Just yesterday, Russian cosmonaut Oleg Kononenko surpassed an earlier record for the amount of time a human has spent in space. He has now been in orbit more than 878 days, this being his fifth rotation on the International Space Station. The earlier record was set in 2015 by cosmonaut Gennady Padalka.
American astronauts have a ways to go before approaching this record. To date, the record for cumulative days in space is held by a NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson at 675 days.
Earlier today, Northrop Grumman launched a resupply spacecraft via a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket to the International Space Station (ISS). The Cygnus spacecraft is conducting its 20th mission to the station, making it reliable workhorse as NASA awaits even more commercial partners to come online.
According to NASA, the resupply spacecraft contains numerous experiments, including:
A surgical robot you ask? You can read more about this Miniaturized In-vivo Robotic Assistant (MIRA) by visiting this Gizmodo site.
Here are some recent stories of interest.
—Aviation Week Network: “Safety Panel Raises Commercial Space Station Transition Concerns“
Concerns over a “very tight” timeline for NASA to transition human low-Earth-orbit operations from the International Space Station (ISS) to commercial successors tops a list of seven concerns raised by an agency safety panel. The latest annual report by NASA’s Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel’s (ASAP) was released Jan. 25. The 56-page report expresses concerns over sufficient evidence of a viable business case to make NASA one of multiple tenants of at least one ISS successor. The effort is currently supported by NASA and the European, Japanese, Russian and Canadian space agencies.
—Astronomy.com: “Vertex Moon Mission Getting Closer to Launch“
A new era in lunar research is coming, and Lunar Vertex is getting ready to lead the way. Lunar Vertex is NASA’s first so-called PRISM mission (Payloads and Research Investigations on the Surface of the Moon). PRISM taps into the Commercial Lunar Payload Services program that uses privately built landers to deliver NASA science and other payloads to the lunar surface. PRISM missions are meant to be lower-cost, faster-to-flight programs. There is a mass limit of just over 100 pounds (45 kilograms) — so the science instruments have to be small — and the budget for the first PRISM suite is just $30 million (excluding the lander and the launch vehicle). Lunar Vertex is first in line, and recently has hit a number of major milestones on its way to a June 2024 launch.
—NASA: “Shrinking Moon Causing Moonquakes and Faults Near Lunar South Pole“
As NASA continues to make progress toward sending astronauts to the lunar South Pole region with its Artemis campaign, data from a NASA-funded study is helping scientists better understand this strategic part of the Moon. The study presents evidence that moonquakes and faults generated as the Moon’s interior gradually cools and shrinks are also found near and within some of the areas the agency identified as candidate landing regions for Artemis III, the first Artemis mission planned to have a crewed lunar landing.
Speaking of the crowded International Space Station (ISS), it appears things could be much worse if you had a chance to watch the newly release film I.S.S. This trailer is all you need to see. I am not sure watching the movie will be at all helpful to your mindset.
Don’t be fooled by the subtle description on the official movie page:
Tensions flare aboard the International Space Station between US and Russian astronauts in this high-stakes space thriller.
In the trailer, these people are going at each other with kitchen knives. This is not “tensions flare,” it is “Oh my God, it’s the end of the world!”
We have seen this before, and not so long ago. Remember The Midnight Sky in 2020 with George Clooney trying to warn an exploratory spacecraft away from a dying Earth? Or how about Rubikon in 2022 about a space station orbiting above a dying Earth?
In these earlier movies, the dying Earth was a mystery. In the case of this new film, it appears it is just trigger-happy governments wanting to end the human experiment once and for all.
I am not sure this stuff is worth the price of a movie ticket. I would rather watch NASA TV for now as it shows the events related to the real ISS and wait for the online release of this latest film if I truly run out of things to do with my day.
The seven real astronauts on the International Space Station (ISS) are now playing host to four visitors for the next two weeks after the Axiom Mission 3 crew came aboard the station earlier today.
Unlike the last two Axiom missions, all three paying members of the Axiom Mission crew are being supported by various European governments:
At the price of $55 million per seat, I am hoping the governments and space agencies feel they are getting their money’s worth versus being part of the normal 6-month astronaut rotation.
Supposedly, the extra hands will be working on 30 experiments that the normal crew did not have time for, though I would imagine they would be the less important experiments if they would otherwise not be performed at all.
If all of this is truly important work, then I expect such demand will justify the need for commercial space stations down the line to continue the work of the ISS. However, I expect a good chuck of future space interest will come from the tourist side.
In the meantime, I just hope the toilets on board the ISS can deal with the extra passengers.
Note: So as not to give all the attention to the visitors, the current Expedition 70 crew members aboard station are:
Our Awesome Universe 