It's Full of Stars

NASA TV to Cover Departure of Japanese Cargo Ship From Space Station Sept. 12

NASA Television will provide live coverage of the third Japanese “Kounotori” H-II Transfer Vehicle (HTV) cargo ship’s departure from the International Space Station in two broadcasts Wednesday, Sept. 12. The first, covering unberthing, will begin at 6:30 a.m. EDT, and the second, covering release, will begin at 11:30 a.m. 

HTV-3, launched by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) July 21, arrived to the orbiting laboratory July 27 with several tons of supplies and experiments. Departure, originally planned for Sept. 6, was delayed to accommodate a second spacewalk by Expedition 32 Flight Engineers Sunita Williams of NASA and Akihiko Hoshide of JAXA on Wednesday. 

Hoshide and fellow Expedition 32 Flight Engineer Joe Acaba of NASA will be at the controls of the station’s Canadarm2 robotic arm to unbolt and disengage the cargo craft from the station’s Harmony module. A few hours later the astronauts will release the cargo craft, which will be moved a safe distance away from the complex. JAXA flight controllers later will fire the spacecraft’s engine, initiating its destructive entry back through Earth’s atmosphere. 

For NASA TV streaming video, downlink and scheduling information, visit: 

http://www.nasa.gov/ntv

NASA meets Brazilian Space Agency for cooperation

NASA administrator Charles Bolden (right, in photo above) is in Brazil for the signing of a cooperation among the US space agency and its Brazilian counterpart. Two agreements were signed today (10/27) to establish a partnership between both countries. In the first one, Brazil gets to collect and analyze all data from the Global Precipitation Measurement future group of satellites. The second agreement sets Brazil to take part in ozone layer studies.

The GPM mission was initiated by NASA and the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency and has many international partners, like Brazil, India and France. It will provide rainfall data worldwide, including information on tropical cyclones and hurricanes.

Source.

Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Satoshi Furukawa may not be Superman, but in the microgravity of space, he can fly (well, almost). Actually, Furukawa is the flight engineer for Expedition 28 on the International Space Station. As part of the planned duties for this mission, the station crew continue installing infrastructure upgrades to the station’s command and control computers and its communications systems. The station crew also assisted the STS-134 shuttle mission and continue preparations for the arrival of STS-135, the final mission of the Space Shuttle Program.

Image Credit: NASA

Japan’s Akatsuki probe fails to enter Venus orbit

Japan’s first space probe bound for Venus has failed to enter the planet’s orbit, the country’s space agency says.

The space craft, Akatsuki, is believed to have passed Venus after it failed to slow down sufficiently.

Akatsuki, launched about 200 days ago, fired its main engine just before 0000 GMT on Monday to allow the planet’s gravity to capture the probe.

A previous interplanetary space probe launched by Japan in 1998 to orbit Mars was also a failure.

Akatsuki briefly lost contact but was now back in communication and functioning normally as it headed off around the sun, officials said.

“Unfortunately, it did not attain an orbit,” said Hitoshi Soeno of the space agency, Jaxa.

“But it appears to be functioning and we may be able to try again when it passes by Venus six years from now.”

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A Large Space Station Over Earth
Credit: STS-131 Crew, Expedition 23 Crew, NASA

Explanation: The International Space Station is the largest object ever constructed by humans in space. The station perimeter now extends over roughly the area of a football field, although only a small fraction of this is composed of modules habitable by humans. The stationis so large that it could not be launched all at once — it is being built piecemeal with large sections added continually by flights of the Space Shuttle. To function, the ISS needs huge trusses, some over 15 meters long and with masses over 10,000 kilograms, to keep it rigid and to route electricity and liquid coolants. Pictured above, part of the immense space station was photographed out of a window by a member of the visiting Space Shuttle Discovery STS-131 crew. Visible in the foreground is Japan’s Kibo research module, while a large truss is visible toward the left. On the far right, a crescent Earth slices through the blackness of space.

(via APOD)

Let There Be Light!

Image credit: NASA

Endeavour pilot Terry Virts opened the windows of the newly installed cupola one at a time early Wednesday, giving spacewalkers Robert Behnken and Nicholas Patrick an early look into the International Space Station’s room with a view that they had helped install.

The cupola’s fully opened windows look down on the Sahara Desert in this image that was ‘tweeted’ from space by JAXA astronaut and Expedition 22 flight engineer Soichi Noguchi.

(via NASA)

Astronaut John Phillips (foreground), Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) astronaut Koichi Wakata and astronaut Richard Arnold, all STS-119 mission specialists, participate in a training session in one of the full-scale trainers in the Space Vehicle Mock-up Facility at NASA’s Johnson Space Center.