The Five W’s Of An Expandable Habitat In Space

Vision & Microgravity...Can We See the Connection?

What do nutrition and genetics have in common? They could all be linked to vision problems experienced by some astronauts. We see people going up to space with perfect vision, but need glasses when the return home to Earth.

Why Does This Study Matter?

We want to be able to send astronauts to Mars, but losing vision capability along the way is a BIG problem. Discovering the cause and possible treatments or preventions will help us safely send astronauts deeper into space than ever before. 

It’s Like Solving a Mystery

We already have an idea of why vision changes occur, but the real mystery remains...why do some astronauts have these issues, and other’s don’t?

Now, let’s break it down:

Nutrition is more than just what you eat. It includes how those things work inside your body. The biochemistry behind how your muscles make energy, how your brain utilizes glucose and how vitamins help with biochemical functions...it’s all part of nutrition.

Genetics also play a part in the vision changes we’re seeing in space. Data shows that there are differences in blood chemistry between astronauts that had vision issues and those that did not. We found that individuals with vision issues had different blood chemistries even before their flight to space. That means that some astronauts could be predisposed to vision issues in space.

Just in January 2016, scientists discovered this possible link between genetics, nutrition and vision changes in astronauts. It makes it clear that the vision problem is WAY more complex than we initially thought. 

While we still don’t know exactly what is causing the vision issues, we are able to narrow down who to study, and refine our research. This will help find the cause, and hopefully lead to treatment and prevention of these problems.

Fluid Shifts

The weightless environment of space also causes fluid shifts to occur in the body. This normal shift of fluids to the upper body in space causes increased inter-cranial pressure which could be reducing visual capacity in astronauts. We are currently testing how this can be counteracted by returning fluids to the lower body using a “lower body negative pressure” suit, also known as Chibis.

Benefits on Earth

Research in this area has also suggested that there may be similarities between astronaut data and individuals with a clinical syndrome affecting 10-20% of women, known as polycystic ovary syndrome. Studying this group may provide a way to better understand vision and cardiovascular system effects, which could also advance treatment and prevention for both astronauts and humans on Earth with this disease.

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Solar System: From TED Talks to Data Releases

Let us lead you on a journey of our solar system. Here are some things to know this week:

1. NASA-Funded Research

It’s all just a click way with the launch of a new public access site, which reflects our ongoing commitment to provide public access to science data.

Start Exploring!

2.  Red Planet Reconnaissance 

One of the top places in our solar system to look for signs of past or current life is Mars. Through our robotic missions, we have been on and around Mars for 40 years. These orbiters, landers and rovers are paving the way for human exploration.

Meet the Mars robots

3. Three Moons and a Planet that Could Have Alien Life

In a presentation at TED Talks Live, our director of planetary science, Jim Green, discusses the best places to look for alien life in our solar system.

Watch the talk

4. Setting Free a Dragon

Tune in to NASA TV on Friday, Aug. 26 at 5:45 a.m. EDT for coverage of the release of the SpaceX Dragon CRS-9 cargo ship from the International Space Station.

Watch live

5. Anniversary Ring(s)

Aug. 26 marks 35 years since Voyager probe flew by Saturn, delighting scientists with rich data and images. Today, thanks to our Cassini spacecraft, we know much more about the ringed planet.

Learn more about Cassini’s mission to Saturn

Learn more about Voyager 2

Discover the full list of 10 things to know about our solar system this week HERE.

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How will Cygnus Spacecraft Dock to Space Station?

Orbital ATK’s Cygnus CRS-6 spacecraft launched to the International Space Station on March 22. 

Cygnus will carry almost 7,500 pounds of science and research, crew supplies and vehicle hardware to the orbiting laboratory.

After launch in Florida, the spacecraft will arrive to the station on Saturday, March 26. Upon arrival, NASA astronaut and Expedition 46 Commander Tim Kopra will capture Cygnus at about 6:40 a.m. using the space station's Canadarm2 robotic arm to take hold of the spacecraft. Astronaut Tim Peake of ESA (European Space Agency) will support Kopra in a backup position. 

Installation (when Cygnus is connected to space station) is expected to begin at 9:25 a.m. NASA TV coverage for installation resumes at 9:15 a.m.

After the Cygnus spacecraft is berthed (connected) to the space station, the contents will be emptied and brought inside for use. Any trash that is on the space station, can be put inside the empty Cygnus before it is undocked from station and sent to burn up in Earth’s atmosphere.

Watch Capture

You can watch the capture of Orbital ATK’s Cygnus spacecraft online. Stream live coverage starting at 5:30 a.m. EDT on Saturday, March 26. Capture is scheduled for 6:40 a.m. 

Tune in again at 9:15 a.m. to watch #Cygnus installation to the station. 

Watch online: nasa.gov/nasatv

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Hi ! What's your music playlist when you're on a mission ? :)

Luckily I have a lot of friends that already make amazing mixes for me already down here on Earth, so I’m counting on them to set me up well for my first mission.  My favorite genre is Indie rock, though I’m also a fan of jazz and classical music (I grew up playing the piano, flute, piccolo, and saxophone in various bands, wind symphonies, and jazz bands).  Music always succeeds in transforming my mood, I’m continually amazed at its power!  It will definitely be integral to my psychological well-being on a space mission.

10 Things: CubeSats — Going Farther

Now that the MarCOs — a pair of briefcase-sized interplanetary CubeSats — seem to have reached their limit far beyond Mars, we’re looking forward to an expanding era of small, versatile and powerful space-based science machines.

Here are ten ways we’re pushing the limits of miniaturized technology to see  just how far it can take us.

1. MarCO: The Farthest (So Far)

MarCO, short for Mars Cube One, was the first interplanetary mission to use a class of mini-spacecraft called CubeSats.

The MarCOs — nicknamed EVE and WALL-E, after characters from a Pixar film — served as communications relays during InSight's November 2018 Mars landing, beaming back data at each stage of its descent to the Martian surface in near-real time, along with InSight's first image.

WALL-E sent back stunning images of Mars as well, while EVE performed some simple radio science.

All of this was achieved with experimental technology that cost a fraction of what most space missions do: $18.5 million provided by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, which built the CubeSats.

WALL-E was last heard from on Dec. 29; EVE, on Jan. 4. Based on trajectory calculations, WALL-E is currently more than 1 million miles (1.6 million kilometers) past Mars; EVE is farther, almost 2 million miles (3.2 million kilometers) past Mars.

MarCO-B took these images as it approached Mars in November 2018. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

2. What Are CubeSats?

CubeSats were pioneered by California Polytechnic State University in 1999 and quickly became popular tools for students seeking to learn all aspects of spacecraft design and development.

Today, they are opening up space research to public and private entities like never before. With off-the-shelf parts and a compact size that allows them to hitch a ride with other missions — they can, for example, be ejected from the International Space Station, up to six at a time — CubeSats have slashed the cost of satellite development, opening up doors to test new instruments as well as to create constellations of satellites working together.

CubeSats can be flown in swarms, capturing simultaneous, multipoint measurements with identical instruments across a large area. Sampling entire physical systems in this way would drive forward our ability to understand the space environment around us, in the same way multiple weather sensors help us understand global weather systems.

Ready to get started? Check out NASA’s CubeSats 101 Guide.

Engineer Joel Steinkraus uses sunlight to test the solar arrays on one of the Mars Cube One (MarCO) spacecraft at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

3. Measuring Up

The size and cost of spacecraft vary depending on the application; some are the size of a pint of ice cream while others, like the Hubble Space Telescope, are as big as a school bus.

Small spacecraft (SmallSats) generally have a mass less than 400 pounds (180 kilograms) and are about the size of a large kitchen fridge.

CubeSats are a class of nanosatellites that use a standard size and form factor.  The standard CubeSat size uses a "one unit" or "1U" measuring 10x10x10 centimeters (or about 4x4x4 inches) and is extendable to larger sizes: 1.5, 2, 3, 6, and even 12U.

The Sojourner rover (seen here on Mars in 1997) is an example of small technology that pioneered bigger things. Generations of larger rovers are being built on its success.

4. A Legacy of Small Pathfinders

Not unlike a CubeSat, NASA’s first spacecraft — Explorer 1 — was a small, rudimentary machine. It launched in 1958 and made the first discovery in outer space, the Van Allen radiation belts that surround Earth. It was the birth of the U.S. space program.

In 1997, a mini-rover named Sojourner rolled onto Mars, a trial run for more advanced rovers such as NASA's Spirit, Opportunity and Curiosity.

Innovation often begins with pathfinder technology, said Jakob Van Zyl, director of the Solar System Exploration Directorate at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Once engineers prove something can be done, science missions follow.

5. Testing in Space

NASA is continually developing new technologies — technologies that are smaller than ever before, components that could improve our measurements, on-board data processing systems that streamline data retrievals, or new methods for gathering observations. Each new technology is thoroughly tested in a lab, sometimes on aircraft, or even at remote sites across the world. But the space environment is different than Earth. To know how something is going to operate in space, testing in space is the best option.

Sending something unproven to orbit has traditionally been a risky endeavor, but CubeSats have helped to change that. The diminutive satellites typically take less than two years to build. CubeSats are often a secondary payload on many rocket launches, greatly reducing cost. These hitchhikers can be deployed from a rocket or sent to the International Space Station and deployed from orbit.

Because of their quick development time and easy access to space, CubeSats have become the perfect platform for demonstrating how a new technological advancement will perform in orbit.

RainCube is a mini weather satellite, no bigger than a shoebox, that will measure storms. It’s part of several new NASA experiments to track storms from space with many small satellites, instead of individual, large ones. Credit: UCAR

6. At Work in Earth Orbit

A few recent examples from our home world:

RainCube, a satellite no bigger than a suitcase, is a prototype for a possible fleet of similar CubeSats  that could one day help monitor severe storms, lead to improving the accuracy of weather forecasts and track climate change over time.

IceCube tested instruments for their ability to make space-based measurements of the small, frozen crystals that make up ice clouds. Like other clouds, ice clouds affect Earth’s energy budget by either reflecting or absorbing the Sun’s energy and by affecting the emission of heat from Earth into space. Thus, ice clouds are key variables in weather and climate models.

Rocket Lab's Electron rocket lifts off from Launch Complex 1 for the NASA ELaNa19 mission. Credit: Trevor Mahlmann/Rocket Lab

7. First Dedicated CubeSat Launch

A series of new CubeSats is now in space, conducting a variety of scientific investigations and technology demonstrations following a Dec. 17, 2018 launch from New Zealand — the first time CubeSats have launched for NASA on a rocket designed specifically for small payloads.

This mission included 10 Educational Launch of Nanosatellites (ELaNa)-19 payloads, selected by NASA’s CubeSat Launch Initiative:

CubeSat Compact Radiation Belt Explorer (CeREs) — High energy particle measurement in Earth’s radiation belt

Simulation-to-Flight 1 (STF-1) — Software condensing to support CubeSat implementations

Advanced Electrical Bus (ALBus) — Advances in solar arrays and high capacity batteries

CubeSat Handling Of Multisystem Precision Time Transfer (CHOMPTT) — Navigation plans for exo-planetary implementation

CubeSail — Deployment and control of a solar sail blade

NMTSat — Magnetic field, high altitude plasma density

Rsat — Manipulation of robotic arms

Ionospheric Scintillation Explorer (ISX) — Plasma fluctuations in the upper atmosphere

Shields-1 — Radiation shielding

DaVinci — High School to Grade School STEM education

8. The Little CubeSat That Could

CubeSat technology is still in its infancy, with mission success rates hovering near 50 percent. So, a team of scientists and engineers set out on a quest. Their goal? To build a more resilient CubeSat — one that could handle the inevitable mishaps that bedevil any spacecraft, without going kaput.

They wanted a little CubeSat that could.

They got to work in 2014 and, after three years of development, Dellingr was ready to take flight.

Read the Full Story: Dellingr: The Little CubeSat That Could

Artist's concept of Lunar Flashlight. Credit: NASA

9. Going Farther

There are a handful of proposed NASA missions could take CubeSat technology farther:

CUVE would travel to Venus to investigate a longstanding mystery about the planet’s atmosphere using ultraviolet-sensitive instruments and a novel, carbon-nanotube light-gathering mirror.

Lunar Flashlight would use a laser to search for water ice in permanently shadowed craters on the south pole of Earth’s Moon.

Near-Earth Asteroid Scout, a SmallSat, would use a solar sail to propel it to do science on asteroids that pass close to Earth.

All three spacecraft would hitch rides to space with other missions, a key advantage of these compact science machines.

Expedition 56 Flight Engineer Serena Auñón-Chancellor installs the NanoRacks Cubesat Deployer-14 (NRCSD-14) on the Multipurpose Experiment Platform inside the Japanese Kibo laboratory module. The NRCSD-14 was then placed in the Kibo airlock and moved outside of the space station to deploy a variety of CubeSats into Earth orbit. Credit: NASA

10. And We’re Just Getting Started

Even if they're never revived, the team considers MarCO a spectacular success.

A number of the critical spare parts for each MarCO will be used in other CubeSat missions. That includes their experimental radios, antennas and propulsion systems. Several of these systems were provided by commercial vendors, making it easier for other CubeSats to use them as well.

More small spacecraft are on the way. NASA is set to launch a variety of new CubeSats in coming years.

"There's big potential in these small packages," said John Baker, the MarCO program manager at JPL. "CubeSats — part of a larger group of spacecraft called SmallSats — are a new platform for space exploration affordable to more than just government agencies."

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@dasandwichguy: What precautions do you take to curb the effects of weightlessness?

Experience High-Res Science in First 8K Footage from Space

Fans of science in space can now experience fast-moving footage in even higher definition as NASA delivers the first 8K ultra high definition (UHD) video of astronauts living, working and conducting research from the International Space Station.

The same engineers who sent high-definition (HD) cameras, 3D cameras, and a camera capable of recording 4K footage to the space station have now delivered a new camera– Helium 8K camera by RED – capable of recording images with four times the resolution than the previous camera offered.

Let’s compare this camera to others: The Helium 8K camera is capable of shooting at resolutions ranging from conventional HDTV up to 8K, specifically 8192 x 4320 pixels. By comparison, the average HD consumer television displays up to 1920 x 1080 pixels of resolution, and digital cinemas typically project 2K to 4K.

Viewers can watch as crew members advance DNA sequencing in space with the BEST investigation, study dynamic forces between sediment particles with BCAT-CS, learn about genetic differences in space-grown and Earth-grown plants with Plant Habitat-1, observe low-speed water jets to improve combustion processes within engines with Atomization and explore station facilities such as the MELFI, the Plant Habitat, the Life Support Rack, the JEM Airlock and the CanadArm2.

Delivered to the station aboard the fourteenth SpaceX cargo resupply mission through a Space Act Agreement between NASA and RED, this camera’s ability to record twice the pixels and at resolutions four times higher than the 4K camera brings science in orbit into the homes, laboratories and classrooms of everyone on Earth. 

While the 8K resolutions are optimal for showing on movie screens, NASA video editors are working on space station footage for public viewing on YouTube. Viewers will be able to watch high-resolution footage from inside and outside the orbiting laboratory right on their computer screens. Viewers will need a screen capable of displaying 8K resolution for the full effect, but the imagery still trumps that of standard cameras. RED videos and pictures are shot at a higher fidelity and then down-converted, meaning much more information is captured in the images, which results in higher-quality playback, even if viewers don't have an 8K screen.   

The full UHD files are available for download for use in broadcast. Read the NASA media usage guidelines. 

Concerning the new telescope -out of curiosity- what is the maximum distance it can view planets, galaxies, objects, anything up to -in terms of common/metric measurement, and/or years (if applicable) etc.? -Rose

This animation blinks between two images of our Mars Phoenix Lander. The first – dark smudges on the planet’s surface. The second – the same Martian terrain nearly a decade later, covered in dust. Our Mars orbiter captured this shot as it surveyed the planet from orbit: the first in 2008. The second: late 2017.

In August 2008, Phoenix completed its three-month mission studying Martian ice, soil and atmosphere. The lander worked for two additional months before reduced sunlight caused energy to become insufficient to keep the lander functioning. The solar-powered robot was not designed to survive through the dark and cold conditions of a Martian arctic winter.

Read the full story HERE.

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Arizona

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Asteroid Bennu, the Storyteller

Asteroids are the storytellers of our solar system’s youth. They are the closest we can get to the original material that makes up the sun, planets, and moons.

This week, our OSIRIS-REx spacecraft made history when it touched a pristine, ancient asteroid named Bennu to collect a sample from the surface. The intrepid spacecraft will now bring the asteroid sample – and its stories – back home to Earth.

Why is it that asteroid Bennu holds the history of our origins? Let’s go back to the beginning...

About 4.5 billion years ago, our solar system began as a spinning, swirling cloud made up of tiny bits of gaseous and rocky material. Most of that material – more than 99% of it – gathered in the center and went on to become the Sun.

The leftovers began to spin around the Sun, colliding into one another and forming larger and larger objects, eventually becoming planets, dwarf planets, and moons.

But asteroids didn't become part of planets or moons. So, while the material in planets and moons were superheated and altered during the formation of the solar system and weathered by geologic processes over time, asteroids remained pristine.

Each asteroid holds knowledge from that special time in our solar system’s history. Each one contains information about the chemicals, minerals, and molecules that were present when the solar system was just starting to form.

With missions like OSIRIS-REx, we are going on a journey to these ancient worlds, seeking to learn what they remember, seeking to expand our knowledge, and deepen our understanding of our origins.

Learn more about the OSIRIS-REx mission HERE, or follow the mission on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

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