After more than a decade of delays, Russia finally launched a long-awaited research module to the ISS this week. The module is called the Russian Multipurpose Research Module (MLM) and is known as Nauka. The laboratory was supposed to have arrived and been fitted to the orbiting space station 14 years ago.
The newest sort of tasty experimentally-grown food to hit the International Space Station are chile (or chili) peppers. Red and green chili peppers, sent to the ISS in the form of Hatch chili pepper seeds, are in the process of being grown for the consumption of astronauts in the next few months. This is part of NASA's Plant Habitat-04 (PH-04) experiment.
NASA is having crewmembers aboard the ISS change the docking location for the SpaceX Crew-2 Crew Dragon Endeavor spacecraft. The docking port swap will happen on Wednesday, July 21. Next week will mark a historic occasion when two different US commercial spacecraft built for crew will be docked to the orbiting ISS at the same time.
The European Space Agency (ESA) recently celebrated 20 years of ESA astronauts living and working on the International Space Station. Since the ESA arrived on the ISS 20 years ago, it has been running an experiment in the weightless research center for that entire time. The experiment is called the Plasma Kristall (PK) suite, and it's investigating fundamental science.
Researchers aboard the ISS have announced the first successful use in space for a new technique for studying DNA repair in yeast. Astronauts aboard the space station have demonstrated a successful CRISPR/Cas9 genome editing method. An organism can suffer damaged DNA occurring during normal biological processes or as the result of environmental causes.
NASA has confirmed that it will air the departure of the SpaceX Dragon cargo capsule from the ISS. The departure will occur on Tuesday, July 6, and the capsule splashes down in the Atlantic Ocean on Thursday, July 8. After the successful splashdown, SpaceX will have 22 commercial resupply services missions under its belt.
The International Space Station has been in orbit for many years. The space station has been used as a platform for conducting various scientific research that has resulted in some great science over the years. Currently, the ISS is being serviced by both Russian and American spacecraft with a crew of international astronauts on board.
Given how many years humans have spent in space, it may be surprising to learn that NASA still lacks a laundry detergent solution for its astronauts. Presently, individuals living on the International Space Station must wear the same clothes multiple times in a row before breaking out a new set of clothes, which are delivered as part of cargo shipments.
Over the weekend, NASA astronaut Shane Kimbrough and ESA astronaut Thomas Pesquet conducted a spacewalk outside the ISS to install the first of the recently delivered roll out solar arrays. The spacewalk ended at 2:10 PM EDT and lasted six hours and 28 minutes. The duo's successful spacewalk marks the eighth conducted this year.
NASA has announced that astronauts aboard the ISS, who are part of Expedition 65, will be conducting a pair of spacewalks. The first spacewalk will happen on Wednesday, June 16, and the other will happen on Sunday, June 20. The spacewalks will be to install new solar arrays to help power the ISS.
NASA has announced that it used freeze-dried mouse sperm that spent months aboard the ISS to fertilize mouse overy eggs back on earth. The result of the experiment are a group of baby mice NASA has dubbed "space pups." Japanese researchers are behind the experiment, with the results published this week in a new paper.
NASA has announced that it is seeking proposals for a pair of new private astronaut missions, with the destination being the ISS. NASA says that the two missions are part of the agency's efforts to open space to more people than ever before. The opportunities will allow US commercial companies to continue to play a central role in establishing a sustained presence in low-Earth orbit through the NASA Commercial LEO Development Program.