Russia could vacate International Space Station by 2024

The International Space Station launched in 1998 has been in operation since 2000. Scientists and astronauts from different countries have worked in this sky lab located 250 miles above Earth. In spite of difference in policies and ideologies, this space lab is a venture where the USA and Russia joined hands with a common objective to promote space research. They have carried out studies on various aspects of working in space in order to evaluate the effects of alien environments on humans. They worked on animals, plants, other living organism, and as many as nine countries worked on the ISS. Over the past more than two decades, they have conducted space walks, repaired portions of the space station from the outside and have participated in festivals like Christmas.

It seems Russia has taken a decision to dissociate itself from the International Space Station after 2024. It wants to focus on creating its own orbital outpost. This has been reported in the media. Russia to quit International Space Station ‘after 2024.’ Obviously, the cooperative program between Europe, the United States, Russia, Canada, and Japan would no longer exist. In the course of an ISS conference for NASA in Washington, an official said they did not want the US-Russia space relationship to end. Space agencies all over the world are trying to break new frontiers in space. They have the Moon and Mars on their radars. With a combination of robotics and artificial intelligence at their command, they want to explore unknown territories – they are in search of natural resources available on other planets.

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NASA receives 18,300 applications for a handful of astronauts of the future

NASA is on a recruitment mission and has received a total of 18,300 applications from Americans of various backgrounds - the numbers have smashed the previous record of 8,000 set back in 1978, and is almost three times the number of applications received in 2012 when the space agency last put out the call.
This has been reported in digitaltrends.com dated 22 February 2016.

The window for applications had remained open for nine weeks before closing last Thursday and it will now be an 18-month process through which NASA will identify between eight and fourteen highly competent candidates to undertake assignments of an astronaut.
Beginning 2017, the final selection of hopefuls will have to undergo nearly two years of initial training on spacecraft systems, spacewalking skills and teamwork, Russian language, and other requisite skills. Those who complete the training program will be given technical duties at Johnson Space Center in Houston.
Later thy would be assigned to either the International Space Station, NASA’s Orion spacecraft for deep space exploration (Orion’s first manned space flight beyond the moon could happen in 2023), or one of two American-made commercial crew spacecraft currently in development – Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner or the SpaceX Crew Dragon.
It is expected that a few of these talented men and women will become the astronauts who will once again launch to space from U.S. soil on American-made spacecraft. Right now with the retirement of the Space Shuttle fleet five years ago, NASA has to rely on Russian rockets to get its astronauts into space. The U.S. is now getting ready to return to the fold with manned launches from home soil.


Image courtesy wikimediacommons.org

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British astronaut Major Tim Peake to go for a six and half hour spacewalk out of the ISS

#spacewalk #astronauts #timpeake British astronaut 43-year-old Major Tim Peake is going for a six hour spacewalk out the International Space Station - it will be the first ever spacewalk by a Britisher. His task is to repair a faulty power unit and, along with him would be Tim Kopra. They will face a race against the clock to conduct the repair in brief moments of darkness as the space station hurtles around the Earth.
This has been reported in dailymail.co.uk dated 15 January 2016.

Major Peake is an astronaut of the European Space Agency and Britain's first official astronaut on the ISS. He and Flight Engineer Kopra will have just 31 minute windows to install a new sequential shunt unit in total darkness outside the ISS.
Once outside the ISS, they will be hurtling at 17,227mph above the surface of the Earth. It takes 93 minutes for the ISS to orbit Earth once, therefore, the astronauts would get to experience 16 sunrises and 16 sunsets every day. The spacewalk, in scientific terms, is known as Extravehicular Activities (EVAs) and, Major Peake has revealed that among the tools that they will take with them outside ISS to help install the new power unit is a modified toothbrush to help clean the connections.
Major Peake and Flight Engineer Kopra would be spending nearly six and a half hours outside the ISS during the EVA. Even though the repair of the power unit is expected to take around 15 minutes if all goes smoothly, they will spend the rest of the time laying new power cables and doing other work outside the ISS. All the necessary tools are either clipped onto their spacesuit’s ‘Mini Work-Station’ or stowed inside tool bags in the order that they would be needed.

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50th anniversary of spacewalk – credit goes to Russian cosmonaut Alexei Leonov

#AlexeiLeonov #spacewalk #PavelBelyayev #cosmonaut The fight to gain supremacy in the field of space flight between the USA and Russia is a long one and credit for the first ever spacewalk goes to a Russian cosmonaut Alexei Leonov – he performed the feat 50-years ago on 18th of March 1965. The spacewalk or EVA Extra Vehicular Activity was of 12 minutes duration. This has been revealed in space.com dated 18 March 2015.
Alexei Leonov had left the confines of his spacecraft Voshkod 2 while it was in orbit and floated in the vacuum of space. He was with Pavel Belyayev onboard the former-Soviet Union's Voskhod 2. He accomplished the feat on the 14th piloted spaceflight in history.
It paved the road towards shaping the future of space exploration.
Leonov's EVA demonstrated that such a feat was possible and went on to inspire future spacewalks beginning with that of the first American Edward White three months later. Their success inspired humans to walk on the moon, build and maintain space stations and service satellites and space telescopes.

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US astronauts onboard ISS have to work for their living – spacewalk is their routine

#spacewalk #ISS #NASA #AstroButch #AstroTerry #SpaceX #Boeing The US astronauts Butch Wilmore and Terry Virts who are onboard the ISS have to work hard for their living – these spacewalking astronauts have already routed more than 300 feet of cable outside the International Space Station. This is not an easy task but is tricky and tiring and they have to complete the task before the new American-made crew capsules arrive.
This has been reported on foxnews.com dated 21 February 2015.
Their latest spacewalk was the first of three such walks planned over the coming week. The total length of cable they have to run outside the ISS is 764 feet and they have already succeeded in completing the rigging of eight power and data lines, or roughly 340 feet.
In the opinion of NASA, the task ahead for Butch Wilmore and Terry Virts is the most complicated cable-routing job in the 16-year history of the space station and it would be equally difficult to run the cable on the inside of the complex. This extensive rewiring is necessary in order to get ready for NASA's next phase.
In 2017, it would be time for arrival of the first commercial spacecraft capable of transporting astronauts to the orbiting lab.
It may be recalled that NASA has contracted with Boeing and SpaceX to build the capsules and fly them from Cape Canaveral.
Once they arrive in the ISS, the docking ports must be ready hence, still more spacewalks would be necessary to set everything up.