International Space Station (ISS / Alpha)

SpaceNut · 2015-12-28 20:33:40

Buffalo students launching spud into space with NASA Students will discover if spud will grow in microgravity

Three Buffalo middle school students have posed an intriguing question that’s getting attention in the most prominent scientific circles: Can potatoes grow in space? Their project, “Tuber Growth in Microgravity,” will test whether a potato can sprout in a small tube inside the orbiting laboratory and survive the return to Earth for planting – a particular area of interest these days for NASA.

Which bring me to the post in Crops which suggests a new module for the ISS from the image that must be in the planning stages.....

SpaceNut · 2016-01-16 20:34:12

Not again! Astronaut’s leaky helmet forces early end to spacewalk at space station

The earlier water leak was traced to contamination that blocked up a water separator in the suit’s air-circulation system. A pool of water crept up into the helmet in zero-G and began to cover Parmitano’s face.
Things never got that far in today’s incident. As soon as Kopra reported moisture in the helmet, NASA went into a procedure to stop work, bring the astronauts back inside and get their suits off. The spacewalk was scheduled to go on for six and a half hours but ended up lasting just four hours and 43 minutes.
After he was back inside, Kopra told Mission Control that he was “doing good.”
Kopra reported that the water in his helmet was cold, and Navias said that was a clue that the leak had something to do with the water-circulating cooling loop inside the suit.

SpaceNut · 2016-01-31 21:33:54

To boost commercial activity, NASA may add private airlock to ISSNanoRacks says it will self-fund a $12 to $15 million "doorway to space."

When NASA engineers designed the International Space Station during the 1990s, they didn’t envision the orbital outpost becoming a hub of commercial activity; nevertheless, that has become one of the most important contributions of ISS to US spaceflight. And as it nurtures American enterprise in low-Earth orbit, the station is increasingly running into a bottleneck: getting scientific research and other payloads outside.
Now a Texas company, NanoRacks, has proposed a solution. It is offering to build an airlock that will be attached to the space station and provide the capability to deploy cubesats and larger satellites. The $12 million-15 million airlock would also allow NASA to bring in costly large pumps and storage tanks for repairs rather than disposing of them.
“We developed a commercial pathway to the station, and now we want to extend that pathway outside the station,” Jeff Manber, the company’s managing director, told Ars in an interview. “This is a sign that we believe in the future of the station.”
NanoRacks, founded to make it easier for companies, universities, and other governments to get their research into space, has become one of NASA’s most important partners in commercializing the space station. It regularly flies experimental payloads for paying customers to and from the station, and Manber said more of that business is now migrating outside the laboratory.
On board the station there is only one equipment airlock, inside Japan’s Kibo module. The Japanese airlock is fairly small, large enough to only accommodate items about the size of a miniature refrigerator. Although it opens 10 times a year, five of those openings are allocated to the Japanese space agency, JAXA, with the other five going to NASA and its commercial partners.
“It’s becoming a real bottleneck,” said Mike Johnson, chief designer of NanoRacks. “We were sitting around the table one day and we were like, you know if we had our own airlock this would make life a whole lot easier. We started thinking about it and realized we have enough business now where we could actually self-fund an airlock.”
NASA is interested, and it may give NanoRacks approval to proceed with developing the airlock as soon as next month. The agency and its primary station contractor, Boeing, are conducting a formal assessment to see if the airlock can be safely integrated into the station. “We’ve very intrigued by it, and we haven’t found any showstoppers so far,” Mike Read, manager of the space station National Lab Office at Johnson Space Center, told Ars.
If approved by NASA, the airlock, which NanoRacks has dubbed the “Doorway to Space,” could launch as early as 2018 inside the trunk of a SpaceX Dragon capsule. The company says it could use the airlock as many as 12 times a year.
NanoRacks is proposing to build a large, half-cylinder-shaped airlock about two meters in diameter and 1.8 meters long. The airlock would attach to the end of the station’s Node 3 module, near the cupola. It would connect via a common berthing mechanism, or CBM, and then be pressurized. After pressurization, the hatch could be opened and the airlock configured for various tasks.

SpaceNut · 2016-01-31 21:37:19

When NASA engineers designed the International Space Station during the 1990s, they didn’t envision the orbital outpost becoming a hub of commercial activity; nevertheless, that has become one of the most important contributions of ISS to US spaceflight.

This is what is wrong with Nasa not having any forward thinking as to how something can and is used... It leverages nothing tossing it out once its life is over.....

SpaceNut · 2016-02-07 19:49:05

The Standard Cygnus, flying on Orbital’s Antares 110, 120, and 130 series rockets, could carry a maximum payload of approximately 2,000 kg (4,400 lbs) to ISS.

Enhanced Cygnus, on Atlas V, will be capable of lifting a maximum payload of 3,500 kg (7,700 lbs) to the ISS and 3,200 kg (7,100 lbs) of payload to ISS.

Orbital's US $1.9 billion initial contract calls for eight Cygnus launches, delivering cargo at a cost of just under $45,000/lb ($100,000/kg). which is 237.5 million per launch or 5278 lbs of cargo average....but the contract was finished with an atlas v launch.

The six initial cargo missions, valued at about $1.2-$1.5 billion, to be carried out beginning in 2019. Depending on the spacecraft/launch vehicle configurations used, these initial missions will deliver approximately 22,500-26,500 kilograms (or 49,000-58,000 pounds) of supplies and equipment to the orbiting laboratory.

That said the launch costs are on average 225 million with a 25,472 per pound average for a launch is 8917 pound which is greater than the posted above amounts.

Either I have done some math incorrectly or the costs dropped and not to meantion we can have the cygnus lift more than what was posted as well ....fuzzy numbers

SpaceNut · 2016-02-23 19:53:40

NASA Space Program Now Requires Russian Language

Russian will become a mandatory subject in NASA's space training program, the US space agency announced on its website on Saturday, adding that all those wishing to fly to space should learn the Russian.
I am surprised that we are not having other languages as there are lots of partners....

Terraformer · 2016-02-24 06:47:58

Stamp out Russlish!

RobertDyck · 2016-02-24 08:46:51

Terraformer wrote:

Stamp out Russlish!

This is the INTERNATIONAL space station. For many years the only life support was on the Russia half. Today the only way to transport American astronauts to space is on Russian Soyuz spacecraft. The US side provided oxygen from a pressure tank in the Quest air lock in 2001. The Oxygen Generating System became operational on 12 July 2007. Zarya was launched 20 November 1998, Unity was docked to it by Shuttle on 6 December 1998, but the station could not be occupied until Zvezda was docked on 26 July 2000. Expedition 1 arrived November 2000. That means for 7 years, the only recycling life support was from the Russian side. We were dependent on the Russians. Trying to find when crew complement expanded from 3 to 6...looks like expeditions 14 & 15 in May 2009. Is that right?

Let's try to show some respect for our partners. Russia is a partner on ISS.

SpaceNut · 2016-02-24 18:45:21

We are currently in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expedition_46 with

Scott Kelly, NASA and Mikhail Korniyenko, RSA have spent the better part of a year onboard as one big human medical experiment for microgravity. Also Scott Kelly is part of a twin experiment as well and will soon be heading home next month.

SpaceX CRS-8, also known as SpX-8, is a cargo resupply mission to the International Space Station scheduled for April 2016.

NASA has contracted for the CRS-8 mission from SpaceX and therefore determines the orbital parameters for the primary payload: the Dragon space capsule.
The flight is scheduled to deliver the first expandable module to the station, called The Bigelow Expandable Activity Module (BEAM). It is expected to perform at least two years of observation and testing

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bigelow_E … ity_Module

Terraformer · 2016-02-25 11:13:30

Let's try to show some respect for our partners. Russia is a partner on ISS.

Oh pish. We'll stamp out Runglish then, instead.

GW Johnson · 2016-02-25 11:38:07

Well, it's about time that a Bigelow inflatable gets checked out at ISS!

Has anyone seen how they plan to have both BEAM and a Dragon on that Falcon-9, or is this a no-Dragon BEAM-only Falcon-9 for CRS-8?

GW

RobertDyck · 2016-02-25 13:46:31

Terraformer wrote:

Oh pish. We'll stamp out Runglish then, instead.

Oh, a pidgin. I thought you wanted to stamp out Russian. Well, whenever people speak more than one language, they're going to mix them. When I lived in Miami, Florida, a number of young people spoke Espanglish. It's just going to happen.

To quote Rosanna Rosanna Danna...

Last edited by RobertDyck (2016-02-25 13:54:39)

RobertDyck · 2016-02-25 13:49:48

GW Johnson wrote:

Well, it's about time that a Bigelow inflatable gets checked out at ISS!
Has anyone seen how they plan to have both BEAM and a Dragon on that Falcon-9, or is this a no-Dragon BEAM-only Falcon-9 for CRS-8?

BEAM will be tucked in the unpressurized trunk. After Dragon is docked to a CBM hatch, the station arm will pull Beam out of the back end of the trunk.

SpaceNut · 2016-02-25 18:22:49

In early 2013, NASA awarded Bigelow Aerospace with a $17.8 million contract to develop an expandable space habitat.

Bigelow Expandable Activity Module (BEAM) - 12.23.15 ISS Science for Everyone

Science Results for Everyone Information Pending
Co-Investigator(s)/Collaborator(s) Information Pending

I expected more from a Nasa web page...

Bigelow Aerospace Expandable Activity Module (BEAM) Completes Major Milestones

Fully packed to put inside cargo area of the Dragon truck....

Influenced by the use of lightweight and compact materials, BEAM strays away from the traditional rigid and metallic structures used for space and weights about 3,000 lbs. (1,360 kg). Which is quite the mass savings....when an Iss module is 20mt approximately.

http://www.nss.org/adastra/volume25/beam.html

http://bigelowaerospace.com/beam/

MISSION OBJECTIVES
•Increase Technology Readiness Level (TRL) of expandable habitat technology

•Demonstrate launch and deployment, as well as folding and packing techniques

•Determine radiation protection capability

•Demonstrate design performance such as thermal, structural, mechanical durability, long-term leak performance, etc.

But what about whom can go to the module as there is only access via the ISS modules.....with no other means to enter from a private side of the equation......

SpaceNut · 2016-02-28 21:17:42

http://www.paragonsdc.com/wp-content/up … ment-1.pdf

Paragon Space Development Corporation® Wins NASA ISS Water Processor Development Contract

Ok so they know that the current system is not good enough for deep space so leverage one via ISS contracts....

Ionomermembrane Water Processor (IWP) System. IWP will provide the platform for up to 98% water recovery in future deep space exploration missions with its initial application planned for installment on the International Space Station (ISS). It would improve and simplify water recovery processes for space applications by
providing near complete removal of water from highly contaminated wastewater.

www.ParagonSDC.com

For the latest Space Station updates: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/stati … index.html

SpaceNut · 2016-03-20 21:14:40

Sort of disappointing....

On the ISS, astronauts will monitor BEAM's pressure, temperature, and ability to deflect radiation and debris. The module will be closed off from the rest of the space station for most of the time, but occasionally astronauts will enter the BEAM to take measurements.

Was great to prove out inflateables when Bigelow tested a small-scale versions of Genesis I and II launched in 2006 and 2007, respectively, and are still helping the company assess the long-term safety of the design but lets open them to more uses from other companies that would want to access them would be nicer.....

The BEAM module launching in April will weigh in at only 1,400 pounds. That may sound like a lot, but it beats the space station by a long shot. BEAM weighs an average of 5.46 pounds per cubic foot of space that it provides, the ISS weighs 28.6 pounds per cubic foot. Which would make a huge bit of sense to making them available for Mars as part of the deep space habitat living space.

kbd512 · 2016-03-21 02:05:26

SpaceNut,

The Paragon IWP is a response to the UPA reliability and recycled water production rate per kg of recycling equipment required. The brine bags are very light and storage of extra brine bags is not a major problem.

This document illustrates much of an impediment current water reprocessing technology is to interplanetary space flight:

ICES_2015_submission_94.pdf

I was reviewing a document by Boeing that explains how the ISS power subsystem works. I looked at the truss structure and how far the components were from each other and just had to wonder whether or not it was designed to be as costly and complicated as possible or if there is some other reason for the very high mass and volume of the ISS truss structure and attached components. I couldn't figure it out. The layout makes no sense to me, unless I was intentionally trying to make the design complicated and heavy.

Far more energy dense power storage is required than the units installed in the truss structure of ISS: Prieto Battery

Here's an illustrative example of how high the power requirements are for current ISS life support equipment:

ISS OGA - 3.573kW when processing and 280W in standby. That's far too much power consumption for a Mars bound interplanetary vehicle.

NASA's lack of enthusiasm for BEAM is NIH-related, even though they invented it. Interplanetary space flight requires far lower structural mass than ISS hardware. Through a number of threads, I have indicated that composite or inflatable modules were required for interplanetary travel. Apart from the secondary emission effects from radiation exposure that thin walled metal spacecraft expose astronauts to, the mass of metal spacecraft is simply far too high. BTW, BEAM weighs 1400 kg, not 1400 lbs. Your structural weight of BEAM per cubic foot of pressurized space is correct, though.

A unit with approximately twice the internal volume of BEAM provides sufficient internal volume for the next generation of life support equipment, rations, and water storage for two crew members for 1000 days. Obviously the habitable volume falls far below NASA's recommended 25m3 per crew member, but I would plan on conducting confinement testing on all crew designated for Mars missions.

NASA's interplanetary space flight vehicle habitable volume per crew member recommendations: TM-2015-218564.pdf

So, if a BEAM module was shipped to ISS to serve as a Mars transit analog (I'll fill in the numbers as I can estimate them):

Table of Masses

Structural: 2800 kg
Food: 1830 kg

Notes:
could be reduced with meal replacement bars, but NASA breakfast bars are probably worse than commercial breakfast bars
a good chunk of the menu is not available for Mars missions due to spoilage
some current packaging materials not suitable for Mars missions

500L water: 500 kg
Atmospheric Processor (O2/N2 tanks, CO2 scrubber): ???kg

Notes:
need help here
NASA contractor is developing regenerable Microlith mesh sorbents to reduce power consumption, mass, and volume

Water Processor (fresh water tank, grey water tank, water purification): ???kg

Notes:
assume Paragon IWP scaled for 2 crew members for 1000 days
assume HDPE ring tanks that line the walls of an inner sleeping area / airlock on the second level of the habitat

Avionics: ??? kg

Notes:
need help here
assume same architecture as Orion

Batteries: 100 kg

Notes:
Orion uses 4 3.6kWh Yardney Technical Products Lithium Ion packs weighing 45kg each when the aluminum alloy housing is included
Mars DSH will use 4 6kWh Panasonic NCR18650B cells packs in composite housings

Solar panels and power conditioning/distribution: ???kg

Notes:
need 25kWe at Mars for SEP to spiral in to LMO; lesser power requirement for orbital maintenance and mid-course corrections
4 7.5kW resonant circuit nuclear batteries could provide all the power required with approximately 4 grams of Strontium-90 - I know we have a lot of anti-nuclear people here, but four stainless steel soup cans can solve our power problems while simultaneously dramatically reducing the weight and complexity inherent to space grade solar panels (only remaining tech issue is frequency stability)

SEP RCS: ???kg

Notes:
Need help here
Iodine hall thrusters? (no high pressure Xe tanks, same PPU, same ionization energies)

Docking Ring: 385kg

Notes:
NDS iLIDS implementation; can't find doc, but Rev 4 NTE mass was 323kg
need numbers for Boeing's SIMAC; can't find doc, but IIRC, ~275kg

Total Mass: 5,515 kg
Total Mass Constraint (imposed by Falcon Heavy TMI limitation): 10000kg

Table of Volumes

Structural: N/A, but total pressurized volume is 32m3
Food: 6.57m3
Water: .5m3
Atmospheric Processor (O2/N2 tanks, CO2 scrubber): ???m3
Water Processor (fresh water tank, grey water tank, water purification): ???kg
Avionics: ???m3
Batteries: ???m3
Solar panels and power conditioning/distribution: ???m3 (doesn't detract from habitable volume)
SEP RCS: ???m3 (doesn't detract from habitable volume)
Docking ???m3 (need numbers for Boeing's new docking solution)

Total Habitable Volume: 23.93m3

In any event, it should be abundantly clear that there is very nearly zero applicability of any current ISS hardware to a mission to send humans to Mars. ISS remains an important testing facility for new technologies for space flight, but no current generation ISS ECLSS technology is even close to the volume, mass, or reliability requirements necessitated by a two year mission in deep space.

ISS FYI: ISS Operations User Guides

Slightly OT, but someone already thought of my micro capsule design (I had the idea after seeing the Transformational Space CEV capsule): IPPW-2008-Korzun.pdf

Incidentally, this is also a scaled down version of the MDV design I had in mind with respect to the MDV connected to this BEAM DSH concept.

Last edited by kbd512 (2016-03-22 02:17:35)

SpaceNut · 2016-03-21 17:07:42

Lots of ??? for the team of newmars to try and fill in, this should not be just a few individuals that are putting together a topics numbers....searching out the reference documents .....Like you said we will be hard pressed to launch ISS sized units but we could do them in the composite technologies possibly as another method to move forward with construction of what we know just as Biggelows units will be just test units for a very long time it appears..

We really need COTS builders to start to provide services and goods for the space industry to select from for these projects as that will lower the costs for them....

SpaceNut · 2016-03-26 22:10:01

Cygnus berthed to International Space Station

After three days of travel to the International Space Station (ISS), the fifth Orbital ATK Cygnus spacecraft to visit the outpost was captured and berthed to the station early Saturday morning, delivering 7,756 pounds (3,518 kilograms) of food, supplies, and experiments.

SpaceNut · 2016-04-03 19:52:33

I have always thought that nasa was nuts with the take over of activity by a non profit but the National Laboratory, is seeing just how CASIS Had A Bad Week In Washington: CASIS' Johnson admitted that their budget was $15 million a year and that it all comes from NASA.

SpaceNut · 2016-04-05 19:05:11

The level of science onboard the National Science Laboratory as A New Crew of Mousetronauts Is Headed to the International Space Station

On April 8, SpaceX is set to resume resupply flights to the International Space Station, carrying with it some special crew members. Tucked inside the Dragon cargo ship is a crew of 20 mousetronauts that will help scientists better understand how muscles deteriorate during spaceflight.
So why mice? Mice are just one type of “model” organism, meaning a widely-studied organism used to help understand biological processes. Other types of model organisms include fruit flies and certain types of yeast. The benefit of conducting research with these types of organisms is commonality in DNA sequences, and shorter lifespans, which allow researchers to perform more experiments (even multi-generational ones) in a short amount of time.

SpaceNut · 2016-04-08 17:18:52

Well here's hoping for a sucessful flight to the station as we are waiting for the docking and then deployment of Beam.....

SpaceNut · 2016-04-10 17:02:15

Here is the run down of what Dragon brings on this launch cycle...

Live mice, cabbage, and a drone ship: Your SpaceX Dragon launch preview

The Dragon-Cygnus combo heralds the first time two U.S. cargo vehicles have been attached to the ISS at the same time. Dragon will also help tie the record for the total number of vehicles—six, counting in the two crew-carrying Soyuz spacecraft—attached to the station at once.
Dragon's total cargo haul is 3.1 metric tons. Of that, 1.7 tons are pressurized. NASA breaks this down as:
•Science investigations: 640 kg
•Crew supplies: 547 kg
•Vehicle hardware: 306 kg
•Computer resources: 108 kg
•Russian hardware: 33 kg
•Spacewalk equipment: 12 kg
Nestled inside Dragon's unpressurized trunk—the cylindrical part of the spacecraft beneath the main capsule—is BEAM, the Bigelow Expandable Activity Module. BEAM, which will be unpacked by robotic arm in mid-April and installed on the station's Tranquility module, is a two-year experiment to test out human-occupied inflatable space habitats.
Last week, ISS chief scientist Julie Robinson told reporters more than 250 science investigations will take place during Expeditions 47 and 48. Here are a few highlights coming aboard with Dragon:
•The agency is shipping 18 new "plant pillows" of chinese cabbage and romaine lettuce. Food tasters at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas rated the cabbage as the tastiest menu option. "We are also working on sending some ranch dressing up," said principal investigator Gioia Massa.
•A team led by scientists at the University of Southern California is shipping up a batch of fungi to take part in an experiment that could help keep drugs from expiring during long trips to Mars. "We are excited to be the first team on Earth to launch fungi into space, for the purpose of potentially developing new medicine for use on both Earth and space," said principal investigator Clay Wang.
•A Jet Propulsion Laboratory-headed group will continue tracking and monitoring the space station's sealed microbial environment. Experiment goals include looking at possible countermeasures against harmful bacteria, and conversely investigating possible uses for helpful bacteria.
•Pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly is sending 20 live mice to the station as part of a muscoskeletal experiment that could give scientists insight into muscle wasting diseases. Crewmembers will get a chance to handle the mice, but unfortunately for the rodents, the experiment is "terminal." Said an Eli Lilly representative: "Unfortunately, there is no way yet to bring mice live back to Earth."
•Anna-Sophia Boguraev, a high school senior from Bedford, New York, was the winner of a Boeing-sponsored competition to fly a student genetics experiment in space. "One of the things that spaceflight—especially, long-term spaceflight—does, is severely weaken the immune system," Boguraev said. Her experiment will try out a DNA replication technique that could be used to study astronauts' genetic changes during spaceflight.

SpaceNut · 2016-04-16 15:48:06

Is Beam really worth it since ts just a demonstrator and its so tiny....It should have been much larger and open for use.....

The module will remain compressed, measuring about 8 feet in diameter and 6 feet long, until May 27 when station air will be directed inside to begin the process of inflating it to full size. Internal air tanks then will be opened to complete the expansion, resulting in a bedroom-size compartment with about 565 cubic feet of volume measuring 10.5-feet wide by 13-feet long.
Over the next two years, a variety of sensors will monitor temperature, pressure and radiation levels to find out how well the module stands up to the space environment. The long-range goal is to assess the feasibility of using expandable compartments with future space stations or as crew habitats for eventual deep space missions.

RobertDyck · 2016-04-16 20:10:05

SpaceNut wrote:

Is Beam really worth it since ts just a demonstrator and its so tiny....It should have been much larger and open for use.....

TransHAB was designed to fill the Shuttle cargo bay. It expanded to 3 times diameter, so 9 times volume of a full size module like Discovery. But we don't have Shuttle, all we have is Dragon and Cygnus. Beam was designed to fit within the "trunk" of Dragon. So was designed for the delivery system we have today.

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#376 2015-12-28 20:33:40

Re: International Space Station (ISS / Alpha)

#377 2016-01-16 20:34:12

Re: International Space Station (ISS / Alpha)

#378 2016-01-31 21:33:54

Re: International Space Station (ISS / Alpha)

#379 2016-01-31 21:37:19

Re: International Space Station (ISS / Alpha)

#380 2016-02-07 19:49:05

Re: International Space Station (ISS / Alpha)

#381 2016-02-23 19:53:40

Re: International Space Station (ISS / Alpha)

#382 2016-02-24 06:47:58

Re: International Space Station (ISS / Alpha)

#383 2016-02-24 08:46:51

Re: International Space Station (ISS / Alpha)

#384 2016-02-24 18:45:21

Re: International Space Station (ISS / Alpha)

#385 2016-02-25 11:13:30

Re: International Space Station (ISS / Alpha)

#386 2016-02-25 11:38:07

Re: International Space Station (ISS / Alpha)

#387 2016-02-25 13:46:31

Re: International Space Station (ISS / Alpha)

#388 2016-02-25 13:49:48

Re: International Space Station (ISS / Alpha)

#389 2016-02-25 18:22:49

Re: International Space Station (ISS / Alpha)

#390 2016-02-28 21:17:42

Re: International Space Station (ISS / Alpha)

#391 2016-03-20 21:14:40

Re: International Space Station (ISS / Alpha)

#392 2016-03-21 02:05:26

Re: International Space Station (ISS / Alpha)

#393 2016-03-21 17:07:42

Re: International Space Station (ISS / Alpha)

#394 2016-03-26 22:10:01

Re: International Space Station (ISS / Alpha)

#395 2016-04-03 19:52:33

Re: International Space Station (ISS / Alpha)

#396 2016-04-05 19:05:11

Re: International Space Station (ISS / Alpha)

#397 2016-04-08 17:18:52

Re: International Space Station (ISS / Alpha)

#398 2016-04-10 17:02:15

Re: International Space Station (ISS / Alpha)

#399 2016-04-16 15:48:06

Re: International Space Station (ISS / Alpha)

#400 2016-04-16 20:10:05

Re: International Space Station (ISS / Alpha)

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