Hadfield will be taking an hour to answer questions from media, and it should give viewers some insight into Hadfields experience aboard the ISS. We’ve already seen a number of his videos, and now know more about ISS life than we ever have, but the hour-long discussion could be a good chance to learn more about his experiences up in space.

Chris Hadfield ended his ISS Commander stint on a very good note, by commanding a successful emergency spacewalk to fix an ammonia leak in “record time,” according to Hadfield himself. That was certainly a good stopping point for the ISS Commander, similar to a coach or player retiring after winning the championship game.

Hadfield also recorded the first ever music video from space as his “sign-off” of sorts, singing a slightly-modified version of David Bowie’s 1969 hit “Space Oddity.” Hadfield recorded the song on the space station, as well as the video (obviously), and beamed them down to Earth to be mixed and edited together to make the final product, which you can watch above.

During his time on the ISS, Hadfield also conducted a Reddit AMA (Ask Me Anything) where he answered questions and discussed a variety of various things relating to space, including why he became an astronaut and what the training process is like, as well as the fears and dangers associated with traveling to space and living there for a few months. As for what Hadfield will do next, no one knows yet, but he could reveal his future plans during Thursday’s press conference.

SOURCE: Canadian Space Agency

According to NASA, which announced the safe arrival on its Google+, Expedition 35′s crew landed in a remote area located outside of the tongue-twister of a city, Dzhezkazgan, after having spent nearly half a year on the International Space Station. The crew, listed from left to right in the image above, is: Commander Chris Hadfield from Canada, Flight Engineer Roman Romanenko from Russia, and Flight Engineer Tom Marshburn of NASA.

Hadfield, in particular, has become quite the popular individual, having actively engaged with an on-Earth audience multiple times from his position above, such as back in April when he answered a question on camera about what happens when wringing a wet washcloth. Just watching the process of spraying the water into the cloth is fascinating enough, not to mention seeing the water cling to the cloth and run down his hands.

While that demonstration, along with the others, his social media presence, Reddit AMA, and more have all been entertaining, we’d argue nothing tops his final stand yesterday when he bade farewell to the ISS by singing David Bowie’s Space Oddity. The video shows some candid shots of our blue planet out the windows, as well as a what it looks like to wield a guitar in a gravity-free environment.

On May 10, two astronauts aboard the ISS were forced to take a spacewalk to repair an ammonia coolant leak that had developed in the space station, a particularly dangerous reality given that the station is powered by the coolant. Fortunately, all ended well, with Tom Marhsburn and Chris Cassidy replacing a pump controller over the course of 5.5 hours.

SOURCE: NASA (G+)

The ISS’s power relies on ammonia coolant, so if that supply runs out, the space station would go dark and all the vital equipment needed for survival would stop working, which at that point the crew would be in grave danger. According to ISS Commander Chris Hadfield, the leak appears to have been stabilized, but there still needs to be a solid fix.

In order for the ammonia-based coolant system to operate normally, it needs a certain amount of ammonia in the tanks. However, based on the rate of the leak, the levels in the tanks could drop below that sweet-spot level within 48 hours, at which point the system would be at risk of shutting itself down due to a lack of ammonia. Of course, the station can operate on a broken cooling system, but it would take some clever thinking to prevent ISS components from overheating.

Luckily, the astronauts on board are fairly confident as far as where the leak is coming from, so once they begin their spacewalk, they’ll hopefully be able to go right to the leak and immediately begin repairing it. The spacewalk is being planned as we speak (with a live stream of the whole thing), and astronauts Chris Cassidy and Tom Marshburn are getting their spacesuits prepared for the spacewalk, which will take place at some point tomorrow.

In a similar but unrelated note, the United States Alliance has switched over the ISS’s computer systems from Windows to Linux to make sure that they’re “stable and reliable.” Specifically, the ISS was running Windows XP (not even Windows 7?), and they have now started to switch to Debian 6. For what it’s worth, however, some computers on the ISS have already been running various versions of Linux, including RedHat and Scientific Linux.

SOURCE: Chris Hadfield and ExtremeTech

To gather additional information for crew members on the station and NASA controllers on the ground, ISS crewmembers used hand-held cameras while Mission Control used external television cameras to record images to gather additional data. Those images were used to narrow down the location of the leak.

Information from crewmembers aboard the space station and the photographs taken indicate that the ammonia leak in the section of the cooling system is increasing in capacity. The ISS uses ammonia to cool the power channels that provide electricity to systems aboard the space station. NASA says that the ISS crewmembers are in no danger at this time.

SpaceFlight Now reports that this coolant system requires at least 40 pounds of ammonia for normal operation. NASA believes that at the current leak rate, the coolant loop in question would drop below that level and shut down within 48 hours if a repair isn’t made. If that coolant loop shuts down, crewmembers would have to reconfigure the coolant loops to use a different loop to cool some of the computer systems the leaking 2B loop currently cools.

[via NASA and SpaceFlightNow]

We’re not exactly sure what cities we’re looking at in the photo, but Hadfield points out that its the southeastern United States, with the bigger city toward the right side being Atlanta or Charlotte possibly. In any case, the horizon looks absolutely amazing, and the moon creeping in makes the photo that much more spectacular.

Hadfield not only takes a ton of photos of Earth from the ISS (which you can browse through all of them with this neat interactive map), but he also provides short videos on what it’s like to live on the ISS, and in one of his latest videos, he describes how he takes photos of Earth from the ISS. The secret? A huge lens.

Hadfield primarily uses a Nikon DSLR with a 400mm lens. This is one heavy setup, but thanks to the lack of gravity in space, Hadfield doesn’t need to strain his shoulders or arms lifting and holding the camera. Instead, the camera merely just floats in front of him. Hadfield even says that they take the cameras out on spacewalks into the cold vacuum of space. We’ll be keeping up with Hadfield and the ISS over the next months for any more photos that he posts in the future. Stay tuned!

Two cosmonauts will be making the spacewalk along with the Olympic torch in order to celebrate the games that will be taking place in Russia. The torch walk is scheduled to begin on October 7 this year, and it will span 123 days and travel more than 34,000 miles. The torch will also be carried by 14,000 different people, which would be a record for Olympic torch walks.

The deputy head of Russia’s space agency Roscosmos, Vitaly Davydov, said that the torch that will be carried to space will be “the same as the torch at the Olympics,” although the torch will not be lit on its way to space, since open flames are prohibited from being carried inside a spaceship while traveling to the ISS.

The spacewalk with the torch is set to take place in November, and it’s expected to return back to Earth on November 12. Russian cosmonauts Oleg Kotov and Sergey Ryazansky are expected to perform the space walk with the torch. Other places that the torch is scheduled to go to is Mount Elbrus (the highest peak of Europe), the bottom of Lake Baikal, and the North Pole.

[via Russian Times]

Few details are known at this point, but Hadfield referred to the damage on the solar panel as a “bullet hole,” and said that he was “glad it missed the hull.” We’re not sure exactly what would happen if a small rock like that collided with the ISS hull, but judging from Hadfield’s sigh of relief, nothing good would come out of it.

We’re guessing that the hole didn’t cause too much severe damage to the solar panel, or else the ISS would be in deep trouble. We’re not sure how large the small hole is, but it doesn’t look big at all — merely a small speck compared to the sheer size of the solar panels on the station.

Of course, this isn’t the first time that Hadfield has talked about small meteoroids hitting the ISS. He hosted a Reddit AmA back in February where he discussed “micro-meteorites would sometimes hit the hull and make a loud “ping” noise, which leaves dents on the outside of the station. However, Hadfield notes that a larger piece of rock could come along and cause greater damage.

This situation allows Russian cosmonauts Roman Romanenko and Pavel Vinogradov to access three full tons of food, fuel, supplies, and a set of experiment hardware along with the rest of the crew of six aboard the ISS. Though the Kurs antenna remained undeployed, it would appear that the mission has been a full success. The final hard mate occurred at 8:34 a.m. EDT according to NASA.

This docking happened between the Progress 51 Russian cargo ship and the rear port of the Zvezda service module of the International Space Station. What you’re seeing above is a video presented by Russian mission control of the Russian Federal Space Agency at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. This launch made way at 6:12 a.m. EDT just two days ago en route to the ISS.

With the supplies brought in this week, the ISS will be stocked with an additional 1,764 pounds of propellant, 57 pounds of air, 926 pounds of water, 48 pounds of oxygen, and 3,483 pounds of spare parts and experiment hardware. For its trip back to our planet, the Progress 51 craft will be filled with trash and station discards. Good luck, team!

And readers, be sure to head to SlashGear’s Science tag portal for more excellent space-bound action!

The washcloth itself is made wet offscreen as the task appears to spoil the surprise for the viewer. The viewers, mind you, are part of the brand new NFB Space School just revealed this week. This program is housed by the National Film Board in Canada and will continue to make use of the efforts of Chris Hadfield aboard the ISS as well as other Canadians willing to join in on the education.

Once water is released into the station, you’ll see it take on a blob-like form. Once it is (seemingly) inside the cloth, it travels with the cloth. This is similar to what would happen if Hadfield were much closer to the surface of our planet, but were the cloth this wet and he were standing on the Earth’s ground, gravity would have the water dripping down from the cloth.

Because of the surface tension of the materials included here and the extremely low gravity present on the ISS, the water stays together – for the most part – even when the cloth wrings it out. You’ll see the “tube of water” promised to you in the title of this article about 2 minutes in to the demonstration video.

The NFB Space School has been launched today as well – this being an online resource for science enthusiasts and everyday learners online. This program appears at the moment to be prepared for students across the world, provided by Canada’s NFB in support of space exploration and the expansion of scientific knowledge in general. Have a peek at SlashGear’s International Space Station tag portal for more news from our high-flying astronaut friends!

[via NFB Space School]

Vinogradov is working with Flight Engineer and Cosmonaut Roman Romanenko to replace a broken reflector, as well as retrieve and install experiment equipment on the exterior of the station. Up until today, the oldest person to perform a spacewalk was now-retired NASA astronaut Story Musgrave, who was 58 when he helped fix the Hubble Space Telescope in 1993.

Vinogradov has been a cosmonaut for 20 years and today’s spacewalk is his seventh so far. is making his seventh spacewalk. His first-ever spacewalk took place in 1997 aboard Russia’s old Mir space station. Vinogradov will turn 60 aboard the space station this summer, as he’s been assigned for six months up on the ISS.

What’s perhaps most interesting is that Vinogradov’s partner during today’s spacewalk, Romanenko, is experiencing his first spacewalk ever. Romanenko, who is 41, follows in his father’s footsteps, Yuri Romanenko, who went to space in the 1970s and 1980s. The young Romanenko joked that he is “afraid of the darkness,” as the two cosmonauts stepped outside the ISS.

[via FOX News]

The spacewalk will last a total of six hours, and it’s going on right now, and you can view what the cosmonauts are seeing thanks to their helmet cameras, and you can also hear the audio transmission between the two cosmonauts and the mission control on the ground, which is pretty neat. Pavel Vinogradov and Roman Romanenko are the two cosmonauts making the spacewalk.

The spacewalkers will be tasked with installing what’s called the Obstanovka experiment on the exterior of the station’s Zvezda service module. The equipment will study plasma waves and the effect of space weather on Earth’s ionosphere. They will also retrieve the Biorisk experiment, which studied the effect of microbes on spacecraft structures.

The cosmonauts will also replace a faulty retro-reflector device, which is just one of the navigational aids that provides assistance to the European Space Agency’s Albert Einstein Automated Transfer Vehicle 4 cargo ship, where it will automatically dock to the space station later in June.

MIT’s TESS project will receive $200 million in funding. The TESS project will use an array of wide-field cameras to perform an all-sky survey. It will scan nearby stars for exoplanets. Its primary focus are planets that are similar in size to Earth. TESS will note when these planets transit their host stars from its perspective. George Ricker, a senior research scientist at MIT’s Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research (MKI), stated,

TESS will carry out the first space-borne all-sky transit survey, covering 400 times as much sky as any previous mission. It will identify thousands of new planets in the solar neighborhood, with a special focus on planets comparable in size to the Earth.

NASA’s second project, NICER, will be mounted onto the International Space Station. It will observe and measure the variability of cosmic X-ray sources, also known as as X-ray timing. The goal for NICER is to allow scientists to better understand neutron stars by exploring the states of matter within the stars and exploring their interior and exterior compositions. The project will be drastically cheaper than the TESS project, costing NASA about $55 million to fund. NICER’s principal investigator is Keith Gendreau of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. TESS’s George Ricker will also be a partner in the NICER Mission.

These projects are part of NASA’s Explorer program. These are frequent, low-cost investigations that are relevant to NASA’s astrophysics and heliophysics programs. The first program launched in 1958, which discovered the Earth’s radiation belts. Over 90 more missions have been launched since then. John Grunsfeld, NASA’s Associate Administrator for Science in Washington stated,

With these missions we will learn about the most extreme states of matter by studying neutron stars, and we will identify many nearby star systems with rocky planets in the habitable zone for further study by telescopes such as the James Webb Space Telescope.

[via Space.com]

This was the first launch in which a manned flight made an “express” route towards the International Space Station, cutting down flight time from around two days to just six hours. Previously, Russian Progress cargo vehicles have made the express flights, but this is the first time that a manned flight has done so.

After docking to the ISS at approximately 10:30 pm ET, the capsule opened its hatch and was welcomed by the ISS at 12:35 am ET. So, in total, it took around eight hours to get from the ground to inside the space station — a full day’s work. The crew joined ISS Commander Chris Hadfield and Tom Marshburn of NASA, and Roman Romanenko of Roscosmos, who have in been the ISS since December 21, 2012.

There’s a total of six crew members now aboard the ISS, making it slightly more crowded than before, but Hadfield, Marshburn, and Romanenko will return to Earth in May aboard the Soyuz capsule that Expedition 35 came up in last night. Three additional crew members will join Cassidy and cosmonauts in late May. Cassidy, Vinogradov, and Misurkin are scheduled to return to Earth in September.

The landing was called successful this morning and right around the full 2,668 pounds (1,210 kilograms) will be collected and studied into the future. One of the areas these particular samples are being used is in the study of long-lasting spaceflight’s impact on the human body. Another is the study of plants as they’ve been grown on the space station, these samples being set for aiding in growing better and more fruitful plants in the future both on the space station and here on our planet’s surface.

Also onboard the ship – and shipped back this month – were a collection of crystals grown aboard the ship. With these crystals, NASA scientists hope to aid in the development of new more efficient solar cells as well as semiconductor-based electronics. As NASA reminds us, the SpaceX capsule Dragon “is the only space station resupply spacecraft able to return to Earth intact.”

Elon Musk himself Tweeted at 11:59 AM CST that the recovery ship had secured Dragon. He went on to note that as they powered down all secondary systems, it was apparent that all cargo looked “A ok”. According to the official SpaceX Twitter account, the Dragon capsule made its splashdown at 9:34AM PST – now it’s time to watch the research and see SpaceX and NASA head upward once again!

[Photo via SpaceX]

Crewmembers aboard the ISS were able to grab hold of the supply ship using the space station’s robotic arm and dock the ship without further incident. The SpaceX Dragon resupply ship was expected to be attached to the space station for approximately a month while cargo was unloaded and other items were placed inside the capsule.

NASA has now announced that the Dragon spacecraft is set to depart the ISS and return to Earth on Monday. The space station is also set to receive three new crewmembers early next week. The Dragon module is currently attached to the international space Station Harmony module, where it has been docked the last three weeks.

The Dragon spacecraft will begin its release from the ISS at 5 AM Eastern on Monday. The Dragon capsule is expected to splash down in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Baja California around 1:20 PM Eastern time. The Dragon capsule carried 1268 pounds of supplies to the crew and will return with about 2668 pounds of cargo. Among the cargo, are the results of experiments that tested how life and microgravity would affect the growth of plant seedlings and changes to the human body.

[via PC Mag]

Dragon will be bringing new equipment and supplies to the folks at the ISS, and it will bring back to Earth some materials as well. This is the 3rd time Dragon has been launched, and it has about 9 more rounds to do this year due to SpaceX’s agreement with NASA. The great thing about Dragon is that it’s re-usable, so it has many more uses before it needs to be replaced.

The capture of Dragon will be done by NASA Expedition 34 Commander Kevin Ford and NASA Flight Engineer Tom Marshburn. The two astronauts will use the station’s robotic arm to grab Dragon. Dragon will then be installed onto the Earth-facing port of the Harmony module by mission control at Houston. Flight Engineer Chris Hadfield will finalize the grab by bolting Dragon into place using commands.

SpaceX states that there will not be another problem with Dragon’s thrusters, and that Dragon will be returning to Earth on its original arrival date, Monday, March 25th. Despite the issues that delayed its arrival to the ISS, SpaceX reports that everything is operating normally. You can watch Dragon dock at the ISS through SpaceX’s live webcast. The webcast will start streaming at 6:00AM EST/3:00AM PST.

[via NASA]

Using laser beams, NASA will be able to receive and transmit information to the ISS at a much faster rate than current communication technologies. Laser beams are also “hundreds-to-thousands of times narrower than traditional radio-frequency beams,” which allow for higher data rates. Currently, NASA communicates through the same technology that brings you music to your car’s radio.

NASA will use OPALS to “demonstrate and test optical communications technologies from a space-based platform by transferring video data via the laser hardware on the space station to a ground receiver” located at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory’s Optical Communications Telescope Laboratory in California.

As the space station flies over, a laser beacon will transmit the laser signal to the ISS. However, while it doesn’t sound all that complicated, NASA says precision is absolute key. They say “it’s like trying to use a laser to point to an area that’s the diameter of a human hair from 20-to-30 feet away while moving at half-a-foot per second.”

Astronauts Kevin Ford, Tom Marshburn, and Chris Hadfield are answering questions from now until approximately 11:30 am ET. The team is answering both pre-recorded questions sent in via YouTube, as well as live questions from social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, and of course Google+. We’ve embedded the live stream below for your viewing pleasure.

UPDATE: The Hangout is now over, but you can watch the whole thing below if you ended up missing it.

The deadline for submitting video questions has already passed, but you can still submit live questions via social media sites using the #askAstro hashtag, but don’t be upset if the astronauts don’t end up getting to your question — we’re sure they have thousands of other questions to pick from.

Overall, it should be an interesting talk with the astronauts, who will mostly discuss what it’s like in space, and what it’s like to feel weightless in zero gravity. Of course, if you follow soon-to-be ISS commander Chris Hadfield on Twitter, he usually provides sneak peeks inside the ISS every once in a while.

SpaceX is the work of Tesla Motors founder Elon Musk, who has been in the news himself recently over a debacle with the Model S car and the New York Times. However, he’ll soon be focusing his energy on the third launch of the Dragon capsule in less than a year, which will dock to the ISS, the first private company to accomplish such a feat.

While three times in less than a year may seem like a lot of space flights, SpaceX has signed an agreement with NASA to do 12 re-supply missions to the ISS using the Dragon capsule. The spacecraft itself is a reusable capsule that is able to be reused over and over again many times before SpaceX will have to replace it.

After the launch, and once the capsule starts to get closer to the ISS, astronauts Kevin Ford and Tom Marshburn will use the station’s robotic arm to catch the capsule and bring it in for docking. The capsule is planned to take over 2,300 pounds of experiment samples and equipment back to Earth on March 25.

Hadfield announced that he would be hosting his own AMA via Twitter earlier today. Hadfield, who launched into space back in December in a Russian Soyuz capsule along with two others is currently commanding the ISS. He also served as Mission Specialist on two Space Shuttle flights in 1995 and 2001.

If you’re not quite familiar with Hadfield, he was the one who got to speak with Star Trek actor William Shatner a few days ago about being in space and the risk one poses when jetting off outside the atmosphere. The two also discussed the future of the space program, as well as the progression it’s been taking the past several decades.

If you can’t make it for Hadfield’s Reddit AMA, don’t worry. The ISS will actually be hosting a Google+ Hangout on February 22, where astronauts Kevin Ford, Tom Marshburn, and Chris Hadfield will answer viewer questions live. As with the Reddit AMA, users will be able to submit questions to the astronauts in the Google+ Hangout.

Aboard the Russian cargo ship is water, food, personal hygiene items, medical, and photo equipment. The cargo ship also has Russian flags on board and gifts for the ISS crew. The Progress cargo ships from Russia have launched more than 130 times since 1972.

Progress class ships are described as the backbone of the Russian space cargo fleet. The Russian freighter spacecraft are also used while they’re docked with the ISS to adjust the space station’s orbit and for conducting scientific experiments. The spacecraft reportedly carried over 2500 kg of supplies and various equipment.

The freighter ship launched and docked with the ISS using a fast-track trajectory that required only six hours to reach the space station. The fast-track trajectory marks the third time that such a trajectory has been used. The typical trajectory requires two days to reach the ISS. Exactly why the fast-track trajectory was chosen is unknown.

[via Zee news]

The pre-recorded questions will come from users who submit video questions through YouTube. Users will have until February 12 to upload a YouTube video that’s 30 seconds long at most, and it must be tagged with #askAstro. The same goes for questions on Twitter and Google+, while a separate Facebook page will be available on February 22.

The Hangout will be available on NASA’s official Google+ page, so be sure to bookmark it for February 22 at 11 am ET. It’s not said how long the Hangout will last, but based on past Hangouts with officials and such, it’ll probably be around one hour to two hours, which should allow for plenty of questions that I’m sure space nuts are excited to hear the answers to.

In the past, Google+ Hangouts have been a popular tool for communicating with government officials, including President Obama and Vice President Biden, both of which hosted Google+ Hangouts in the past to answer questions from citizens. As time goes on, we should see Hangouts become a more popular platform for such uses, and maybe even become the standard for Q&A sessions with various celebrities.

When asked if America’s space program was beginning to fall behind due to the end of the Shuttle program, Hadfield said that wasn’t the case, and that “we’re just right now in between vehicles,” meaning that it takes time for new programs to begin, just like with the transition from Apollo to the Space Shuttle program.

The two even talked about taking risks with space travel, to which Hadfield replied that “to accomplish anything worthwhile in life, it’s going to take risk. Even if you stay at home and sit at your kitchen table, eventually the ceiling will fall. There’ll be a hurricane or tornado. You can’t live a worthwhile life without risk.” Hadfield even said that science-fiction movies like Star Trek inspired him to take risks, like traveling to space, and said that the experience of simply being in space is worth the risk.

Shatner starred in several Star Trek films and TV series as Captain James Kirk who manned the starship Enterprise. It seemed like the two of them wanted to continue their discussion, and it seems they plan meet in person at some point in the future, with Shatner saying he looks forward to sharing a cigar and whiskey with Hadfield after his return home.

[via Space.com]

Commander Chris Hadfield recorded 16 seconds of ambient noise aboard the ISS, and it sounds like a data center full of servers and cooling equipment — in other words, it’s not as quiet as you’d expect. Then again, it’s not too surprising since there’s a ton of equipment on board, like all sorts of machinery, computers, and testing equipment.

Hadfield notes that the quietest places in the ISS are the astronauts’ sleep stations (obviously), since they’re essentially “small insulated pods” that can close up to block out most noise. However, Hadfield also notes that the bathroom is the loudest place on the ISS, so if you really want your privacy and a quiet place to go to, don’t resort to the toilet.

Much of the noise comes from the fans and air pumps necessary to keep the astronauts breathing, so we don’t think many of the astronauts on the ISS complain about it. Hadfield says that the ISS is pressurized to sea level pressure, since the thicker air helps keep all the machinery cooler and “is more natural” for the astronauts.

The Russian Soyuz spacecraft launched from Kazakhstan’s Baikonur Cosmodrome early this morning at 7:12 AM ET and will orbit the Earth for two days before docking to the Rassvet module on the Russian segment of the ISS. That will happen at approximately 8 AM ET on Friday. About three hours later, hatches between the Soyuz and the ISS will open.

The three space travelers will be greeted by Commander Kevin Ford of NASA, and Flight Engineers Oleg Novitskiy and Evgeny Tarelkin of Roscosmos, who have been in orbit on the ISS since late-October. NASA will live stream the docking beginning at 7:30 AM ET on Friday, and will also be broadcasting the hatch opening starting at 10:15 AM ET.

Marshburn, Romanenko, and Hadfield will remain on the ISS until May 2013, while Ford, Novitskiy, and Tarelkin will return to Earth on March 15. Hadfield will take over as commander of the ISS, which will mark the first time a Canadian has become commander of the orbiting laboratory.

The three astronauts/cosmonauts will be serving as subjects for various human physiology tests, including examinations of astronaut bone loss, and conducting a wide range of physical science experiments. They will also investigate how fire behaves in space, which could help improve engine fuel efficiency and fire suppression methods, and other research will look at fluids that change physical properties with a magnet, which could improve architectural designs to better withstand earthquakes.

NASA selected Scott Kelly, who was a backup crew member for Expedition 23 and 24 crews, while Roscosmos selected Mikhail Kornienko, who was a flight engineer for Expedition 23/24. Come 2015, the two will take off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan via Russia’s Soyuz. Their mission will provide the agencies with invaluable data on how to reduce the risks other space explorers will undergo during future explorations.

NASA’s Associate Administrator for Human Exploration and Operations William Gerstenmaier offered this statement. “Congratulations to Scott and Mikhail on their selection for this important mission. Their skills and previous experience aboard the space station align with the mission’s requirements. The one-year increment will expand the bounds of how we live and work in space and will increase our knowledge regarding the effects of microgravity on humans as we prepare for future missions beyond low-Earth orbit.”

Scott Kelly is a retired Navy Captain who hails from New Jersey. He has served as a space shuttle mission pilot, commander, and flight engineer. He has spent over 180 days in space. Meanwhile, Mikhail hails from Syzran/Kuibyshev, and served as a paratrooper officer and flight engineer, among other positions. He has spent over 176 days in space.

[via NASA]

NASA and the ESA said yesterday that DTN could one day allow “internet-like communications” with spacecrafts and help support infrastructure on other planets. The experiment took place late last month, and it involved remotely operating a small Lego rover-like robot from the International Space Station.

The Lego robot was located at the European Space Operations Centre in Darmstadt, Germany and it was being operated and driven by US astronaut Sunita Williams who used a laptop that was designed by NASA. A command sent from the laptop would start a script to control the Lego rover, which is also actually a prototype designed for use in the ESA’s future missions.

NASA space communications chief Badri Younes says that once the protocol gets past the experimental stage, DTN could be useful for controlling robots on Mars from either a manned orbiting spacecraft or from Earth using satellites as relay stations. DTN is slightly comparable to the Internet Protocol in terms of functionality. However, the big difference is that IP relies on a continuous connection, while DTN allows for more disconnections and errors.

[via ZDNet]

The HTC DROID DNA suffered another leak today, this one saying that it’ll be available at Verizon starting in early December, and we learned that Jelly Bean installs are on the rise, but at a pretty slow rate. A new iPad fourth-gen teardown gives us a look at more of the same, and Apple says that it’s willing to pay Motorola just one dollar per iPhone in patent fees. Smartphone market share in the US has remained more or less the same, and we got a closer look at the iPad fourth-gen’s GPU today.

A new Android vulnerability has been discovered, opening up users to SMS phishing, while one clever do-it-yourselfer has already managed to fit the iPad mini into the dashboard of his car. Apple has lost the right to sell the iPhone in Mexico, and Moshi showed off its new line of iPad mini accessories today. We learned today that we’ve had humans living on the International Space Station for 12 consecutive years, and one unfortunate BitTorrent sharer has been hit with a hefty $1.5 million fine. Verizon told us that its cell sites are improving in areas that have been hit hard by Hurricane Sandy, Overhaul Games actually bumped the release date of Baldur’s Gate Enhanced Edition up by a couple of days, and the Mars Curiosity rover took a very cool picture of itself.

Finally today, we have a brand new column and two pretty big reviews for you to check out. Chris Burns tells us why we’re in the age of the smartphone ecosystem rather than the age of smartphone specs, while Vincent Nguyen gives us his reviews of the highly-anticipated Samsung Nexus 10 and LG Nexus 4. That does it for tonight ladies and gentlemen, we hope you have a great weekend!

Since then, the International Space Station has been habited with astronauts and cosmonauts for 12 years now. People from 16 different countries have set foot into the ISS, and have continually been building on and improving the ISS since its launch. The International Space Stations travels around the Earth at approximately 17,500 mph, and has seen over 70,000 sunrises and sunsets.

The previous record for the longest time a spacecraft has been continuously habited with humans was the Mir space station, which occupied astronauts and cosmonauts for almost 10 years and orbited the Earth from 1986 to 2001, when the International Space Station eventually started to take over in 2000. The ISS orbits approximately 225 miles above the Earth, and completes almost 16 orbits around the Earth per day.

The most recent mission to the ISS was the privately-funded SpaceX Dragon capsule, which delivered around 1,000 pounds of various goods to the Space Station. More SpaceX missions are planned for the ISS in the future, and the ISS itself is expected to remain in orbit as late as 2028.

[via Michael Interbartolo]

Then, at about 3:20 PM Eastern this afternoon, Dragon will splash down in the Pacific ocean, 250 miles off the coast of Baja California. The capsule carried 882 pounds of supplies with it to the space station, but it will be returning with even more. When Dragon reaches Earth, it will be packed with 1,673 pounds of stuff, which includes “163 pounds of crew supplies, 866 pounds of scientific research, and 518 pounds of vehicle hardware and other hardware.”

Those 866 pounds of scientific research include things like urine and blood samples taken aboard the International Space Station, and they’ll need be returned to NASA within 48 hours of Dragon’s splashdown for testing. The hardware that’s being returned to NASA include defective parts from the Space Station, which will need to be examined by scientists here on the ground. Make no mistake, Dragon has a lot of important stuff on board, so here’s hoping that everything goes as planned this afternoon.

The SpaceX Dragon capsule has been attached to the International Space Station since October 10. There were a couple hiccups with the launch, but Dragon made it to ISS intact – though those hiccups did have some unintended consequences for a satellite carried into space on the back of the Falcon 9 rocket. Be sure to check out our story timeline below for more on the SpaceX Dragon!

[via NASA]

We found out today iOS app size is on the rise, and that the FCC will allow AT&T to take advantage of unused airwaves for mobile broadband. Google is allowing third-party developers to use its plethora of Maps information with a set of new APIs, and Facebook’s new promoted posts feature is undergoing and expansion in Europe. RIM CEO Thorsten Heins had something to say about a recent (and rather negative) write-up about BlackBerry in The New York Times today, and a series of leaked AT&T training videos revealed that the Lumia 920 will be exclusive to the carrier for six months after its release.

Call of Duty Elite won’t be featured in the Wii U version of Black Ops II, and Apple has been granted a patent for an alternative NFC technology. Speaking of Apple, the company will be holding a meeting with the MFI group next month to talk about the future of the Lightning connector, and Foxconn is saying that the iPhone 5 is a difficult device to make, but assures that it’s getting better. Consumers are reporting a decline in overall Internet usage, but Forrester (the company that did the study) has a good explination for that, while V-MODA was busy pulling the veil off its Crossfade M-100 headphones today.

A new video called “Star Trails” shows time-lapse footage captured by the International Space Station, and the Color app that has been gracing Verizon phones lately may be going dark soon. Just a little while ago, Google sent out invites to an Android event that will take place in New York in a couple of weeks, and we got a high-definition look inside the company’s data centers today. The Pirate Bay told us this afternoon that it has switched its servers to the cloud, eBay posted some strong Q3 financial results, and Project Eternity from Obsidian reached its funding goal on Kickstarter (and then some).

Finally tonight, Chris Davies asks why we care about the iPad Mini, and Craig Lloyd brings us his review of the Loop Mummy iPhone case. That does it for tonight’s Evening Wrap-Up, enjoy the rest of your night everyone!

The video shows photos taken by none other than your favorite astronaut Don Pettit, a celebrity in his own right, as well as several other space-bound photographers aboard the space station. Thanks to these ISS residents photographing space in their spare time, we’re able to see several artifacts in this video including the comet “Lovejoy” rising in at about 1:42. See if you can see any other fabulous moments of light convergence now!

This video was edited using Apple Motion as well as Final Cut Pro X. Malin also notes that he used the app StarStax to make the lights line up, one on top of another. In addition to stars making lines, the video includes Iridium Flashes – aka satellite tracks, meteors of several sizes, and lightning corridors within clouds. If all that isn’t enough, heed this: the concept for this video comes from Malin’s love of Tron, of course, as he notes here:

“Do you remember 1982′s “TRON”? The Plot: A computer programmer (epic: Jeff Bridges) is digitized inside the software world of a mainframe computer, where he interacts with various programs in his attempt to get back out. I always loved the Light Cycle races and the Solar Ships…

In a way, the ISS is a solar ship, constantly rotating around us. A tiny white spot, as it can be seen racing over the sky from time to time, when illuminated by the sunset (and sunrise ;).” – Malin

Keep your eyes to the skies and hit up our science tag portal as well as our space tag portal for all the ISS news you can handle – and our ever-growing science archive, too!

[via Christoph Malin]

This mission unloaded 882 pounds of cargo with the help of Expedition 33 Commander Suni Williams and Flight Engineer Aki Hoshide. It wasn’t only work and transfers that the two astronauts uncovered in the capsule – ice cream was stashed by NASA and SpaceX before the craft took off from Earth and was also discovered today by the team. It’s a rare treat that the team will partake in, this aside the space food they’re generally set to eat – that being prepackaged food that’s able to be kept for many months at a time at room temperature.

This novelty adds to the great joy that’s been felt at the success of this mission thus far, it being the first successful supply mission ever lead to the International Space Station by a privatized group. SpaceX led a test mission earlier this year with similar results.

It’s Michael Interbartolo who shares this transfer of cargo between the Dragon capsule and the ISS – the process set to take place over the course of 18 days, with both loading and unloading occurring. The capsule will be bringing back 1,673 pounds of cargo back to Earth, quite a bit of this being material that’s taken part in studies done on the space station over the past collection of months. Have a peek at the gallery here and get pumped up about the splashdown on the 28th of October!

The successful docking happened at 9:03 AM Eastern time, and it marks the first time a private American spacecraft has been sent to the ISS. Station commander Sunita Williams says, “Looks like we’ve tamed the Dragon. We’re happy she’s onboard with us. Thanks to everyone at SpaceX and NASA for bringing her to us…and the ice cream.”

The SpaceX Dragon capsule carried almost 1,000 pounds of supplies as it made the journey to the ISS some 250 miles above the Pacific Ocean. Along for the ride was chocolate-vanilla swirl ice cream and materials to make Silly Putty, which will certainly be a fun experiment for the astronauts as they find out what space-made Silly Putty will act like compared to down on Earth.

The capsule is expected to spend at least three weeks at the International Space Station, and will be filled with around 2,000 pounds of cargo for the return trip, which will include experiment results and other station gear. The capsule is expected to splashdown in the Pacific Ocean near southern California on October 28.

Didn’t know that the Falcon 9 rocket was also carrying a satellite? You’d be forgiven, considering that it wasn’t talked about all that often before the Dragon’s launch last night. The plan was to have the satellite launch into orbit after leaving Earth’s atmosphere on the back of the Falcon 9, but apparently, the OG2 missed its target because of the engine loss.

Orbcomm said in a statement today that the satellite was launched into a lower orbit than what was intended – NBC News reports that instead of the planned 350-by-750-kilometer orbit, the OG2 satellite is now in a 203-by-323-kilometer orbit. Orbcomm said today that it, along with engineers from the Sierra Nevada Corporation, are currently in contact with the satellite to see if they can get the OG2 to rise in orbit, and if such a move is even possible in the first place.

This was the first of 18 OG2 satellites that will be carried into space aboard a Falcon 9 rocket. By mid-2013, 8 more of these satellites will be in space, while the rest will be carried out of Earth’s atmosphere by 2014. The first satellite launch is off to something of a rocky start, so here’s hoping that the subsequent 17 launches will go a little bit better.

We also had plenty of news about SpaceX’s Dragon capsule, which launched for the ISS yesterday. The launch went well despite a rocket blowout, and we learned that the capsule is carrying – among other things – ice cream and silly putty to the space station. Later on in the day, SpaceX released a statement about the minor problems on the launch pad, telling us that the mission should still go as planned. We heard that 10 million iPad Minis are on order, despite the fact that we don’t know for sure that it exists yet, and today Google started calling for more tablet-friendly apps.

The Samsung Galaxy S III was named T-Mobile’s best-selling device of all time today, and speaking of T-Mobile, the carrier received the LG Optimus L9 today as well. A 32GB Nexus 7 model was accidentally shipped to one lucky Japanese customer, and Microsoft has launched free Wi-Fi in both New York City and San Francisco. Windows 8 PCs started showing up early on HSN’s website today, and Microsoft released a Kinect SDK for Windows 8 too. Microsoft has apparently dropped its “Live” branding from its Windows 8 launch, and T-Mobile looks primed to receive iPhone 5 owners with a new NanoSIM delivery.

After being teased last week, Rovio revealed Angry Birds Star Wars today, an announcement that was quickly followed by additional details. XCOM: Enemy Unknown is available for pre-order on Steam today, while Blizzard told us that a World of Warcraft hack that allowed one player to murder others one city at a time has been patched. Pokemon Black and White 2 launched yesterday, and PETA has something to say about it, while Nokia announced that its new Lumia 810 will be bringing the Windows Phone 8 touch to T-Mobile.

That about does it for tonight’s Evening Wrap-Up, but before we part ways, we have one original story to cover: Chris Burns tells us why Nokia will need to push its graphic design abilities when it comes to making Windows Phone 8 a success. Enjoy the rest your night folks!

The ice cream is being kept in a special refrigerator that has a freezer that can reach temperatures as low as -300 degrees Fahrenheit. However, the ice cream isn’t your usual freeze-dried ice cream that normally goes into space. This is actual ice cream from Blue Bell Creameries in Texas, and it was also aboard Space Shuttle Atlantis in 2006.

Materials to make Silly Putty are also on their way to the ISS. The Silly Putty will be made by the astronauts while in space to see whether or not Silly Putty can be made in space in the first place. If so, experimenters will want to know how it differs from the regular, Earth-made version of the stuff. It’s hypothesized that the space-made Silly Putty will be possible to make, but its viscosity is expected to be different from the Silly Putty we all know and love.

The SpaceX Dragon launched last night at 8:30pm EDT in Cape Canaveral, Florida, which has been the site of tons of Space Shuttle launches in the past. However, the launch didn’t go entirely smoothly. Roughly 80 seconds after the launch, one of Falcon 9′s nine engines failed, but the remaining rockets carried on and were undeterred. The rocket’s systems compensated for the loss in thrust and the capsule will be able to reach orbit safely.

[via LA Times]

The situation we’re seeing here is what SpaceX calls an “anomaly”, assuring us that the ship is indeed in orbit around the Earth now and that the explosion wasn’t something they were alarmed about as it happened nor now. What you can see looks a lot more serious than SpaceX is making it out to be, that being a burst of flame and a collection of debris falling from the rocket as it continues on its course.

UPDATE: SpaceX has released the following statement on the situation, assuring the public that the mission will continue as planned, and that there wasn’t actually an explosion at all – all is well!

The Dragon spacecraft is on its way to the International Space Station this morning and is performing nominally following the launch of the SpaceX CRS-1 official cargo resupply mission from Cape Canaveral, Florida at 8:35PM ET Sunday, October 7, 2012.

Approximately one minute and 19 seconds into last night’s launch, the Falcon 9 rocket detected an anomaly on one first stage engine. Initial data suggests that one of the rocket’s nine Merlin engines, Engine 1, lost pressure suddenly and an engine shutdown command was issued immediately. We know the engine did not explode, because we continued to receive data from it. Our review indicates that the fairing that protects the engine from aerodynamic loads ruptured due to the engine pressure release, and that none of Falcon 9’s other eight engines were impacted by this event.

As designed, the flight computer then recomputed a new ascent profile in real time to ensure Dragon’s entry into orbit for subsequent rendezvous and berthing with the ISS. This was achieved, and there was no effect on Dragon or the cargo resupply mission.

Falcon 9 did exactly what it was designed to do. Like the Saturn V, which experienced engine loss on two flights, Falcon 9 is designed to handle an engine out situation and still complete its mission.

We will continue to review all flight data in order to understand the cause of the anomaly, and will devote the resources necessary to identify the problem and apply those lessons to future flights. We will provide additional information as it becomes available.

Dragon is expected to begin its approach to the station on October 10, where it will be grappled and berthed by Akihiko Hoshide of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency and Expedition 33 Commander Sunita Williams of NASA. Over the following weeks, the crew will unload Dragon’s payload and reload it with cargo to be returned to Earth. Splashdown is targeted for October 28

This craft also works with the Falcon 9, projecting the Dragon capsule into space with nine engines. It’s designed so that if any one of its nine engines should fail, the on-board computers will instantly detect it and act. When a failure occurs, the fuel supply will be cut and the unused propellant will be distributed to the remaining engines, this allowing them to burn longer.

Because these engines were also designed to minimize damage to one another should one of them fail, it appears that one one of the nine was knocked out in the anomaly. SpaceX has assured that they’d be providing more information on the exact situation as it unfolds throughout the day [SEE ABOVE]. We must assume at this point that the mission will continue without delay as SpaceX doesn’t appear to have their feathers ruffled too much – stay tuned!

The mission will be taking place at 8:35 PM PST on October 7th (tonight) 2012 from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. This mission will take place just miles away from NASA’s own space shuttle launch pads and the Dragon capsule will – if all goes as planned – join the ISS three days after taking off. Propelling the capsule into space will be SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket – the first stage of this takeoff includes kerosene and oxygen-powered Merlin engines.

The second stage include a single Merlin engine that will make a boost of the Dragon into its orbit which will lead it directly to the station. A pair of solar arrays will be deploying from the Dragon capsule just 11 minutes after it’s been put into orbit. Controllers on Earth will then begin testing rendezvous sensors galore. Video below shows a successful Static Fire test conducted last month for the CRS-1 mission we’re seeing today:

The Dragon capsule will spend right around three weeks connected to the station while supplies are taken out, then it’ll return to Earth. Supplies include a freezer for the station’s scientific samples, a powered middeck locker, and a collection of materials for the astronauts currently living on the station. The locker contains an experiment that NASA is not disclosing at this time.

The mission capsule will be returning with more than a ton (literally) of scientific samples collected at the station. Also included will be hardware used by the engineers up unto this point. This mission’s Dragon capsule will be joined in the future by the Orbital Sciences’ Cygnus spacecraft and Antares rocket, both of them due for demonstration later this year – get pumped up!

[via NASA]

In other words, this is a pretty big launch. The Dragon capsule will leave Earth attached to SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket at 8:35 PM EST time tomorrow evening, and should arrive at the International Space Station on Wednesday, October 10. NASA officials and SpaceX founder Elon Musk met today to give the mission the greenlight for launch.

Once it’s been attached to the ISS, the Dragon capsule will spend a couple weeks in orbit before undocking on October 28 and heading back to Earth. When it splashes down in the Pacific, it will be carrying around 1,400 pounds of experiment supplies and ISS hardware that needs to be returned to NASA. This is the first of 12 planned cargo transport missions that will use the Dragon capsule and Falcon 9 rocket.

If you’re interested in watching this liftoff, SPACE.com says that NASA will be broadcasting the launch through its television channel. If you don’t get NASA TV, you can watch a live stream of the event on NASA TV’s website. Everything should go according to plan tomorrow – NASA says there’s a 60% chance of good weather for the launch – but if the launch needs to be delayed for some reason, NASA and SpaceX will be trying it again on October 8 and October 9. Keep it tuned to SlashGear for more information, because we’ll definitely be keeping an eye on tomorrow’s Dragon launch.