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Alexander Gerst‏Подлинная учетная запись @Astro_Alex 11 ч. назад

Retrieving proteins from the Fluids Integrated Rack in @NASA's Destiny lab. Protein crystals grow better in microgravity, making it easier for researchers to understand how other molecules interact with them, and improve pharmaceutical drugs.
#LiveBetter #Horizons

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https://www.nasa.gov/feature/jpl/nasa-tests-tiny-satellites-to-track-global-storms

Sept. 25, 2018

NASA Tests Tiny Satellites to Track Global Storms


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 fr om space with many small satellites, instead of individual, large ones.
Credits: UCAR

How many times have you stepped outside into a surprise rainstorm without an umbrella and wished that weather forecasts were more accurate?

A satellite no bigger than a shoebox may one day help. Small enough to fit inside a backpack, the aptly named RainCube (Radar in a CubeSat) uses experimental technology to see storms by detecting rain and snow with very small instruments. The people behind the miniature mission celebrated after RainCube sent back its first images of a storm over Mexico in a technology demonstration in August. Its second wave of images in September caught the first rainfall of Hurricane Florence.

The small satellite is a prototype for a possible fleet of RainCubes that could one day help monitor severe storms, lead to improving the accuracy of weather forecasts and track climate change over time.

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A photo fr om Google Earth of the mountainous area over Mexico where RainCube measured its first storm. The white line shows RainCube's flight path. The colorful graph in the bottom right shows the amount of rain produced by the storm, as seen by RainCube's radar.
Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Google

"We don't have any way of measuring how water and air move in thunderstorms globally," said Graeme Stephens, director of the Center of Climate Sciences at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. "We just don't have any information about that at all, yet it's so essential for predicting severe weather and even how rains will change in a future climate."

RainCube is a type of "tech demo," an experiment to see if shrinking a weather radar into a low-cost, miniature satellite could still provide a real-time look inside storms. RainCube "sees" objects by using radar, much as a bat uses sonar. The satellite's umbrella-like antenna sends out chirps, or specialized radar signals, that bounce off raindrops, bringing back a picture of what the inside of the storm looks like.


RainCube was deployed into low-Earth orbit fr om the International Space Station in July, wh ere it has been measuring rain and snowfall from space. A closer look reveals there are two CubeSats in these images– RainCube is the bottom CubeSat closer to Earth, while the one above it is HaloSat.
Credits: NASA

Engineers like Principal Investigator Eva Peral had to figure out a way to help a small spacecraft send a signal strong enough to peer into a storm. "The radar signal penetrates the storm, and then the radar receives back an echo," said Peral. "As the radar signal goes deeper into the layers of the storm and measures the rain at those layers, we get a snapshot of the activity inside the storm."

Seeing the Bigger Picture

RainCube was deployed into low-Earth orbit from the International Space Station in July. The first images it sent back were from an area above Mexico, wh ere it took a snapshot of a developing storm in August.

"There's a plethora of ground-based experiments that have provided an enormous amount of information, and that's why our weather forecasts nowadays are not that bad," said Simone Tanelli, the co-investigator for RainCube. "But they don't provide a global view. Also, there are weather satellites that provide such a global view, but what they are not telling you is what's happening inside the storm. And that's wh ere the processes that make a storm grow and/or decay happen."


The same storm captured by RainCube is seen here in infrared from a single, large weather satellite, NOAA's GOES (Geoweather Operational Environmental Satellite).
Credits: NOAA

But RainCube is not meant to fulfill a mission of tracking storms all by itself. It is just the first demonstration that a mini-rain radar could work.

Because RainCube is miniaturized, making it less expensive to launch, many more of the satellites could be sent into orbit. Flying together like geese, they could track storms, relaying updated information on them every few minutes. Eventually, they could yield data to help evaluate and improve weather models that predict the movement of rain, snow, sleet and hail.

"We actually will end up doing much more interesting insightful science with a constellation rather than with just one of them," Stephens said. "What we're learning in Earth sciences is that space and time coverage is more important than having a really expensive satellite instrument that just does one thing."

And that future seems closer now that RainCube and other Earth-observing CubeSats like it have proved they can work.

"What RainCube offers on the one hand is a demonstration of measurements that we currently have in space today," said Stephens. "But what it really demonstrates is the potential for an entirely new and different way of observing Earth with many small radars. That will open up a whole new vista in viewing the hydrological cycle of Earth."

RainCube is a technology-demonstration mission to enable Ka-band precipitation radar technologies on a low-cost, quick-turnaround platform. It is sponsored by NASA's Earth Science Technology Office through the InVEST-15 program. JPL is working with Tyvak Nanosatellite Systems, Inc. in Irvine, California, to fly the RainCube mission.

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2018-225

Last Updated: Sept. 26, 2018
Editor: Tony Greicius

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https://blogs.nasa.gov/spacestation/2018/09/26/nasa-tv-to-broadcast-arrival-of-seventh-japanese-spaceship-to-station/

NASA TV to Broadcast Arrival of Seventh Japanese Spaceship to Station

Mark Garcia
Posted Sep 26, 2018 at 5:18 pm


Japan's third resupply ship, the H-II Transfer Vehicle-3, is pictured in September of 2012 attached to the International Space Station's Harmony module and in the grips of the Canadarm2 robotic arm.

The Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) cargo spacecraft that launched at 1:52 p.m. EDT Sept. 22 (2:52 a.m. Sept. 23 Japan standard time) from the Tanegashima Space Center in southern Japan is set to arrive at the International Space Station early tomorrow morning.

Beginning Thursday at 6:30 a.m., NASA will provide live coverage of the arrival of the unpiloted H-II Transfer Vehicle-7 (HTV-7) via NASA TV and online at http://www.nasa.gov/live.

Capture is scheduled around 8 a.m. Coverage of the final installation to Harmony will resume at 10:30 a.m.

The HTV-7 is loaded with more than five tons of supplies, water, spare parts and experiments for the crew aboard the orbiting laboratory, including a new glovebox for life sciences investigations. The spacecraft also is carrying a half dozen new lithium-ion batteries to continue upgrades to the station's power system.

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Horizons mission – exploration

European Space Agency, ESA

Опубликовано: 26 сент. 2018 г.

Moon and Mars are the great undiscovered continents of our time, but they are within our reach.

ESA astronaut Alexander Gerst explains how teams are working with science and technology on board the International Space Station, and on Earth, to build an exciting future of space exploration. To Moon, Mars and beyond!

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Oleg Artemyev‏Подлинная учетная запись @OlegMKS 6 ч. назад

Начинаем обратный отсчет... 8 дней до возвращения на Землю! Мы вовсю занимаемся размещением грузов в корабль и тренируемся. Да, да, к посадке мы тоже готовимся, и очень тщательно!
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We started preparing to return home to Earth! Commencing countdown - 8 days to our landing.

 из VK

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К #18500 - видео на ТыТрубе

Тренировка по спуску на Землю

Oleg Artemyev

Опубликовано: 26 сент. 2018 г.

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40 м

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30 м


30 м - HOLD pos

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Intl. Space Station‏Подлинная учетная запись @Space_Station 14 мин. назад

The HTV-7 resupply ship from @JAXA_en is nearing its hold point 30 meters away from the station while flying over the coast of South America.

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