CLICK FOR ZOOM Photo of New York and south along the U.S. east coast. Photographed by U.S. Astronaut Karen Nyberg, September 20, 2013, and posted on her Twitter account http://pic.twitter.com/cufP6gKuRZ
The NASA press release below, issued last Wednesday, October 30, provides a great sense of what’s coming up this week on the International Space Station, including the return of the SSEP Falcon I payload. It’s become quite the Grand Central Station in orbit.
SSEP student flight teams are now preparing for the return of Falcon I aboard Soyuz 35S. Teams will soon be standing by for harvesting of both their flight and ground truth mini-labs and analysis. Scheduled for departure from ISS and de-orbit on Sunday November 10, Soyuz 35S will land on the plains of Kazakhstan with Expedition 37 Commander Fyodor Yurchikhin (Russia) and Flight Engineers Karen Nyberg (NASA) and Luca Parmitano (ESA). Parmitano and Nyberg have been operating the SSEP Falcon I experiments. Undocking coverage on NASA TV begins 6 pm ET, and we will provide a NASA TV portal right here on the SSEP National Blog.
Karen Nyberg took some pretty incredible photos of Earth from the International Space Station and posted them on her Twitter account (@AstroKarenN; check out more of her photos on Twitter). The photo above shows docked Soyuz vehicles over New York City, Long Island, and looking south along the eastern seaboard. The I95 corridor is a ribbon of light threading through New York City, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington, DC. You’re looking at tens of millions of human beings at night – and look between Washington, DC, and Baltimore, I’m waving!
Falcon I Operations Update:
The final Falcon I experiment – Howard County, Maryland – was activated on schedule on Friday, November 1, 2013, by American astronaut Karen Nyberg. The final crew interactions on orbit with Falcon 1 will take place on Monday, November 4, 2013, with the de-activation of 2 experiments (Howard County, Maryland, and San Marino, CA #1). Follow along with on-orbit activities at the SSEP Mission 3 to ISS: Experiment Log page.
Here is the notification from NanoRacks of the final Falcon I experiment activation yesterday–
NanoRacks Module 9 S/N 1007 Payload Science Status Report
Increment: 37
Mission Day: GMT 305
Originator: Rob Alexander
Date: November 1, 2013
Science Status: Karen Nyberg activation of mixture tubes from NanoRacks Module 9 S/N 1007. The operations occurred at 07:40 AM CDT.
The following experiment was activated:
S/N 1007, Tube 2:The Effect of Microgravity on Chryseobacterium Aquaticum Growth
More information about these experiments can be found at the following link:
http://ssep.ncesse.org/current-flight-opportunities/ssep-mission-3-to-the-international-space-station-iss/ssep-mission-3-to-iss-flight-phase-operations/ssep-mission-3-to-iss-experiment-log/
Unexpected Events: N/A
Science Look Ahead: The next crew interaction will be on GMT 308 (November 4). Tubes 2 and 5 will be deactivated by Karen Nyberg.
Topics for resolution: N/A
NASA PRESS RELEASE, October 30, 2013
MEDIA ADVISORY M13-166
Three Space Station Crews Get Ready for Relocation, Launch, Landing
International Space Station crews commuting to and from their orbiting laboratory will be busy this November, and NASA Television will provide live coverage of their launches, landings and relocations.
Traffic starts to pick up Friday, Nov. 1. Expedition 37 Commander Fyodor Yurchikhin of the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos) and Flight Engineers Karen Nyberg of NASA and Luca Parmitano of the European Space Agency will climb into their Soyuz spacecraft, back out of one Russian Earth-facing docking spot and fly a short distance to another one at the end of the station. NASA TV coverage starts at 4 a.m. EDT. The 24-minute maneuver begins with undocking at 4:34 a.m.
The Soyuz move opens up the Rassvet docking port for another Soyuz transporting Expedition 38/39 Flight Engineer Rick Mastracchio of NASA, Soyuz Commander Mikhail Tyurin of Roscosmos and Flight Engineer Koichi Wakata of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency to the station. Aboard their spacecraft is the Olympic torch, which is taking an out-of-this-world route — as part of the torch relay — to Fisht Stadium in Sochi, Russia. There, the torch will be used to light the Olympic flame at the stadium, marking the start of the 2014 winter games.
The trio is scheduled to launch at 11:14 p.m. EST Wednesday, Nov. 6 (10:14 a.m. Kazakh time on Nov. 7) from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. NASA TV launch coverage begins at 10:15 p.m. Docking to Rassvet is scheduled at 5:31 a.m. on Nov. 7, with NASA TV coverage beginning at 4:45 a.m. Hatches are scheduled to open at 7:40 a.m., with NASA TV coverage starting at 7:15 a.m.
Mastracchio, Tyurin and Wakata will join Yurchikhin, Nyberg and Parmitano, plus Oleg Kotov and Sergey Ryazanskiy of Roscosmos and Michael Hopkins of NASA. Their arrival will be the first time since May 2009 that nine people have served together aboard the space station without the presence of a space shuttle.
On Sunday, Nov. 10, after Yurchikhin has transferred command of the station to Kotov, the Soyuz carrying Yurchikhin, Nyberg and Parmitano will undock for a parachute-assisted landing on the steppe of Kazakhstan at 9:50 p.m. (8:50 a.m. Kazakh time on Nov. 11), wrapping up a 166-day mission. Hatch closure coverage begins at 2:30 p.m. Nov. 10 with a replay of the change of command ceremony. Undocking coverage begins at 6 p.m., and deorbit and landing coverage begins at 8:30 p.m.
Special video feeds of pre-launch activities by the crew will resume on Friday, Nov. 1, and continue through Wednesday, Nov. 6.
All the times of International Space Station programming, key Soyuz event coverage and other NASA Television programming can be found at:
http://www.nasa.gov/stationnews
For information about the International Space Station, research and its crews, visit:
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The Student Spaceflight Experiments Program (SSEP) is a program of the National Center for Earth and Space Science Education (NCESSE) in the U.S., and the Arthur C. Clarke Institute for Space Education internationally. It is enabled through a strategic partnership with NanoRacks LLC, working with NASA under a Space Act Agreement as part of the utilization of the International Space Station as a National Laboratory. SSEP is the first pre-college STEM education program that is both a U.S. national initiative and implemented as an on-orbit commercial space venture.
The Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, Center for the Advancement of Science in Space (CASIS), Carnegie Institution of Washington, NASA Nebraska Space Grant Consortium, and Subaru of America, Inc., are National Partners on the Student Spaceflight Experiments Program.
