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The two-stage SpaceX Falcon 9 launch vehicle lifts off from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, carrying the SpaceX Dragon resupply spacecraft to the International Space Station. Liftoff was at 5:42 a.m. EDT on Friday, June 29, 2018. On the company’s 15th Commercial Resupply Services mission to the International Space Station, Dragon is filled with supplies and payloads, including critical materials to support several science and research investigations that will occur during Expedition 56. The spacecraft’s unpressurized trunk is carrying a Canadian-built Latching End Effector, or LEE. This new LEE will replace a failed unit astronauts removed during a series of spacewalks in the fall of 2017. Each end of the Canadarm2 robotic arm has an identical LEE, and they are used as the “hands” that grapple payloads and visiting cargo spaceships.
Credit: NASA/Tony Gray and Tim Powers Release Date: June 29, 2018
The two-stage SpaceX Falcon 9 launch vehicle lifts off from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, carrying the SpaceX Dragon resupply spacecraft to the International Space Station. Liftoff was at 5:42 a.m. EDT on Friday, June 29, 2018. On the company’s 15th Commercial Resupply Services mission to the International Space Station, Dragon is filled with supplies and payloads, including critical materials to support several science and research investigations that will occur during Expedition 56. The spacecraft’s unpressurized trunk is carrying a Canadian-built Latching End Effector, or LEE. This new LEE will replace a failed unit astronauts removed during a series of spacewalks in the fall of 2017. Each end of the Canadarm2 robotic arm has an identical LEE, and they are used as the “hands” that grapple payloads and visiting cargo spaceships.
NASA wishes you a safe and happy Independence Day!
Since the beginning of human space flight, NASA’s astronauts, rockets and spacecraft have flown the American flag to Earth orbit, the Moon, Mars, and beyond.
Independence Day, also referred to as the Fourth of July or July Fourth, is a federal holiday in the United States commemorating the adoption of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776. The Continental Congress declared that the thirteen American colonies regarded themselves as a new nation, the United States of America, and were no longer part of the British Empire. The Congress actually voted to declare independence two days earlier, on July 2.
Independence Day is commonly associated with fireworks, parades, barbecues, carnivals, fairs, picnics, concerts, baseball games, family reunions, and political speeches and ceremonies, in addition to various other public and private events celebrating the history, government, and traditions of the United States. Independence Day is the National Day of the United States. (Source: Wikipedia)
Processed using calibrated red, green, and blue filtered images of Saturn taken by the Cassini spacecraft on January 3, 2010. Rings have been brightened relative to the planet.
The Cassini spacecraft ended its mission on Sept. 15, 2017.
The Cassini-Huygens mission was a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, California, managed the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center was based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colorado.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSI/Kevin M. Gill Image Date: January 3, 2010 Release Date: July 2, 2018
This busy image is a treasure trove of wonders. Bright stars from the Milky Way sparkle in the foreground, the magnificent swirls of several spiral galaxies are visible across the frame, and a glowing assortment of objects at the center make up a massive galaxy cluster. Such clusters are the biggest objects in the Universe that are held together by gravity, and can contain thousands of galaxies of all shapes and sizes. Typically, they have a mass of about one million billion times the mass of the Sun—unimaginably huge! Their incredible mass makes clusters very useful natural tools to test theories in astronomy, such as Einstein’s theory of general relativity. This tells us that objects with mass warp the fabric of spacetime around them; the more massive the object, the greater the distortion. An enormous galaxy cluster like this one therefore has a huge influence on the spacetime around it, even distorting the light from more distant galaxies to change a galaxy’s apparent shape, creating multiple images, and amplifying the galaxy’s light—a phenomenon called gravitational lensing.
This image was taken by Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys and Wide-Field Camera 3 as part of an observing programme called RELICS (Reionization Lensing Cluster Survey). RELICS imaged 41 massive galaxy clusters with the aim of finding the brightest distant galaxies for the forthcoming NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) to study.
Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, RELICS Release Date: July 2, 2018
July 1, 2018: Robotic technology originally designed for the International Space Station is finding its way into healthcare by targeting breast cancer tumors. Dr. Mehran Anvari, chief executive officer at the Centre for Surgical Invention and Innovation (CSii), has developed a robotic procedure to provide MRI guided breast biopsies to women in remote areas through the use of telerobotic technology which was originally developed for robotics on the ISS.
July 2, 2018: An astronaut aboard the International Space Station (ISS) focused a "camera on the brilliant reflection of sunlight—sunglint—on three sweeping meanders of the Amazon River. The numerous thinner lines show the many remnants of prior channels of this highly mobile river. The reflected sunlight even shows numerous ponds (top left) in this very rainy part of the world. These ponds are usually not visible due to the dense forest cover in central Amazonia.
The Amazon River is the largest by water volume and sediment discharge in the world. The scale of the meanders here are immense compared with other large rivers. The amplitude from the top of the meander to the lower curves of the neighboring meanders is 18 kilometers (11 miles). Average meander amplitudes on the Mississippi River near New Orleans measure 6 kilometers (4 miles).
And the meander amplitude is increasing along this stretch of the river. Images from the late 1960s show the meanders as less winding. Since then, the loops have expanded, eroding the outside edges. Measurements taken from a 1969 photo and from this one show erosion has pushed the outer banks out by more than 1.2 kilometers (0.75 miles), while depositing new sediment on the inside of the meander loops.
The Amazon River in South America is the largest river by discharge of water in the world, and the second in length. The river enters the Atlantic Ocean in north-eastern Brazil in a broad estuary about 240 kilometers (150 mi) wide. The mouth of the main stem is 80 kilometers (50 mi). The width of the Amazon is between 1.6 and 10 kilometers (1.0 and 6.2 mi) at low stage, but expands during the wet season to 48 kilometers (30 mi) or more. Because of its vast dimensions, it is sometimes called "The River Sea". (Source: Wikipedia)
Image Credit: Astronaut photograph ISS052-E-39523 was acquired on August 9, 2017, with a Nikon D4 digital camera using a 500 millimeter lens and is provided by the ISS Crew Earth Observations Facility and the Earth Science and Remote Sensing Unit, Johnson Space Center. The image was taken by a member of the Expedition 52 crew. The image has been cropped and enhanced to improve contrast, and lens artifacts have been removed. The International Space Station Program supports the laboratory as part of the ISS National Lab to help astronauts take pictures of Earth that will be of the greatest value to scientists and the public Caption Credit: M. Justin Wilkinson, Texas State University, and David Bretz, Barrios Technology, JETS Contract at NASA-JSC Instrument: ISS - Digital Camera Release Date: July 2, 2018
"In Case You Misses It" (ICYMI) NASA commercial cargo provider SpaceX lifted off at than 5:42 a.m. ET Friday, June 29, 2018, for the launch of its 15th resupply mission to the International Space Station. Packed with more than 5,900 pounds of research, including ECOSTRESS, crew supplies and hardware, the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft launched on a Falcon 9 rocket from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.
The ECOsystem Spaceborne Thermal Radiometer Experiment on Space Station (ECOSTRESS) will measure the temperature of plants and use that information to better understand how much water plants need and how they respond to stress.
ECOSTRESS will address three overarching science questions:
How is the terrestrial biosphere responding to changes in water availability? How do changes in diurnal vegetation water stress impact the global carbon cycle?
Can agricultural vulnerability be reduced through advanced monitoring of agricultural water consumptive use and improved drought estimation?
The ECOSTRESS mission will answer these questions by accurately measuring the temperature of plants. Plants regulate their temperature by releasing water through tiny pores on their leaves called stomata. If they have sufficient water they can maintain their temperature but if there is insufficient water their temperatures rise and this temperature rise can be measured with a sensor in space. The radiometer will acquire the most detailed temperature images of the surface ever acquired from space and will be able to measure the temperature of an individual farmers field.
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon cargo spacecraft lifted off from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station on the company's 15th commercial resupply mission to the International Space Station. Also, Kennedy has launched a new podcast series, "Rocket Ranch," that will introduce you to the extraordinary people behind the rocket science at the world's premier multi-user spaceport.
Credit: NASA's Kennedy Space Center (KSC) Duration: 1 minute, 39 seconds Release Date: June 29, 2018
June 29, 2018: Almost three tons of supplies and science experiments are headed to the International Space Station, and—Telescope is now targeting March of 2021 as a new launch date. . .a few of the stories to tell you about—This Week at NASA!
Credit: National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Duration: 3 minutes, 14 seconds Release Date: June 29, 2018
The HiRISE camera oboard NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) has been re-imaging regions first photographed in 2006 through 2007, six Mars years ago. This long baseline allows us to see large, rare changes as well as many smaller changes.
One of the most actively changing areas on Mars are the steep edges of the North Polar layered deposits. This image shows many new ice blocks compared to an earlier image in December 2006.
MRO Imagery: Captured 319 km above the surface, less than 1 km across Black and white images are 5 km across; enhanced color images are 1 km.
The University of Arizona, Tucson, operates HiRISE, which was built by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp., Boulder, Colorado. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of Caltech in Pasadena, California, manages the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Project for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington.
The HiRISE camera oboard NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) has been re-imaging regions first photographed in 2006 through 2007, six Mars years ago. This long baseline allows us to see large, rare changes as well as many smaller changes.
One of the most actively changing areas on Mars are the steep edges of the North Polar layered deposits. This image shows many new ice blocks compared to an earlier image in December 2006.
MRO Image: Captured 319 km above the surface, less than 1 km across
The University of Arizona, Tucson, operates HiRISE, which was built by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp., Boulder, Colorado. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of Caltech in Pasadena, California, manages the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Project for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona Release Date: June 27, 2018
U.S. Astronaut Ricky Arnold: "Towering thunderstorms skate across the Straits of Florida as dawn breaks over Cuba." Cuba, officially the Republic of Cuba, is a country comprising the island of Cuba as well as Isla de la Juventud and several minor archipelagos. Cuba is located in the northern Caribbean where the Caribbean Sea, Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic Ocean meet. It is south of both the U.S. state of Florida and the Bahamas, west of Haiti and north of Jamaica. Havana is the largest city and capital; other major cities include Santiago de Cuba and Camagüey. Cuba is the largest island in the Caribbean. (Source: Wikipedia)
The Straits of Florida, Florida Straits, or Florida Strait (Spanish: Estrecho de Florida) is a strait located south-southeast of the North American mainland, generally accepted to be between the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean, and between the Florida Keys (U.S.) and Cuba. It is 150 km (93 mi) wide at the narrowest point between Key West and the Cuban shore, and has been sounded to a depth of 6,000 feet (1,800 m). The strait carries the Florida Current, the beginning of the Gulf Stream, from the Gulf of Mexico. (Source: Wikipedia)
Credit: NASA Astronaut Ricky Arnold/JSC Release Date: June 26, 2018
The Cassini-Huygens mission was a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, California, managed the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center was based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colorado.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSI/Kevin M. Gill Image Date: February 24, 2009 Release Date: June 26, 2018
SpaceX’s Crew Dragon is at NASA’s Plum Brook Station in Ohio, to undergo testing in the In-Space Propulsion Facility—the world’s only facility capable of testing full-scale upper-stage launch vehicles and rocket engines under simulated high-altitude conditions. The chamber will allow SpaceX and NASA to verify Crew Dragon’s ability to withstand the extreme temperatures and vacuum of space.
This is the spacecraft that SpaceX will fly during its Demonstration Mission 1 flight test under NASA’s Commercial Crew Transportation Capability contract with the goal of returning human spaceflight launch capabilities to the United States.
