Hasta La Gadget!

The International Space Station has been a font of good news and scientific progress since it received its first human residents at the start of the millennium, but now it may be starting to show its age. The current crew reported seeing damage to the vessel’s truss structure yesterday and NASA has since confirmed there’s been a leak of ammonia from the station’s cooling system. The Agency says the problem isn’t dangerous and that regular ISS-style activities are continuing as normal while earth-bound helpers figure out a way of re-routing power channels before part of the cooling system shuts down. If you want to hear what unflustered voices sound like at an altitude of over 200 miles, check out the audio of Commander Hadfield’s initial report of the leak at the source link below.

Update: Commander Hadfield has also confirmed on Twitter that there’s been a “big change in plans,” and that astronauts Chris Cassidy and Tom Marshburn will perform a spacewalk today to fix the leak.

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Via: SlashGear, Spaceflight Now, CBC News

Source: NASA

International Space Station Commander Chris Hadfield has been busy taking photos of the Earth from the ISS for a few months now, mostly showing us what cities look like from 250 miles up, but a particular photo that he posted just recently is a bit different, and it shows a beautiful horizon with the moon rising over a darkened Earth.

We’re not exactly sure what cities we’re looking at in the photo, but Hadfield points out that its the southeastern United States, with the bigger city toward the right side being Atlanta or Charlotte possibly. In any case, the horizon looks absolutely amazing, and the moon creeping in makes the photo that much more spectacular.

Hadfield not only takes a ton of photos of Earth from the ISS (which you can browse through all of them with this neat interactive map), but he also provides short videos on what it’s like to live on the ISS, and in one of his latest videos, he describes how he takes photos of Earth from the ISS. The secret? A huge lens.

Hadfield primarily uses a Nikon DSLR with a 400mm lens. This is one heavy setup, but thanks to the lack of gravity in space, Hadfield doesn’t need to strain his shoulders or arms lifting and holding the camera. Instead, the camera merely just floats in front of him. Hadfield even says that they take the cameras out on spacewalks into the cold vacuum of space. We’ll be keeping up with Hadfield and the ISS over the next months for any more photos that he posts in the future. Stay tuned!

New photo from ISS shows moon rising over a darkened Earth is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Space is a dangerous world. Debris is flying around everywhere, including small space rocks (read: bits of asteroid or meteoroid), which means that the International Space Station is constantly prone to getting hit by these small objects, and when you’re traveling at 4.8 miles per second, even small objects can have a big impact. ISS Commander Chris Hadfield tweeted a photo of a hole in the one of the solar panels where a space rock ripped through.

Few details are known at this point, but Hadfield referred to the damage on the solar panel as a “bullet hole,” and said that he was “glad it missed the hull.” We’re not sure exactly what would happen if a small rock like that collided with the ISS hull, but judging from Hadfield’s sigh of relief, nothing good would come out of it.

We’re guessing that the hole didn’t cause too much severe damage to the solar panel, or else the ISS would be in deep trouble. We’re not sure how large the small hole is, but it doesn’t look big at all — merely a small speck compared to the sheer size of the solar panels on the station.

Of course, this isn’t the first time that Hadfield has talked about small meteoroids hitting the ISS. He hosted a Reddit AmA back in February where he discussed “micro-meteorites would sometimes hit the hull and make a loud “ping” noise, which leaves dents on the outside of the station. However, Hadfield notes that a larger piece of rock could come along and cause greater damage.

Space rock rips through ISS solar panel, gives hull a miss is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Today the unpiloted Russian cargo ship known as Progress 51 has reached the International Space Station and docked successfully. This news is extra positive due to the failure of the craft’s antenna after initial launch, both Russian mission control and NASA confirming earlier this week. The craft has now docked – at 1225 GMT to be precice – after extra care was given to the landing due to the unopened antenna.

This situation allows Russian cosmonauts Roman Romanenko and Pavel Vinogradov to access three full tons of food, fuel, supplies, and a set of experiment hardware along with the rest of the crew of six aboard the ISS. Though the Kurs antenna remained undeployed, it would appear that the mission has been a full success. The final hard mate occurred at 8:34 a.m. EDT according to NASA.

This docking happened between the Progress 51 Russian cargo ship and the rear port of the Zvezda service module of the International Space Station. What you’re seeing above is a video presented by Russian mission control of the Russian Federal Space Agency at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. This launch made way at 6:12 a.m. EDT just two days ago en route to the ISS.

With the supplies brought in this week, the ISS will be stocked with an additional 1,764 pounds of propellant, 57 pounds of air, 926 pounds of water, 48 pounds of oxygen, and 3,483 pounds of spare parts and experiment hardware. For its trip back to our planet, the Progress 51 craft will be filled with trash and station discards. Good luck, team!

And readers, be sure to head to SlashGear’s Science tag portal for more excellent space-bound action!

Russian cargo fail no block to today’s ISS dock is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield has this week returned a request from a couple of high school science students to perform a simple experiment aboard the International Space Station: wringing out water from a wet washcloth. It’s shown first that a washcloth on the ISS is stored in a sort of hockey puck form, smashed down to its smallest physical form to avoid taking up any unnecessary space aboard the space station. From there it’s a lengthy task just unfolding the piece of material for basic use.

The washcloth itself is made wet offscreen as the task appears to spoil the surprise for the viewer. The viewers, mind you, are part of the brand new NFB Space School just revealed this week. This program is housed by the National Film Board in Canada and will continue to make use of the efforts of Chris Hadfield aboard the ISS as well as other Canadians willing to join in on the education.

Once water is released into the station, you’ll see it take on a blob-like form. Once it is (seemingly) inside the cloth, it travels with the cloth. This is similar to what would happen if Hadfield were much closer to the surface of our planet, but were the cloth this wet and he were standing on the Earth’s ground, gravity would have the water dripping down from the cloth.

Because of the surface tension of the materials included here and the extremely low gravity present on the ISS, the water stays together – for the most part – even when the cloth wrings it out. You’ll see the “tube of water” promised to you in the title of this article about 2 minutes in to the demonstration video.

The NFB Space School has been launched today as well – this being an online resource for science enthusiasts and everyday learners online. This program appears at the moment to be prepared for students across the world, provided by Canada’s NFB in support of space exploration and the expansion of scientific knowledge in general. Have a peek at SlashGear’s International Space Station tag portal for more news from our high-flying astronaut friends!

[via NFB Space School]

ISS experiment confirms state of wrung-out wet towel in space is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.