Expedition 41 Crew Launches to the International Space Station

The Soyuz TMA-14M rocket is launched with Expedition 41 Soyuz Commander Alexander Samokutyaev of the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos) Flight Engineer Elena Serova of Roscosmos, and Flight Engineer Barry Wilmore of NASA, Friday, Sept. 26, 2014 at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Samokutyaev, Serova, and Wilmore will spend the next five and a half months aboard the International Space Station. Serova will become the fourth Russian woman to fly in space and the first Russian woman to live and work on the station.

NASA’s Mars Spacecraft Maneuvers to Prepare for Close Comet Flyby

NASA is taking steps to protect its Mars orbiters, while preserving opportunities to gather valuable scientific data, as Comet C/2013 A1 Siding Spring heads toward a close flyby of Mars on Oct. 19.
The comet’s nucleus will miss Mars by about 82,000 miles (132,000 kilometers), shedding material hurtling at about 35 miles (56 kilometers) per second, relative to Mars and Mars-orbiting spacecraft. At that velocity, even the smallest particle -- estimated to be about one-fiftieth of an inch (half a millimeter) across -- could cause significant damage to a spacecraft.
NASA currently operates two Mars orbiters, with a third on its way and expected to arrive in Martian orbit just a month before the comet flyby. Teams operating the orbiters plan to have all spacecraft positioned on the opposite side of the Red Planet when the comet is most likely to pass by.
"Three expert teams have modeled this comet for NASA and provided forecasts for its flyby of Mars," explained Rich Zurek, chief scientist for the Mars Exploration Program at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California. "The hazard is not an impact of the comet nucleus, but the trail of debris coming from it. Using constraints provided by Earth-based observations, the modeling results indicate that the hazard is not as great as first anticipated. Mars will be right at the edge of the debris cloud, so it might encounter some of the particles -- or it might not."
During the day's events, the smallest distance between Siding Spring's nucleus and Mars will be less than one-tenth the distance of any known previous Earthly comet flyby. The period of greatest risk to orbiting spacecraft will start about 90 minutes later and last about 20 minutes, when Mars will come closest to the center of the widening dust trail from the nucleus.
NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) made one orbit-adjustment maneuver on July 2 as part of the process of repositioning the spacecraft for the Oct. 19 event. An additional maneuver is planned for Aug. 27. The team operating NASA's Mars Odyssey orbiter is planning a similar maneuver on Aug. 5 to put that spacecraft on track to be in the right place at the right time, as well.
NASA's Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) spacecraft is on its way to the Red Planet and will enter orbit on Sept. 21. The MAVEN team is planning to conduct a precautionary maneuver on Oct. 9, prior to the start of the mission's main science phase in early November.
In the days before and after the comet's flyby, NASA will study the comet by taking advantage of how close it comes to Mars. Researchers plan to use several instruments on the Mars orbiters to study the nucleus, the coma surrounding the nucleus, and the tail of Siding Spring, as well as the possible effects on the Martian atmosphere. This particular comet has never before entered the inner solar system, so it will provide a fresh source of clues to our solar system's earliest days.
MAVEN will study gases coming off the comet's nucleus into its coma as it is warmed by the sun. MAVEN also will look for effects the comet flyby may have on the planet’s upper atmosphere and observe the comet as it travels through the solar wind.
Odyssey will study thermal and spectral properties of the comet's coma and tail. MRO will monitor Mars’ atmosphere for possible temperature increases and cloud formation, as well as changes in electron density at high altitudes. The MRO team also plans to study gases in the comet’s coma. Along with other MRO observations, the team anticipates this event will yield detailed views of the comet’s nucleus and potentially reveal its rotation rate and surface features.
Mars' atmosphere, though much thinner than Earth's, is thick enough that NASA does not anticipate any hazard to the Opportunity and Curiosity rovers on the planet's surface, even if dust particles from the comet hit the atmosphere and form into meteors. Rover cameras may be used to observe the comet before the flyby, and to monitor the atmosphere for meteors while the comet's dust trail is closest to the planet.
Observations from Earth-based and space telescopes provided data used for modeling to make predictions about Siding Spring's Mars flyby, which were in turn used for planning protective maneuvers. The three modeling teams were headed by researchers at the University of Maryland in College Park, the Planetary Science Institute in Tucson, Arizona, and JPL.

The Lotus pool by Moonlight (Cantonese version)-Zheng Yuan

Every whisper of the stars on the overlooking Lake

Wind-Lotus flower is not cold

I look at echo the rippling silk

Thoughts that a lot of smiles in the heart

Drunk looking Lake detailed views

Water Moon fairy eyes

Like to ride the wind to fly out the night sky

Tracking you will listen

May the Cape into a couple with

But can true love such as well water

After four seasons in the mind who would be

If I failed to say that the

Hold you in my arms, love is like water

Light wave as if a lifetime of allowing

You were like ying is smoking lightly return

Reflecting Chinese pair

Willing to change to a couple with

But can true love such as well water

After four seasons in the mind who would be

If I failed to say that the

Willing to change to a couple with

But can true love such as well water

After four seasons in the mind who would be

If I failed to say that the

Willing to change to a couple with

If true love I wish I could have hundreds of years of Chitose

Hope you see knows who I am

Even if not said

Also want to say a Word

Space Station Live: Astronaut Rick Mastracc

Space Station Live commentator Pat Ryan interviews NASA astronaut Rick Mastracchio about his time aboard the International Space Station as part of ISS Expeditions 38 and 39. This interview aired during Space Station Live on July 7, 2014.

Russian Cargo Craft Undocks From Station

An unpiloted Russian Progress cargo spacecraft undocked from the International Space Station Monday, completing its second and final undocking from the station since arriving in late November 2013.
The ISS Progress 53 resupply craft undocked from the aft port of the Zvezda service module at 9:29 a.m. EDT as the station orbited over Mongolia. 
From a window in the Russian segment of the station, Expedition 40 Flight Engineer Alexander Skvortsov photographed the departing Progress cargo ship as it began a 15-second separation burn to move a safe distance away from the orbiting complex.
A 3-minute, 16-second deorbit burn beginning at 12:34 p.m. slowed the Progress for its destructive re-entry in the Earth’s atmosphere over the Pacific Ocean less than an hour later. Progress resupply ships are not designed to be recovered, so, like its predecessors, Progress 53 was refilled with trash and station discards after its original cargo was unloaded by the station crew.
Progress 53 delivered 2.9 tons of food, fuel and supplies when it first arrived at the station on Nov. 29, following a flight that included a “fly-by” of the station two days earlier to test revamped Kurs automated rendezvous system hardware.  Because of a technical glitch unrelated to the new Kurs system, the Nov. 29 approach and docking of the Progress was controlled manually by the station’s crew using TORU, the Telerobotically Operated Rendezvous Unit.
To complete the testing of the Kurs-NA rendezvous hardware and its associated software, Progress 53 undocked from Zvezda on April 23 and successfully performed an automated docking to that port two days later. The enhanced Kurs system will be incorporated into future Progress vehicles to reduce weight by eliminating several navigational antennas, thus enabling the Progress to carry additional supplies to the station.
The final departure of Progress 53 clears the Zvezda docking port for the arrival in August of the European Space Agency’s fifth Automated Transfer Vehicle, ATV-5. Named for the Belgian physicist and astronomer Georges Lemaitre, the ATV-5 is scheduled for launch from Kourou, French Guiana, on an Ariane 5 rocket in late July.
In addition to monitoring the departure of Progress 53, the station’s six-person Expedition 40 crew supported a variety of experiments that can be conducted only in a microgravity environment and continued preparations for next week’s spacewalk.
Skvortsov and Flight Engineer Oleg Artemyev began the day with an assessment of their arm muscles before moving on to a review of the tasks they will conduct during their spacewalk slated for June 19. Later, they gathered the tools and equipment they will use during the excursion. The two spacewalkers will mount a new integrated command and telemetry system on Zvezda and replace a payload rack on the Russian segment with a payload boom previously installed in a temporary location.
 Artemyev also checked out Otklik experiment hardware for monitoring particle impacts on the station. He rounded out his day by downloading data for the Identification study, which measures the loads on the station during dynamic events such as Monday’s Progress undocking.
Station Commander Steve Swanson began the day drawing a blood sample from Flight Engineer Alexander Gerst. The astronauts themselves are the experiment for human physiology studies aboard the station as their blood, saliva and urine samples are processed and stored in freezers for further analysis back on Earth. As NASA works toward sending humans on longer voyages beyond low Earth orbit, it is critical to understand how the human body adapts and changes during long-duration spaceflight.
Afterward, Swanson installed a new test sample for the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency’s Resist Tubule experiment, which takes a look at the mechanisms for gravity resistance in plants. Results from this study will help researchers learn more about the evolution of plants and enable efficient plant production both on Earth and in space. For future deep space missions, plants may be able to provide astronauts with regenerative sources of food and supplemental methods of converting carbon dioxide into oxygen.

Flight Engineer Reid Wiseman spent the morning gathering U.S. spacewalking tools and equipment to loan to his Russian crewmates for next week’s spacewalk. The equipment list included tethers and a pair of helmet cameras that can provide live, first-person views from the spacewalk.
Gerst meanwhile participated in a periodic fitness evaluation while working on an exercise bike known as the Cycle Ergometer with Vibration Isolation and Stabilization System, or CEVIS. Wiseman assisted Gerst with blood pressure measurements for part of the evaluation.
 Following a break for lunch, Swanson led Wiseman and Gerst through some handover activities to help them become familiar with the systems and payloads of the U.S. segment of the station. Wiseman and Gerst arrived aboard the station on May 28 along with Flight Engineer Max Suraev. The three new crew members also had time set aside on their own throughout the day to learn the ropes of their orbital home.
Suraev otherwise spent most of his workday removing a series of brackets in the Rassvet Mini-Research Module-1.
Wiseman later swapped out a manifold bottle in the Combustion Integrated Rack. This facility, which includes an optics bench, combustion chamber, fuel and oxidizer control and five different cameras, allows a variety of combustion experiments to be performed safely aboard the station. Experiments performed in this facility could lead to improvements in spacecraft materials selection and strategies for putting out accidental fires aboard spacecraft.
Afterward, Wiseman joined Swanson in the Destiny lab to talk with CBS Evening News’ Scott Pelley. The two astronauts discussed their participation in social media and the scientific research aboard the station.

New Station Trio Set for Wednesday Launch

While the orbiting Expedition 40 crew supported botanical research and robotics Tuesday aboard the International Space Station, the three crewmates who will return the station to its full six-person crew on Wednesday are in the final stages of preparations for launch.
NASA astronaut Reid Wiseman, cosmonaut Maxim Suraev of the Russian Federal Space Agency and European Space Agency astronaut Alexander Gerst are set to launch aboard their Soyuz TMA-13M spacecraft from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 3:57 p.m. EDT Wednesday (1:57 a.m. Thursday, Kazakh time). Less than six hours later, at 9:48 p.m., Soyuz Commander Suraev will dock the Russian spacecraft to the Rassvet module on the Earth-facing side of the station.
 Commander Steve Swanson and Flight Engineers Oleg Artemyev and Alexander Skvortsov, who have been aboard the complex since March 27, will welcome the new flight engineers aboard when the hatches open at 11:25 p.m.
NASA Television coverage of the launch begins at 3 p.m. Wednesday. Live coverage resumes at 9 p.m. for the docking, followed by hatch opening coverage at 11 p.m.
 The Soyuz that will carry Wiseman, Suraev and Gerst to the station was rolled out by train from the integration building on Monday and erected on the launch pad.
 Meanwhile aboard the orbiting complex, Swanson spent much of Tuesday morning in the station’s Kibo laboratory breaking down equipment used for the most recent session of the Resist Tubule experiment. This Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency study takes a look at the mechanisms for gravity resistance in plants. Results from this study will help researchers learn more about the evolution of plants and enable efficient plant production both on Earth and in space. During a long-duration mission beyond low Earth orbit, plants can provide future astronauts with regenerative sources of food and supplemental methods of converting carbon dioxide into oxygen.
Afterward, Swanson used the Kibo module’s airlock to transfer a replacement camera to the exterior of the station. The robotic teams at the Mobile Servicing System Operations Complex in Saint Hubert, Quebec, and the Mission Control Center in Houston worked together to command the Special Purpose Dexterous Manipulator, or Dextre, to retrieve the camera from the airlock and install it near the elbow joint of the Canadarm2 robotic arm. As part of an operation that began last week with the transfer of a camera into the system’s mobile base, which together with Dextre and Canadarm2 forms the Mobile Servicing System, Dextre has become the first robot to repair itself in space.
 Swanson took a break from his work to talk with CBS correspondents Bill Harwood and Peter King and ABC News anchor Dan Kloeffler.
On the Russian side of the complex, Skvortsov and Artemyev teamed up for the Russian BAR experiment, which is studying methods of detecting a leak from one of the station’s modules.
Skvortsov and Artemyev later participated in examinations of the veins in their legs as teams on the ground keep track of any changes to the cosmonaut’s health during the six-month stay aboard the station.
Artemyev also updated software for the Napor-mini RSA experiment, which utilizes an optical telescope and a small radar system for monitoring Earth’s environment.

Scientists Seek Answers With Space Station Thyroid Cancer Study

The multi-national efforts that go into research aboard the International Space Station show that working together can yield results with universal benefits. This is especially the case when talking about human health concerns such as cancer. Researchers make use of the microgravity environment aboard the space station to seek answers to questions about the nature of cancer cells. With the Microgravity on Human Thyroid Carcinoma Cells (Cellbox-Thyroid) study, recently conducted in orbit, the hope is to reveal answers that will help in the fight against thyroid cancer.
The American Cancer Society estimates about 62,980 cases of thyroid cancer in the U.S. for 2014. The thyroid is a gland in the neck that secretes hormones that help the body to regulate growth and development, metabolism, and body temperature. The Cellbox-Thyroid study is enabled through a collaborative effort between NanoRacks, Airbus Defense and Space, the German Aerospace Center (DLR) and the Center for the Advancement of Science in Space (CASIS) to facilitate the microgravity investigation aboard the space station.
“NanoRacks is hosting this German research study aboard the U.S. National Laboratory,” said Jeff Manber, CEO of NanoRacks. “It may well make critical advances in understanding and even delaying the onset of cancer in the thyroid.”
The overall aim of the Cellbox-Thyroid study is to identify new biomarkers and target proteins for use in developing new cancer-fighting drugs. The investigation has roots in research performed in SIMBOX aboard the Sino-German Chinese Shenzhou-8 mission. During that 2011 study, Daniela-Gabriele Grimm, M.D., principal investigator and researcher with the Department of Biomedicine, Pharmacology at Aarhus University in Aarhus, Denmark, looked at cancer cells in microgravity and found that tumors behave less aggressively in that environment. Grimm’s published findings appeared earlier this year in the Federation of the American Societies for Experimental Biology Journal.
“A further important finding was that a tumor grows three-dimensionally in space. The mechanism for this finding will also be investigated in this Cellbox-Thyroid experiment,” said Grimm. This result published in Elsevier Biomaterials 2013.
With the Cellbox-Thyroid study, Grimm seeks to build on her earlier conclusions by identifying the proteins that can be targeted to anti-cancer therapies. Insights into what controls how tumors grow may lead to knowledge for enhancing treatments on Earth. The experiments took place aboard the space station soon after berthing of the SpaceX Dragon on April 20. The samples returned to Earth aboard the same vehicle on May 18 for further analysis by researchers on the ground.
Specifically, researchers are looking for the microgravity environment to reveal an altered gene expression pattern—how the gene’s encoded information directs protein molecule assembly. They also seek to learn about the proteins expressed or secreted by the cells, called proteome and secretome. Isolating how the cell processes work could lead to new thyroid cancer drugs and provide a better understanding of the mechanism leading to cancer development for new strategies in thyroid cancer therapy.
“Spaceflight experiments are of great value for cell biology research in general and for cancer research in particular,” said Grimm. “Our experiments indicate that microgravity induce[s] changes in the expression and secretion of genes and proteins involved in cancer cell proliferation, metastasis, and survival, shifting the cells toward a less aggressive phenotype.”
In microgravity, researchers anticipate the cancer cells will form three-dimensional multicellular tumor spheroids. This behavior was identified in the previous study, where cells floated without mixing with each other in the microgravity environment. This finding revealed that biochemical components on the cell surfaces were responsible for the initial cell-to-cell interactions required for spheroid formation.
For the Cellbox-Thyroid study, researchers used six experiment containers that fit into the NanoRacks platform and centrifuge for the test runs. After the experiments completed, the samples were stored for return to Earth. Once back on the ground, researchers will analyze the samples and compare them to data from ground controls using simulated microgravity via a random positioning machine and the results from the SIMBOX study.
The hope is that the continuance of this research from the original SIMBOX mission to the space station study will confirm findings and build the statistical data. Grimm plans an additional follow up study, called Spheroids, for 2015. Spheroids will operate for two weeks while in orbit, providing data that—together with its predecessors—may one day take a chunk out of those annual thyroid cancer statistics.