Space to Ground: The Road Ahead: Sept. 06, 2024

NASA's Space to Ground is your weekly update on what's happening aboard the International Space Station.

What is said in the film

Welcome to space to ground, I’m nicholas page. The ability to adapt to a change of plans is important in life, and this week, flexibility was an important life skill aboard the international space station. On friday, september 6, nasa and its commercial crew partner, boeing, is scheduled to undock the uncrewed starliner spacecraft from the space station and land at the white sands space harbor in new mexico. Nasa astronauts butch wilmore and suni williams will now return to earth next february with nasa astronaut nick hague and roscosmos cosmonaut alekandr gorburov as part of the nasa spacex crew-9 mission. Live coverage of starliner’s return to earth will be available on nasa+, the nasa app, youtube, or the agency’s website.

Last week, nasa deployed a new batch of cubesats from the international space station’s japanese experiment module small satellite orbital deployer. Cubesats are a class of nanosatellites that measure ten-by-ten-by-ten centimeters, and can extend to larger sizes as needed. Among the cubesats are sagansat zero, which is meant to gather imagery with an infrared camera and measure the amount and distribution of clouds across the planet. There’s also binar-two three four, which will conduct a myriad of tests including validating satellite re-entry tracking systems and testing new radiation-blocking materials. Visit nasa dot gov’s cubesat launch initiative page to learn more.

Next, we light a fire in space! Space x crew 8 member, jeanette epps conducted a solid fuel ignition and extinction, or sofie, experiment inside of the combustion integrated rack while tracy dyson works on a japanese combustion experiment called flare, which tests the flammability of materials in microgravity. Studying combustion in microgravity is an ongoing point of interest for nasa. What we learn about how fire can behave differently and sometimes unexpectedly in a reduced gravity environment could help improve fire safety for future long-term missions to the moon and beyond. Additionally, we could learn how to better combat fire hazards back here on earth.

And finally, we look forward to the return to space of a frequent space flyer. Don pettit will serve as a flight engineer and member of the expedition 71/72 crew. He is set to lauch on the roscosmos soyuz ms-36 spacecraft on september 11th accompanied by cosmonauts alexey ovchinin and ivan vagner. This will be his fourth mission to the space station. Pettit is nasa’s oldest active astronaut and will become the second oldest astronaut to live and work on station after lengendary nasa astronaut john glenn, who was the first american to orbit the earth in 1962.

You can keep up with all things aboard the international space station by following us on x at @space_station or @iss_research for daily space operations and science updates. And as always, visit nasa. gov for more stories, blogs, updates, and media broadcasts. That’s space to ground this week. Thank you so much for watching.

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