Petigura of Caltech.

The first signals of the planet's existence were measured by K2. The telescope's camera detected a periodic dimming of the light emitted by the planet's host star, a sign that an orbiting planet could be regularly passing in front of the star and blocking the light. Data from the Keck Observatory validated that the dimming was indeed caused by a planet, and also helped confirm its youthful age.

Infrared measurements from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope showed that the system's star is surrounded by a thin disk of planetary debris, indicating that its planet-formation phase is wrapping up. Planets form out of thick disks of gas and dust, called protoplanetary disks, that surround young stars.

"Initially, this material may obscure any forming planets, but after a few million years, the dust starts to dissipate," said co-author Anne Marie Cody, a NASA Postdoctoral Program fellow at NASA's Ames Research Center in California's Silicon Valley. "It is during this time window that we can begin to detect the signatures of youthful planets with K2."

A surprising feature in the discovery of K2-33b is how close the newborn planet lies to its star. The planet is nearly 10 times closer to its star than Mercury is to our sun, making it hot. While numerous older exoplanets have been found orbiting very tightly to their stars, astronomers have long struggled to understand how more massive planets like this one wind up in such small orbits. Some theories propose that it takes hundreds of millions of years to bring a planet from a more distant orbit into a close one -- and therefore cannot explain K2-33b, which is quite a bit younger.

Image above: This image shows the K2-33 system, and its planet K2-33b, compared to our own solar system. The planet has a five-day orbit, whereas Mercury orbits our sun in 88 days. The planet is also nearly 10 times closer to its star than Mercury is to the sun. Image Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech.

The science team says there are two main theories that may explain how K2-33b wound up so close to its star. It could have migrated there in a process called disk migration that takes hundreds of thousands of years. Or, the planet could have formed "in situ" -- right where it is. The discovery of K2-33b therefore gives theorists a new data point to ponder.

"After the first discoveries of massive exoplanets on close orbits about 20 years ago, it was immediately suggested that they could absolutely not have formed there, but in the past several years, some momentum has grown for in situ formation theories, so the idea is not as wild as it once seemed," said David.

"The question we are answering is: Did those planets take a long time to get into those hot orbits, or could they have been there from a very early stage? We are saying, at least in this one case, that they can indeed be there at a very early stage," he said.

Kepler Space Telescope or K2. Image Credit: NASA

Ames manages the Kepler and K2 missions for NASA's Science Mission Directorate. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, managed Kepler mission development. Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corporation operates the flight system with support from the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado at Boulder.

Related links:

Kepler and K2: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/kepler/main/index.html

Distant Planets: https://www.nasa.gov/subject/6889/distant-planets

Images (mentioned), Video, Text, Credits: NASA/Felicia Chou/Tony Greicius/JPL/Elizabeth Landau/Ames Research Center/Michele Johnson/Written by Whitney Clavin.

Best regards, Orbiter.ch

‘Electric Wind’ Can Strip Earth-like Planets of Oceans, Atmospheres

ESA - Venus Express Mission patch.

June 20, 2016

ESA's Venus Express. Image Credits: ESA/ATG Medialab

Venus has an “electric wind” strong enough to remove the components of water from its upper atmosphere, which may have played a significant role in stripping Earth’s twin planet of its oceans, according to new results from ESA’s (European Space Agency) Venus Express mission by NASA-funded researchers.

“It’s amazing, shocking,” said Glyn Collinson, a scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. “We never dreamt an electric wind could be so powerful that it can suck oxygen right out of an atmosphere into space. This is something that has to be on the checklist when we go looking for habitable planets around other stars.” Collinson is lead author of a paper about this research published June 20, 2016, in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.

Electric Wind of Venus

Video above: The space environment around a planet plays a key role in determining what molecules exist in the atmosphere — and whether the planet is habitable for life. New NASA research shows that the electric fields around Venus helped strip its atmosphere of the components needed to make water. Video Credits: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Genna Duberstein.

Venus is in many ways the most like Earth in terms of its size and gravity, and there’s evidence that it once had oceans worth of water in its distant past. However, with surface temperatures around 860 F (460 C), any oceans would have long since boiled away to steam and Venus is uninhabitable today. Yet Venus’ thick atmosphere, about 100 times the pressure of Earth’s, has 10,000 to 100,000 times less water than Earth’s atmosphere. Something had to remove all that steam, and the current thinking is that much of the early steam dissociated to hydrogen and oxygen: the light hydrogen escaped, while the oxygen oxidized rocks over billions of years. Also the solar wind — a million-mile-per-hour stream of electrically conducting gas blowing from the sun — could have slowly but surely eroded the remainder of an ocean’s worth of oxygen and water from Venus’ upper atmosphere.

“We found that the electric wind, which people thought was just one small cog in a big machine, is in fact this big monster that’s capable of sucking the water from Venus by itself,” said Collinson.

Image above: This graphic compares surface temperatures and gravity on Earth and Venus. The two planets are similar sizes and have similar gravity — but Venus is bone dry and more than 10 times as hot as our home planet. Recent NASA research describes a key process that removes water from the Venusian atmosphere. Video Credits: NASA/Goddard/Conceptual Image Lab, Brian Monroe.

Just as every planet has a gravity field, it is believed that every planet with an atmosphere is also surrounded by a weak electric field. While the force of gravity is trying to hold the atmosphere on the planet, the electric force (the same force that sticks laundry together in a drier and pushes electricity through wires) can help to push the upper layers of the atmosphere off into space. At Venus, the much faster hydrogen escapes easily, but this electric field is so strong that it can accelerate even the heavier electrically charged component of water — oxygen ions — to speeds fast enough to escape the planet’s gravity. When water molecules rise into the upper atmosphere, sunlight breaks the water into hydrogen and oxygen ions, which are then carried away by the electric field.

“If you were unfortunate enough to be an oxygen ion in the upper atmosphere of Venus then you have won a terrible, terrible lottery,” said Collinson, “You and all your ion friends will be dragged off kicking and screaming into space by an invisible hand, and nothing can save you.”

Venus Express aerobraking. Image Credits: ESA/ATG Medialab.

The team discovered Venus’ electric field using the electron spectrometer, a component of the ASPERA-4 instrument, aboard the ESA Venus Express. They were monitoring electrons flowing out of the upper atmosphere when it was noticed that these electrons were not escaping at their expected speeds. The team realized that these electrons had been tugged on by Venus’ potent electric field. By measuring the change in speed, the team was able to measure the strength of the field, finding it to be much stronger than anyone had expected, and at least five times more powerful than at Earth.

“We don’t really know why it is so much stronger at Venus than Earth,” said Collinson, “but, we think it might have something to do with Venus being closer to the sun, and the ultraviolet sunlight being twice as bright. It’s a challenging thing to measure and even at Earth to date all we have are upper limits on how strong it might be.”

Image above: This graphic compares the atmospheric composition and electric field strength on Earth and Venus. New research suggests that the electric field around Venus may be a key factor in shaping what molecules exist in the Venusian atmosphere — including its lack of the molecules needed to make water. Video Credits: NASA/Goddard/Conceptual Image Lab, Brian Monroe.

Such information also helps us understand other worlds around the solar system.

“We’ve been studying the electrons flowing away from Titan [a moon of Saturn] and Mars as well as from Venus, and the ions they drag away to space,” said Andrew Coates, who leads the electron spectrometer team at University College London in the U.K. “The new result here shows that the electric field powering this escape is surprisingly strong at Venus compared to the other objects. This will help us understand how this universal process works.”

Another planet where the electric wind may play an important role is Mars. NASA’s MAVEN mission is currently orbiting Mars to determine what caused the Red Planet to lose much of its atmosphere and water. “We are actively hunting for Mars’ electric wind with MAVEN’s full arsenal of scientific instruments,” said Collinson. “MAVEN is a robotic detective on this four-billion-year-old mystery of where the atmosphere and oceans went, and the electric wind has long been a prime suspect.”

Image above: This is an artist's concept of the electric wind at Venus. Rays represent the paths that oxygen and hydrogen ions take as they are pulled out of the upper atmosphere. Image Credits: NASA/Goddard/Conceptual Image Lab, Krystofer Kim.

Taking the electric wind into account will also help astronomers improve estimates of the size and location of habitable zones around other stars. These are areas where the temperature could allow liquid water to exist on the surface of alien worlds, making them places where life might be found. Some stars emit more ultraviolet light than the sun, so if this creates stronger electric winds in any planets orbiting them, the habitable zone around such stars may be farther away and narrower than thought. “Even a weak electric wind could still play a role in water and atmospheric loss at any planet,” said Alex Glocer of NASA Goddard, a co-author on the paper. “It could act like a conveyor belt, moving ions higher in the ionosphere where other effects from the solar wind could carry them away.”

ESA’s Venus Express was launched on Nov. 9, 2005, to study the complex atmosphere of Venus. The electron spectrometer was built by the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, Texas, and is led by University College London. The spacecraft orbited Venus between 2006 and December 2014. After a successful mission that far exceeded its planned life, the spacecraft exhausted its fuel supply and burned up upon entry into Venus’ dense atmosphere. The research was funded by NASA’s MAVEN (Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution) mission and NASA’s Solar System Workings program.

Related Articles and Links:

Story: “NASA Research Helps Unravel Mysteries of the Venusian Atmosphere” (Sept. 11, 2014): http://orbiterchspacenews.blogspot.ch/2014/09/nasa-research-helps-unravel-mysteries.html

Story: “Space Weather: Explosions on Venus” (March 5, 2012): http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/sunearth/news/venus-explosions.html

Story: "Venus Weather Not Boring After All, NASA / International Study Shows" (Sept. 28, 2011): http://orbiterchspacenews.blogspot.ch/2011/09/venus-weather-not-boring-after-all.html

European Space Agency (ESA) Venus Express mission: http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Science/Venus_Express

NASA’s MAVEN mission: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/maven/main/index.html

NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center: http://www.nasa.gov/goddard

Images (mentioned), Video (mentioned), Text, Credits: NASA/Rob Garner/Goddard Space Flight Center/Bill Steigerwald/Karen C. Fox.

Best regards, Orbiter.ch

SolarImpulse - Bertrand Piccard took off to start the Atlantic Crossing

SolarImpulse - Around The World patch.

June 20, 2016

Bertrand Piccard just embarked on the first solo transatlantic crossing in a solar-powered airplane. He took off from JFK, New York at 6:30AM UTC, 8:30AM CET, and 2:30AM EDT on June 20th and will be landing at Seville Airport, Spain approximately 90 hours later.

Solar Impulse Airplane - Bertrand Piccard's takeoff from New York

We have already proved perpetual endurance with Solar Impulse 2 and now we will do it again with Bertrand Piccard in the cockpit to close the last big stretch of ocean. This flight is one of the most challenging legs of the Round-The-World Solar Flight.

Even though you can’t physically be in the cockpit, we have prepared material for you so that you can be as much a part of this four day adventure.

- Connect everyday to watch our daily program on solarimpulse.com. Get the latest news of the flights and learn about the challenges Bertrand will face: http://www.solarimpulse.com/

- LIVE experience of the flight on solarimpulse.com 360 virtual reality video taking you for a ride on Solar Impulse 2: http://www.solarimpulse.com/leg-15-from-New_York-to-Seville

- Facebook live sessions with Bertrand Piccard in Si2’s cockpit and André Borschberg at the Mission Control Center: https://www.facebook.com/solarimpulse

Images, Video, Text, Credits: SolarImpulse.

Greetings, Orbiter.ch

Blue Origin - Flight Four – One Chute Out

Blue Origin logo.

June 19, 2016

Image above: The same New Shepard booster that flew to space and then landed vertically three times has now flown and landed again.

New Shepard flew again on June 19, 2016, reaching an apogee of 331,504 feet (101.042 kilometers). It was the fourth flight with this booster and the sixth flight of this capsule.

Flight Four – One Chute Out

This time, we intentionally did not deploy one of three parachutes on the capsule and proved we could softly land with only two of them open. We’ve designed the capsule to have one or two levels of redundancy in every system needed for crew safety, including the separation systems, parachutes, reaction control thrusters, landing retro-thrusters, flight computers, and power systems.

Image above: Rocket restarted at 3,635 feet above ground level and ramped fast for a successful landing.

We also changed the ascending trajectory of the booster to adopt a more aggressive tilt towards our landing pad to the north after liftoff. We did this maneuver to test the ascent trajectory we will use during Transonic Escape Test, planned for later this year. During Transonic Escape Test, we will intentionally fire the capsule’s solid-rocket escape motor in-flight at transonic speeds to divert and propel it away from a fully thrusting booster and demonstrate we can safely recover the capsule.

Related articles:

Blue Origin - Launch. Land. Repeat.
http://orbiterchspacenews.blogspot.ch/2016/01/blue-origin-launch-land-repeat.html

Pushing the Envelope
http://orbiterchspacenews.blogspot.ch/2016/04/pushing-envelope.html

Blue Origin Makes Historic Rocket Landing
http://orbiterchspacenews.blogspot.ch/2015/11/blue-origin-makes-historic-rocket.html

For more information about Blue Origin, visit: https://www.blueorigin.com/

Images, Video, Text, Credits: Blue Origin.

Greetings, Orbiter.ch

Liftoff of Arianespace’s Ariane 5 with EchoStar XVIII and BRIsat

ARIANESPACE - Flight VA 230 Mission poster.


June 19, 2016

Liftoff of Arianespace’s Ariane 5 with EchoStar XVIII and BRIsat

A heavy lifting Ariane 5 blasted off from Kourou in French Guiana tonight at 21:38 UTC, June 18th 2016 carrying the Echostar 18 & BRISAT satellites into orbit, it's heaviest payload to date.

Ariane 5 delivered a new record payload lift performance on today’s successful launch from the Spaceport in French Guiana, which orbited a pair of telecommunications satellites at the service of American and Indonesian customers.

This heavy-lift mission carried EchoStar XVIII and BRIsat, and it delivered a total calculated mass of 10,730 kg. into geostationary transfer orbit (GTO) – setting a new launch benchmark for the Ariane 5 ECA version. The total included some 9,840 kg. for the two spacecraft, along with the dispenser system and integration hardware in Ariane 5’s dual payload arrangement.

Launch of Heaviest Ariane 5 with Echostar 18 & BRISAT To Date (VA-230)

Highlighting the record lift performance to GTO during post-launch comments from the Spaceport’s Jupiter control room, Arianespace Chairman and CEO Stéphane Israël offered his congratulations to everyone involved with the successful mission.

Ariane 5 lifted off from the Spaceport’s ELA-3 launch zone for a 42-minute flight, which marked the workhorse vehicle’s 72nd consecutive success, as well as the 230th flight of an Ariane-series launcher overall.

EchoStar XVIII: assuring the highest levels of service

Riding in the upper position of Ariane 5’s payload configuration, EchoStar XVIII was released first during the flight sequence, and is the fifth spacecraft entrusted to Arianespace for launch by U.S.-based operator DISH Network L.L.C.

This satellite – which is to be operated from a final orbital position of 110 deg. West – features a high-power multi-spot beam in the Ku-band to assure the highest levels of ongoing service to customers in the contiguous United States, Alaska and Hawaii.

EchoStar XVIII

“I suppose if it were possible to drink a several-hundred-million-dollar bottle of Bordeaux wine, tonight’s success is exactly what it would taste like,” said Derek de Bastos, Chief Technology Officer at EchoStar, in his post-launch comments.

Delivering secure banking communications with BRIsat

Flight VA230’s lower passenger – BRIsat, which is to be operated by P.T. Bank Rakyat Indonesia (Persero) Tbk. (BRI) – was the second payload released today by Ariane 5.

As the world’s first communications satellite dedicated to banking, BRIsat will provide enhanced secure banking communications for more than 10,600 operational branches, as well as to some 237,000 electronic channel outlets and nearly 53 million customers across the Indonesian archipelago. It is to operate from a final orbital slot located at 150.5 deg. East, with a coverage area that includes Indonesia, Southeast and Northeast Asia.

“We are proud to be the first and only bank in the world that owns and operates a satellite,” said BRI CEO Asmawi Syam. “It’s not only a proud moment for BRI, but also for our country, Indonesia.”

Continuing a long, successful partnership

Image above: The Ariane 5 for Arianespace Flight VA230 is shown on the Spaceport’s ELA-3 launch pad prior to its liftoff.

In his post-launch comments, Israël also acknowledged Arianespace’s long-standing partner SSL – which is payload prime contractor for both of the spacecraft launched today.

Flight VA230 was the first Arianespace mission with two SSL-produced satellites carried on a single launcher, marking a key milestone for a partnership that extends back to 1983. EchoStar XVIII and BRIsat are the 54th and 55th SSL-built geostationary satellites orbited by Arianespace to date, while 10 more are slated for future launches.

Israël also gave special thanks to Airbus Safran Launchers, the French CNES space agency, the ground contractors in French Guiana and Arianespace’s own teams.

Today’s mission with EchoStar XVIII and BRIsat was the fifth performed this year as part of the company’s launch manifest for 2016. It follows heavy-lift Ariane 5 successes on January 27 (carrying Intelsat 29e) and March 9 (EUTELSAT 65 West A); plus medium-lift Soyuz missions completed on April 25 (with Sentinel-1B as primary passenger) and May 24 (two Galileo constellation satellites).

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

Images, Video, Text, Credits: ARIANESPACE/Günter Space Page.

Greetings, Orbiter.ch

Three Space Station Crew Members Return to Earth, Land Safely in Kazakhstan

ROSCOSMOS - Soyuz TMA-19M Mission patch.

June 19, 2016

Expedition 47 Crew Leaves the Space Station

Three crew members from the International Space Station returned to Earth on June 18, 2016 at 5:15 a.m. EDT (3:15 p.m. Kazakhstan time) Saturday after wrapping up 186 days in space and several NASA research studies in human health.

Expedition 47 Commander Tim Kopra of NASA, flight engineer Tim Peake of ESA (European Space Agency) and Soyuz Commander Yuri Malenchenko of Roscosmos touched down southeast of the remote town of Dzhezkazgan in Kazakhstan.

Expedition 47 Crew Lands Safely in Kazakhstan

The crew completed the in-flight portion of NASA human research studies in ocular health, cognition, salivary markers and microbiome. From the potential development of vaccines, to data that could be relevant in the treatment of patients suffering from ocular diseases, such as glaucoma, the research will help NASA prepare for human long-duration exploration while also benefiting people on Earth.

Image above: Expedition 47 Commander Tim Kopra of NASA, flight engineer Tim Peake of ESA (European Space Agency) and Soyuz Commander Yuri Malenchenko of Roscosmos touched down. Image Credit: NASA TV.


The three crew members also welcomed four cargo spacecraft, including one that delivered the Bigelow Expandable Activity Module (BEAM), an expandable habitat technology demonstration. The BEAM, which arrived in April on the eighth SpaceX commercial resupply mission, was attached to the space station and expanded to its full size for analysis over the next two years. The BEAM is an example of NASA’s increased commitment to partnering with industry to enable the growth of commercial space, and is co-sponsored by the agency’s Advanced Exploration Systems Division and Bigelow Aerospace.

Image above: With the June 18, 2016 landing of their Soyuz spacecraft in the town of Dzhezkazgan in Kazakhstan, Expedition 47 Commander Tim Kopra of NASA now has 244 days in space on two flights. Image Credit: NASA TV.

Two Russian Progress cargo craft docked to the station in December and April, bringing tons of supplies. Kopra and Peake also led the grapple of Orbital ATK’s Cygnus spacecraft to the station in March, the company's fourth commercial resupply mission, and the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft in April.

During his time on the orbital complex, Kopra ventured outside for two spacewalks. The objective of the first spacewalk was to move the station’s mobile transporter rail car to a secure position. On the second spacewalk, Kopra and Peake replaced a failed voltage regulator to restore power to one of the station’s eight power channels. Kopra now has 244 days in space on two flights, while Peake spent 186 days in space on this, his first, mission.

Having completed his sixth mission, Malenchenko now has spent 828 cumulative days in space, making him second on the all-time list behind Russian cosmonaut Gennady Padalka.

Image above: Expedition 47 Commander Tim Kopra of NASA, flight engineer Tim Peake of ESA (European Space Agency) and Soyuz Commander Yuri Malenchenko of Roscosmos touched down at 5:15 a.m. EDT (3:15 p.m. Kazakhstan time) June 18, 2018 southeast of the remote town of Dzhezkazgan in Kazakhstan. Image Credit: NASA TV.

Expedition 48 continues on the station, with NASA astronaut Jeff Williams in command, with crewmates Oleg Skripochka and Alexey Ovchinin of the Russian space agency Roscosmos. The three-person crew will operate the station for three weeks until the arrival of three new crew members.

NASA astronaut Kate Rubins, Russian cosmonaut Anatoly Ivanishin and Takuya Onishi of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency are scheduled to launch July 6 (Eastern time) from Baikonur, Kazakhstan.

Related links:

Ocular health study: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/204.html

Cognition study: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/news/space_fog

Salivary markers: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/1009.html

Microbiome experiment: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/87.html

Bigelow Expandable Activity Module (BEAM): https://www.nasa.gov/content/bigelow-expandable-activity-module

Keep up with the International Space Station, and its research and crews, at: http://www.nasa.gov/station

Get breaking news and features from the space station on Twitter at: https://twitter.com/Space_Station

Images (mentioned), Videos, Text, Credits: NASA/Tabatha Thompson/Karen Northon/JSC/Dan Huot.

Best regards, Orbiter.ch