Space to Ground: Laser Link: Jan. 12, 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 and welcome to our first episode of 2024, I’m sandra jones. This week preparations continue ahead of the third private astronaut mission to the international space station, respitory health research is taking place in space, and a football championship has space ties. On wednesday january 17, axiom mission 3 is scheduled to liftoff from launch complex 39a at the kennedy space center in florida. Ax-3 is the third private astronaut mission to the space station. Crew members on this mission include commander michael lópez-alegría, pilot walter villadei of italy, esa or european space agency, project astronaut marcus wandt of sweden and mission specialist alper gezeravci of turkey.

The quartet will spend about two weeks on the space station conducting science, outreach, and educational events. The winter season is peak time for many of us to catch a cold or the flu, but research taking place in space could help with respitory treatments back on eath. Gaucho lung, studies how mucus lining the respiratory system affects the delivery of drugs carried in a small amount of injected liquid, known as a liquid plug. Conducting this research in microgravity makes it possible to isolate the factors involved, including capillary or wicking forces, mucus characteristics, and gravity. Understanding the role of these factors could inform the development and optimization of targeted respiratory treatments going forward.

In other space station research news, a nasa technology experiment on the international space station completed its first laser link with an in-orbit laser relay system last month. Together, they complete nasa’s first two-way, end-to-end laser relay system. Nasa’s lcrd or laser communications relay demonstration and the new space station demonstration, integrated lcrd low earth orbit user modem and amplifier terminal, successfully exchanged data for the first time. Lcrd and illuma-t are demonstrating how a user mission, in this case the space station, can benefit from a laser communications relay located in geosynchronous orbit. Did you tune into the big football game earlier this week?

If so, you may have seen some familiar astronaut faces. During the college football championship on monday, the artemis ii crew which includes nasa astronauts reid wiseman, victor glover, and christina koch and canadian space agency astronaut jeremy hansen were highlighted during the game. Also taking place as part of the celebration was an instagram live between nasa and espn featuring nasa astronauts jasmin moghbeli and loral o’hara . And that’s space to ground for this week, thanks so much for watching, we’ll see you next week.

Where this page came from

This page was imported from [NASA](https://images.nasa.gov/details/jcs2024m000005_Space to Ground_505_240112). NASA material is generally not copyrighted and is in the public domain.

Nobody has written it yet — it is the source material at a new address, which is why search engines are asked to skip it and why no one earns from it. It is up for grabs: take it on, and it is yours to rewrite and to earn from.