NASA’s TESS Presents Panorama of Southern Sky

NASA - TESS Mission logo.

Nov. 5, 2019

Image above: The plane of our Milky Way galaxy arcs across a starry landscape in this detail of the TESS southern sky mosaic. Image Credits: NASA/MIT/TESS and Ethan Kruse (USRA).

The glow of the Milky Way — our galaxy seen edgewise — arcs across a sea of stars in a new mosaic of the southern sky produced from a year of observations by NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS). Constructed from 208 TESS images taken during the mission’s first year of science operations, completed on July 18, the southern panorama reveals both the beauty of the cosmic landscape and the reach of TESS’s cameras.

“Analysis of TESS data focuses on individual stars and planets one at a time, but I wanted to step back and highlight everything at once, really emphasizing the spectacular view TESS gives us of the entire sky,” said Ethan Kruse, a NASA Postdoctoral Program Fellow who assembled the mosaic at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.

Dive Into TESS's Southern Sky Panorama

Video above: NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) spent a year imaging the southern sky in its search for worlds beyond our solar system. Dive into a mosaic of these images to see what TESS has found so far. Video Credits: NASA’s Godard Space Flight Center.

Within this scene, TESS has discovered 29 exoplanets, or worlds beyond our solar system, and more than 1,000 candidate planets astronomers are now investigating.

TESS divided the southern sky into 13 sectors and imaged each one of them for nearly a month using four cameras, which carry a total of 16 charge-coupled devices (CCDs). Remarkably, the TESS cameras capture a full sector of the sky every 30 minutes as part of its search for exoplanet transits. Transits occur when a planet passes in front of its host star from our perspective, briefly and regularly dimming its light. During the satellite’s first year of operations, each of its CCDs captured 15,347 30-minute science images. These images are just a part of more than 20 terabytes of southern sky data TESS has returned, comparable to streaming nearly 6,000 high-definition movies.

Image above: This mosaic of the southern sky was assembled from 208 images taken by NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) during its first year of science operations, completed in July 2019. The mission divided the southern sky into 13 sectors, each of which was imaged for nearly a month by the spacecraft’s four cameras. Among the many notable celestial objects visible is the glowing band (left) of the Milky Way, our home galaxy seen edgewise, the Orion Nebula (top), a nursery for newborn stars, and the Large Magellanic Cloud (center), a nearby galaxy located about 163,000 light-years away. The prominent dark lines are gaps between the detectors in TESS's camera system. Image Credits: NASA/MIT/TESS and Ethan Kruse (USRA).

In addition to its planet discoveries, TESS has imaged a comet in our solar system, followed the progress of numerous stellar explosions called supernovae, and even caught the flare from a star ripped apart by a supermassive black hole. After completing its southern survey, TESS turned north to begin a year-long study of the northern sky.

Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS). Image Credits: NASA/GSFC

TESS is a NASA Astrophysics Explorer mission led and operated by MIT in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and managed by NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. Dr. George Ricker of MIT’s Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research serves as principal investigator for the mission. Additional partners include Northrop Grumman, based in Falls Church, Virginia; NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley; the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Massachusetts; MIT’s Lincoln Laboratory in Lexington, Massachusetts; and the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore. More than a dozen universities, research institutes and observatories worldwide are participants in the mission.

TESS (Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite): http://www.nasa.gov/tess

Exoplanets: https://www.nasa.gov/content/the-search-for-life

Images (mentioned), Video (mentioned), Text, Credits: NASA/Rob Garner/Goddard Space Flight Center, by Francis Reddy.

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A Virtual Reality Camera Captures Life and Science Aboard the Space Station

ISS - International Space Station patch.

Nov. 5, 2019

Inside ISS at 360°. Image Credits: Courtesy of Felix & Paul Studios / Time

With only minutes until sunrise aboard the International Space Station (ISS), astronaut Nick Hague rushed to shut off the lights in the Japanese Experiment Module (JEM). Traveling 17,500 miles per hour, the space station orbits Earth 16 times in 24 hours, so every 90 minutes, the space station experiences a sunrise. For this sunrise, though, the speed of their approach was putting a time crunch on Hague. To capture this moment, timing was everything as he worked diligently to set up the perfect camera shot.

With moments to spare, the camera was ready, the module was dark, and Hague positioned at the window of the JEM. The first orange light shot into the orbiting laboratory. Within a minute, the module of the space station was bright again, this time from the natural light of the sun.

Animation above: NASA astronaut Nick Hague looks out the window in the Japanese Experiment Module (JEM) as the sun rises and the ISS Experience camera films the moment. Animation Credit: NASA.

Only a few humans ever get to experience this unique vantage point. The virtual reality (VR) project Hague was filming for, Space Explorers: The ISS Experience (ISS Experience), attempts to bring this perspective back to Earth for the rest of us.

Partnering with the ISS National Lab and Time Magazine, a team from Felix and Paul Studios launched a high quality 360 degree camera to space to help tell the story of science and life aboard the orbiting laboratory. The project, currently in the process of being filmed, serves as an outreach project as well a technology demonstration, testing the limits of filming in the harsh environment of space.

The idea for the project came about after the studio worked on episodes of a virtual reality series called Space Explorers that showed astronauts training on Earth.

Image above: A view of Canadian Space Agency (CSA) astronaut David Saint-Jacques setting up the Z-CAM V1 Pro Cinematic camera for the ISS Experience payload. The International Space Station Experience (ISS Experience) creates a virtual reality film documenting daily life aboard the space station. Image Credit: NASA.

“The natural next step was to actually take the viewer to space,” says Felix and Paul Studios co-founder and creative director Félix Lajeunesse. “We wanted to bring the viewer to the International Space Station to be alongside astronauts to experience the reality and challenges of life in microgravity and be part of the journey of learning to live and do science in space.”

That step required the team to start from scratch when it came to the camera. The studio had experience creating virtual reality films, but their typical camera was the size and shape of a four-foot-tall tree. That was not going to work in the tight confines of the space station. Instead, they collaborated with camera company Z-Cam to develop a new virtual reality camera system much smaller in size.

The resulting device launched on the 16th SpaceX commercial resupply services mission in December 2018 along with a number of other scientific experiments. Since then, the team has recorded many moments, including a jam session among the astronauts, crew meals and the arrival of new astronauts. The team is recording a few hours a week to document life in space. One of Felix and Paul’s primary concentrations is filming science on station.

Image above: A 360 image of the Cupola of the International Space Station taken as a part of the ISS Experience. Image Credits: Courtesy of Felix & Paul Studios / Time.

“Our focus has been thinking about and finding science experiments that when you see them, you're immersed in them,” says Lajeunesse. “Your mind can start spinning, thinking about what technologies are going to come next and how that research leads to a future path.”

The experiments filmed for ISS Experience so far include the SPHERES robots as they are flying around the station, as well as the growing and harvesting of vegetables.

“The science is ultimately the most important thing we are doing on the space station,” says Dylan Mathis, NASA’s communications manager for the International Space Station Program. “We are conducting science every day and it is science we can't do anywhere else. VR allows us to show people that in a different way.”

Animation above: NASA astronaut Drew Morgan sets up the ISS Experience camera for a recording session in the Cupola of the space station as Earth goes by through the window. Animation Credit: NASA.

The astronauts are the main subjects of the film, but since they are the sole residents of the space station, they are also the videographers behind the camera. That meant learning the basics of filming for virtual reality.

By the time each astronaut nears the end of their mission, most have become experts at setting up and using the camera, sometimes choosing to film moments on their own. This ease is what enabled Hague to capture the sunrise with only moments to spare.

So far, the footage coming back seems to be achieving the goal of immersing audiences in life aboard the space station. NASA astronaut Sunita Williams, who lived on the space station during Expedition 14/15 and Expedition 32/33, got the chance to watch some of the initial footage.

It was like I was back there in and on the International Space Station,” says Williams. “You forget you have [a VR headset] on your head, and you just keep looking around. It gives a huge appreciation to all that is inside the space station and how people live and work.”

Animation above: NASA astronaut Anne McClain works on setting up the ISS Experience camera aboard the International Space Station. Animation Credit: NASA.

While most of the filming has been completed, the biggest technical challenge is yet to come: capturing a spacewalk in virtual reality. This task requires an entirely new camera that Felix and Paul have been developing alongside their partner, Nanoracks. The team expects to launch the camera and begin production of spacewalk filming in 2020. Since they have no solid end dates for filming, the team has yet to announce a release date for the series.

The footage is being shot not only as entertainment and outreach but also as a test of virtual reality technologies as a means of documenting space travel and camera operations in space. Lajeunesse anticipates future spacecraft being equipped with virtual reality technology.

Image above: A 360 photo of NASA astronaut Anne McClain performing her daily training sessions. Daily exercise in space is crucial for astronauts to prevent muscle loss. Image Credits: Courtesy of Felix & Paul Studios / Time.

“I think it is inevitable that VR is going to be the default way to document space exploration moving forwards. It is a perfect match between medium and story,” he says. “Space exploration is something that you want to live. You want to be there. You want to experience it. Everything we're doing on station right now is a demonstration for the spaceflight industry and the entertainment industry of how we can use this medium moving forward in the space world.”

Related links:

ISS Experience: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/explorer/Investigation.html?#id=7877

ISS National Lab: https://www.issnationallab.org/blog/experience-the-international-space-station-like-never-before/

Felix and Paul Studios: https://www.felixandpaul.com/?projects/intro

Time Magazine: https://time.com/space-explorers/

SPHERES: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/explorer/Facility.html?#id=1760

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

Animations (mentioned), Images (mentioned), Text, Credits: NASA/Carrie Gilder/JSC/International Space Station Program Science Office/Erin Winick.

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Boeing’s Starliner Completes Pad Abort Test for Commercial Crew

Boeing - CST-100 Starliner Mission patch.

Nov. 4, 2019

Image above: Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner’s four launch abort engines and several orbital maneuvering and attitude control thrusters ignite in the company’s Pad Abort Test, pushing the spacecraft away from the test stand with a combined 160,000 pounds of thrust, from Launch Complex 32 on White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico. Image Credit: NASA.

Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner spacecraft completed a critical safety milestone on Monday in an end-to-end test of its abort system. The Pad Abort Test took place at Launch Complex 32 at the U.S. Army’s White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico.

The test was designed to verify each of Starliner’s systems will function not only separately, but in concert, to protect astronauts by carrying them safely away from the launch pad in the unlikely event of an emergency prior to liftoff. This was Boeing’s first flight test with Starliner as part of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program  to return human spaceflight launches to the International Space Station from American soil.

“Tests like this one are crucial to help us make sure the systems are as safe as possible,” said Kathy Lueders, NASA’s Commercial Crew Program manager. “We are thrilled with the preliminary results, and now we have the job of really digging into the data and analyzing whether everything worked as we expected.”

During the test, Starliner’s four launch abort engines, and several orbital maneuvering and attitude control thrusters simultaneously ignited to rapidly push the spacecraft away from the test stand. Five seconds into flight, the abort engines shut off as planned, transferring steering to the control thrusters for the next five seconds.

A pitcharound maneuver rotated the spacecraft into position for landing as it neared its peak altitude of approximately 4,500 feet. Two of three Starliner’s main parachutes deployed just under half a minute into the test, and the service module separated from the crew module a few seconds later. Although designed with three parachutes, two opening successfully is acceptable for the test parameters and crew safety. After one minute, the heat shield was released and airbags inflated, and the Starliner eased to the ground beneath its parachutes.

Boeing Starliner Pad Abort Test

The demonstration took only about 95 seconds from the moment the simulated abort was initiated until the Starliner crew module touched down on the desert ground.

“Emergency scenario testing is very complex, and today our team validated that the spacecraft will keep our crew safe in the unlikely event of an abort,” said John Mulholland, Vice President and Program Manager, Boeing’s Commercial Crew Program. “Our teams across the program have made remarkable progress to get us to this point, and we are fully focused on the next challenge—Starliner’s uncrewed flight to demonstrate Boeing’s capability to safely fly crew to and from the space station.”

Boeing’s next mission, called Orbital Flight Test, will launch an uncrewed Starliner spacecraft to the station on a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 41. Launch is targeted for Dec. 17.

Learn more about NASA’s Commercial Crew Program at: http://www.nasa.gov/commercialcrew

Commercial Space: http://www.nasa.gov/exploration/commercial/index.html

Image (mentioned), Video, Text, Credits: NASA/Katherine Brown/Joshua Finch/JSC/Dan Huot/Kyle Herring/KSC/Jennifer Wolfinger/Boeing/Rebecca Regan/Josh Barrett/NASA TV/SciNews.

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Voyager 2 Illuminates Boundary of Interstellar Space

NASA - Voyager 1 & 2 Mission patch.

Nov. 4, 2019

Image above: This artist's concept shows one of NASA's Voyager spacecraft entering interstellar space, or the space between stars. This region is dominated by plasma ejected by the death of giant stars millions of years ago. Hotter, sparser plasma fills the environment inside our solar bubble. Image Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech.

One year ago, on Nov. 5, 2018, NASA's Voyager 2 became only the second spacecraft in history to leave the heliosphere — the protective bubble of particles and magnetic fields created by our Sun. At a distance of about 11 billion miles (18 billion kilometers) from Earth — well beyond the orbit of Pluto — Voyager 2 had entered interstellar space, or the region between stars. Today, five new research papers in the journal Nature Astronomy describe what scientists observed during and since Voyager 2's historic crossing.

Each paper details the findings from one of Voyager 2's five operating science instruments: a magnetic field sensor, two instruments to detect energetic particles in different energy ranges and two instruments for studying plasma (a gas composed of charged particles). Taken together, the findings help paint a picture of this cosmic shoreline, where the environment created by our Sun ends and the vast ocean of interstellar space begins.

The Sun's heliosphere is like a ship sailing through interstellar space. Both the heliosphere and interstellar space are filled with plasma, a gas that has had some of its atoms stripped of their electrons. The plasma inside the heliosphere is hot and sparse, while the plasma in interstellar space is colder and denser. The space between stars also contains cosmic rays, or particles accelerated by exploding stars. Voyager 1 discovered that the heliosphere protects Earth and the other planets from more than 70% of that radiation.

When Voyager 2 exited the heliosphere last year, scientists announced that its two energetic particle detectors noticed dramatic changes: The rate of heliospheric particles detected by the instruments plummeted, while the rate of cosmic rays (which typically have higher energies than the heliospheric particles) increased dramatically and remained high. The changes confirmed that the probe had entered a new region of space.

Image above: This illustration shows the position of NASA’s Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 probes, outside of the heliosphere, a protective bubble created by the Sun that extends well past the orbit of Pluto. Image Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech.

Before Voyager 1 reached the edge of the heliosphere in 2012, scientists didn't know exactly how far this boundary was from the Sun. The two probes exited the heliosphere at different locations and also at different times in the constantly repeating, approximately 11-year solar cycle, over the course of which the Sun goes through a period of high and low activity. Scientists expected that the edge of the heliosphere, called the heliopause, can move as the Sun's activity changes, sort of like a lung expanding and contracting with breath. This was consistent with the fact that the two probes encountered the heliopause at different distances from the Sun.

The new papers now confirm that Voyager 2 is not yet in undisturbed interstellar space: Like its twin, Voyager 1, Voyager 2 appears to be in a perturbed transitional region just beyond the heliosphere.

"The Voyager probes are showing us how our Sun interacts with the stuff that fills most of the space between stars in the Milky Way galaxy," said Ed Stone, project scientist for Voyager and a professor of physics at Caltech. "Without this new data from Voyager 2, we wouldn't know if what we were seeing with Voyager 1 was characteristic of the entire heliosphere or specific just to the location and time when it crossed."

Pushing Through Plasma

The two Voyager spacecraft have now confirmed that the plasma in local interstellar space is significantly denser than the plasma inside the heliosphere, as scientists expected. Voyager 2 has now also measured the temperature of the plasma in nearby interstellar space and confirmed it is colder than the plasma inside the heliosphere.

In 2012, Voyager 1 observed a slightly higher-than-expected plasma density just outside the heliosphere, indicating that the plasma is being somewhat compressed. Voyager 2 observed that the plasma outside the heliosphere is slightly warmer than expected, which could also indicate it is being compressed. (The plasma outside is still colder than the plasma inside.) Voyager 2 also observed a slight increase in plasma density just before it exited the heliosphere, indicating that the plasma is compressed around the inside edge of the bubble. But scientists don't yet fully understand what is causing the compression on either side.

Leaking Particles

If the heliosphere is like a ship sailing through interstellar space, it appears the hull is somewhat leaky. One of Voyager's particle instruments showed that a trickle of particles from inside the heliosphere is slipping through the boundary and into interstellar space. Voyager 1 exited close to the very "front" of the heliosphere, relative to the bubble's movement through space. Voyager 2, on the other hand, is located closer to the flank, and this region appears to be more porous than the region where Voyager 1 is located.

Magnetic Field Mystery

An observation by Voyager 2's magnetic field instrument confirms a surprising result from Voyager 1: The magnetic field in the region just beyond the heliopause is parallel to the magnetic field inside the heliosphere. With Voyager 1, scientists had only one sample of these magnetic fields and couldn't say for sure whether the apparent alignment was characteristic of the entire exterior region or just a coincidence. Voyager 2's magnetometer observations confirm the Voyager 1 finding and indicate that the two fields align, according to Stone.  

Voyager spacecraft entering interstellar space. Animation Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech

The Voyager probes launched in 1977, and both flew by Jupiter and Saturn. Voyager 2 changed course at Saturn in order to fly by Uranus and Neptune, performing the only close flybys of those planets in history. The Voyager probes completed their Grand Tour of the planets and began their Interstellar Mission to reach the heliopause in 1989. Voyager 1, the faster of the two probes, is currently over 13.6 billion miles (22 billion kilometers) from the Sun, while Voyager 2 is 11.3 billion miles (18.2 billion kilometers) from the Sun. It takes light about 16.5 hours to travel from Voyager 2 to Earth. By comparison, light traveling from the Sun takes about eight minutes to reach Earth.

More information about Voyager is available at the following site: https://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/

Images (mentioned), Animation (mentioned), Text, Credits: NASA/Tony Greicius/JPL/Calla Cofield.

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Cygnus Resupply Ship Attached to Unity for Cargo Operations

ISS - Expedition 61 Mission patch / NASA & Northrop Grumman - NG-CRS-12 S.S. Alan Bean Cygnus Mission patch.

November 4, 2019

After its capture this morning at 4:10 a.m. EST, the Northrop Grumman Cygnus spacecraft was bolted into place on the International Space Station’s Earth-facing port of the Unity module at 6:21 a.m. At the time of installation, Cygnus was flying over the south Pacific.

Image above: Nov. 4, 2019: International Space Station Configuration. Four spaceships are attached to the space station including the Northrop Grumman Cygnus resupply ship and Russia’s Progress 73 resupply ship and Soyuz MS-13 and MS-15 crew ships. Image Credit: NASA.

This mission, designated NG CRS-12, will be in orbit at the same time as its predecessor, the NG CRS-11 Cygnus spacecraft, which launched in April on an extended duration flight. The NG CRS-12 Cygnus spacecraft will remain at the space station until January before it disposes of several thousand pounds of trash through its fiery reentry into Earth’s atmosphere. The ability to fly two vehicles at once further demonstrates the robustness of Cygnus to support the goals of NASA’s ambitious missions.

NG-12: S.S. Alan Bean Cygnus berthing

The spacecraft’s arrival brings close to 8,200 pounds of research and supplies to space station. Here are some of the scientific investigations:

More Probing of Mysteries of the Universe

This mission carries components needed to prolong the operational life of Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer-02 (AMS-02). In a series of spacewalks planned in the coming weeks, astronauts will cut and reconnect fluid lines on the instrument, a feat not done before in space, which could prove valuable for future missions at NASA’s upcoming lunar Gateway for the Artemis program or missions to Mars.

Testing Personal Protective Equipment for Astronauts

The AstroRad Vest tests a special garment designed to protect astronauts from radiation caused by unpredictable solar particle events. Astronauts will provide input on the garment as they wear it while performing daily tasks. Use of the vest could protect crew members on missions to the Moon and Mars.

Food Fresh from the Oven

The Zero-G Oven examines heat transfer properties and the process of baking food in microgravity. It uses an oven designed specifically for use aboard the space station, and may have application on future long-duration missions by offering a way to increase variety in flavor and nutrition of food for crew members.

3D Printing with Recycled Materials

The Made in Space Recycler will test systems needed to reprocess plastic into 3D printing filament that can then be transferred for use to the Made in Space Manufacturing Device, a 3D printer that has operated on the orbiting laboratory since 2016. This has implications for space conservation and deep space missions.

Astronaut Jessica Meir and Christina Koch Capture Cygnus with Station’s Robotic Arm

Image above: The Canadarm2 operated by astronauts Jessica Meir and Christina Koch moves toward the Cygnus resupply ship for its capture. Image Credit: NASA TV.

At 4:10 a.m. EST, Expedition 61 NASA astronauts Jessica Meir and Christina Koch of NASA used the International Space Station’s robotic Canadarm2 to grapple the Northrop Grumman Cygnus spacecraft as NASA astronaut Andrew Morgan monitored Cygnus systems during its approach. Next, ground controllers will command the station’s arm to rotate and install Cygnus, dubbed the S.S. Alan Bean, on the bottom of the station’s Unity module.

NG-12: S.S. Alan Bean Cygnus capture

The station was flying over Madagascar when it was captured.

Related links:

Expedition 61: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/expeditions/expedition61/index.html

Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer-02 (AMS-02): https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/explorer/Investigation.html?#id=729

Gateway: https://www.nasa.gov/topics/moon-to-mars/lunar-gateway

AstroRad Vest: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/explorer/Investigation.html?#id=7803

Zero-G Oven: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/explorer/Investigation.html?#id=7993

Made in Space Recycler: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/explorer/Investigation.html?#id=7745

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), Videos, Text, Credits: NASA/Mark Garcia/NASA TV/SciNews.

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Hubble Views a Not-So-Lonely Galaxy

NASA - Hubble Space Telescope patch.

Nov. 3, 2019

Galaxies may seem lonely, floating alone in the vast, inky blackness of the sparsely populated cosmos — but looks can be deceiving. This image of NGC 1706, taken by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, is a good example of this. NGC 1706 is a spiral galaxy, about 230 million light-years away, in the constellation of Dorado (the Swordfish).

NGC 1706 is known to belong to something known as a galaxy group, which is just as the name suggests — a group of up to 50 galaxies which are gravitationally bound and hence relatively close to each other. Around half of the galaxies we know of in the universe belong to some kind of group, making them incredibly common cosmic structures. Our home galaxy, the Milky Way, belongs to the Local Group, which also contains the Andromeda galaxy, the Large and Small Magellanic clouds, and the Triangulum galaxy.

Groups are the smallest of galactic gatherings; others are clusters, which can comprise hundreds of thousands of galaxies bound loosely together by gravity, and subsequent superclusters, which bring together numerous clusters into a single entity.

Hubble Space Telescope (HST)

For more information about Hubble, visit:
http://hubblesite.org/

http://www.nasa.gov/hubble

http://www.spacetelescope.org/

Text Credits: European Space Agency (ESA)/NASA/Lynn Jenner/Image, Animation Credits: ESA/Hubble & NASA, A. Bellini et al.

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Solar Arrays Deployed, Cygnus Powered Up for Space Delivery

NASA / Northrop Grumman - NG/CRS-12 Cygnus patch.

November 3, 2019

The solar arrays have successfully deployed on Northrop Grumman’s Cygnus spacecraft that is on its way to deliver about 8,200 pounds of science and research, crew supplies, and hardware to the International Space Station. This is the company’s 12th contracted cargo resupply mission with NASA.

This mission, designated NG-12, will be in orbit at the same time as its predecessor, the NG-11 Cygnus spacecraft, which launched in April on an extended duration flight. The NG-12 Cygnus spacecraft will remain at the space station until January before it disposes of several thousand pounds of trash through its fiery reentry into Earth’s atmosphere. The ability to fly two vehicles at once further demonstrates the robustness of Cygnus to support the goals of NASA’s ambitious missions.

Image above: The Northrop Grumman Antares rocket, with the Cygnus resupply spacecraft onboard, launches from Pad-0A of NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility, Saturday, November 2, 2019, in Virginia. Image Credits: NASA/Bill Ingalls.

Coverage of the spacecraft’s approach and arrival to the orbiting laboratory will begin Monday, Nov. 4 at 2:45 a.m. on NASA Television and the agency’s website. Expedition 61 astronauts Jessica Meir and Christina Koch of NASA will use the space station’s robotic arm to capture Cygnus at around 4:10 a.m., while NASA’s Andrew Morgan monitors telemetry. The spacecraft is scheduled to stay at the space station until January.

Cygnus spacecraft. Image Credit: NASA

Meanwhile, JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) flight controllers at Tsukuba, Japan are preparing to deorbit the HTV-8 cargo vehicle tonight, with the final deorbit maneuver expected around 8:33pm Central time, 9:33pm Eastern time. HTV-8 will enter the Earth’s atmosphere and burn up harmlessly over the south Pacific.

Related links:

Cargo resupply mission: https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/atoms/files/ng_crs-12_overview.pdf

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

HTV-8 cargo vehicle: https://blogs.nasa.gov/spacestation/2019/11/01/astronauts-release-japanese-spaceship-2/

Science and research: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/news/ng12-research/

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.

Best regards, Orbiter.ch