Tag: International Space Station
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Propulsive landings nixed from SpaceX’s Dragon spaceship
Artist’s concept of SpaceX’s Red Dragon spacecraft. Credit: SpaceX SpaceX’s upgraded Dragon capsules will not return astronauts to Earth for powered landings as originally envisioned, company boss Elon Musk said Wednesday, a design change that raises questions about the space transport firm’s plans to send commercial landers to the surface of Mars. Musk cited safety…
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Sierra Nevada’s Dream Chaser on the move in California
The Dream Chaser test craft pictured during a tow test Monday at NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center, located at Edwards Air Force Base, California. Credit: Sierra Nevada An atmospheric test model of Sierra Nevada’s Dream Chaser spacecraft, a cargo carrier for the International Space Station that will take off on top of an Atlas 5…
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Dragon capsule returns home with animals and station equipment
The Dragon spacecraft was lifted onto a boat for a trip back to port in Southern California following Monday’s predawn splashdown. Credit: SpaceX SpaceX’s Dragon spaceship, carrying more than 4,100 pounds of cargo and research specimens, descended to a predawn splashdown Monday in the Pacific Ocean southwest of Los Angeles, completing the first re-flight of…
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Live coverage: SpaceX’s Dragon supply ship ends month-long mission
Live coverage of the departure of SpaceX’s Dragon supply ship from the International Space Station and its splashdown in the Pacific Ocean with several tons of experiment samples and cargo. Text updates will appear automatically below; there is no need to reload the page. Follow us on Twitter.
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Recycled SpaceX Dragon capsule makes history with its second splashdown
The re-entry of SpaceX’s Dragon capsule shows up as an orange flash against the backdrop of a shadowed Earth in this view from the International Space Station. The station’s robotic arm is silhouetted against the atmosphere’s glow. Click on the image for a larger version. (NASA Photo via Twitter / Jack Fischer) SpaceX already proved…
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Prototype solar array jettisoned as Dragon capsule prepares for trip home
Updated at 10 p.m. EDT June 30 (0200 GMT July 1). An experimental solar wing sent to the International Space Station earlier this month was jettisoned from the orbiting lab’s robotic arm after engineers were unable to fully retract the array. The disposal followed an otherwise successful test of the power panel’s novel roll-out deployment…
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We’re bad at cleaning up the trash in space, so a gecko gripper robot is here to help
Scientists tested their robotic gripper on NASA’s reduced gravity aircraft, known as the Weightless Wonder. (Jiang et al. / Stanford University via Science / AAAS) Sandra Bullock’s character nearly got killed by space debris in the movie “Gravity” — but had she been equipped with the gecko-like robot built by researchers from Stanford University and…
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UW researchers’ ‘kidney on a chip’ will be prepped for space station experiment
The “kidney on a chip” is about the size of a credit card. (UW Photo / Alex Levine) A stack of card-sized gizmos that test the effects of drugs, toxins and weightlessness on human kidney cells is due to take a ride to the International Space Station as early as next year – and researchers…
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Experiment devoted to neutron star research installed on space station
Artist’s concept of a pulsar (blue-white disk in center) pulling in matter from a nearby star (red disk at upper right). The stellar material forms a disk around the pulsar (multicolored ring) before falling on to the surface at the magnetic poles. The pulsar’s intense magnetic field is represented by faint blue outlines surrounding the…
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Progress cargo ship docks with space station, tightening up on orbital parking
With today’s arrival of a Russian Progress cargo ship, the International Space Station now has three robotic spaceships and a Soyuz lifeboat parked at its ports. Two days after its launch from Russia’s Baikonur Cosmodrome, the robotic Progress ship hooked up to the station’s Zvezda service module at 4:37 a.m. PT to deliver more than…