Axiom Space’s third private mission to the International Space Station (ISS) was supposed to last two weeks, but the all-European crew stayed for a few extra days while it waited for the weather conditions to improve at the splashdown site off the coast of Daytona, Florida.
Having finally undocked from the space station on Wednesday, Ax-3 crewmembers Walter Villadei, Alper Gezeravcı, and Marcus Wandt, and professional astronaut Michael López-Alegría are now on their way home in a SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft that’s set to splash down on Friday morning.
During the extra time aboard the orbital outpost, Wandt, who’s shown himself to have a keen eye during his stay, shared a final set of stunning Earth photos captured from the ISS about 250 miles up.
Something in the things she shows me… 🎶#Muninn #Earth #NoFilter pic.twitter.com/jXwh3wnUCO
— Marcus Wandt (@astro_marcus) February 8, 2024
Wandt doesn’t say what camera he used for the images, but the space station is known to have a large collection of professional-grade camera bodies and lenses for visitors to use. In fact, NASA is in the process of updating its ISS camera equipment from older DSLR bodies to mirrorless Nikon Z9 cameras after delivering a consignment of them last month.
During breaks from science research, astronauts aboard the ISS often head for the Cupola, a seven-window module that offers panoramic views of Earth and beyond. It’s the ideal vantage point to capture pictures of our planet.
And with the station orbiting Earth about 16 times every 24 hours, the canvas is always changing when you do have a chance to peer out from the confines of the Cupola.
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.