NASA astronaut Anne McClain and three of her colleagues are spending their last evening aboard the International Space Station (ISS) after a five-month stay in orbit.
McClain, fellow NASA astronaut Nichole Ayers, Japanese astronaut Takuya Onishi of JAXA, and Russian cosmonaut Kirill Peskov of Roscosmos, are part of SpaceX’s Crew-10 and are set to return to Earth inside Crew Dragon Endurance shortly after midday on Thursday — assuming the weather conditions are suitable at the splashdown site off the coast of Florida.
McClain and her Crew-10 colleagues have spent the last week showing the ropes to Crew-11, who arrived aboard another Crew Dragon spacecraft.
The American astronaut posted a striking image on X on Wednesday, taken from one of the Dragon spacecrafts and showing the other one, with Earth directly below and an aurora in the far distance.
“Dragon Endurance and Crew-10 are settled in for our last night aboard the Space Station,” McClain wrote in her post. “When there are two crews aboard during handover, we get this unique view from the zenith-docked Dragon looking down at the forward-docked Dragon. Tomorrow, Crew-10 will strap ourselves into this Dragon and head home. But tonight, one more breathtaking view.”
Dragon Endurance and Crew-10 are settled in for our last night aboard @Space_Station. When there are two crews aboard during handover, we get this unique view from the zenith-docked Dragon looking down at the forward-docked Dragon. Tomorrow, Crew-10 will strap ourselves into this… pic.twitter.com/ZiYlLlsS1H
In another post on X, McClain said she found it hard to believe that her time in orbit was “coming to a close already,” adding, “What a great trip this has been.”
In their five months aboard the ISS, Crew-10 spent much of their time conducting science research in microgravity.
The work included an investigation into how radiation and gravity environments at different orbital altitudes affect plant growth — important for future long-duration crewed missions to deep space — and a look at how cells sense gravity, with the findings possibly leading to therapies for treating muscle and bone conditions.
They also captured images of simultaneous lightning events at the top of two thunderstorms, with scientists using such data to study various weather conditions in Earth’s upper atmosphere. The research can help to better protect communication systems and aircraft while improving atmospheric models and weather forecasts.
After 13 suborbital test flights and more than $15 billion in development costs, SpaceX's Starship has finally reached orbit. The 407-foot megarocket, the most powerful ever built, lifted off from Starbase, Texas, on Monday and delivered its first real payload on it's 14th attempt. The celebration came with an asterisk, though, since SpaceX had to cut the planned 10-hour mission to roughly three hours.
https://twitter.com/SpaceX/status/2104601695711904180
SpaceX is finally ready to give Starship its biggest test yet. The company says the massive rocket's 14th test flight is scheduled for September 22, when it will attempt to put the upper stage into Earth orbit for the first time. The launch is currently pending regulatory approval, with a 75-minute window opening at 7:15 a.m. CT.
Starship has 26 Starlink satellites to deliver
For decades, humanity has looked up at the Moon and wondered what it would be like to live on it. Think sprawling cities, factories, research centers, and permanent human settlements. Unfortunately, there is one fairly fundamental problem with that vision.
A new study published in Frontiers in Space Technologies argues that even the Moon's potentially enormous reserves of frozen water may be nowhere near enough to support city-sized populations sustainably. Researchers Martin Elvis and Jonathan McDowell estimate that the permanently shadowed regions near the lunar poles could contain roughly one billion tons of water. It sounds like an extraordinary amount until you put a million thirsty humans next to it.