Space to Ground: Observing Extreme Storms: Oct. 11, 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. A lot can happen in a half year. So much so, that trying to remember it all can seem like a daunting task. Or perhaps there’s so much happening that each headline feels like a fleeting moment. However, there’s one more moment for four humans aboard the international space station as their six months in low earth orbit is coming to a close.

After launching on march 3rd and spending over six months on station, nasa's spacex crew-8 will soon be returning to earth. Nasa astronauts mike barratt, matt dominick, and jeanette epps, along with roscosmos cosmonaut alexander grebenkin are just days away from concluding their mission in low earth orbit where they have completed more than two hundred scientific experiements. Stay tuned to nasa+ where you can watch crew-8 splashdown in the dragon capsule. Next, we take a look at some tiny satellites. Cubesats are some of the smallest satellites in space and continue to play a key role in advancing space technology.

This week, two cubesats were deployed into low earth orbit via the nanoracks cubesat deployer. The first, cysat-1, developed by students at iowa state university, is equipped with a radiometer designed to collect remote sensing data for soil moisture measurement on earth, which could improve agricultural monitoring and environmental research. The second, dora, built by arizona state university students, is testing the performance of a high-speed optical receiver. This technology evaluates how well the receiver handles background light, radiation, and temperature changes, which could pave the way for cost-effective and precise communication between small spacecraft. We came all this way to explore the moon, and the most important thing is that we discovered the earth.

That’s a quote from apollo astronaut william anders and to this day we are still observing fascinating occurences on earth from space. Station offers humanity a unique platform from which to observe the earth. From low earth orbit we have taken hundreds of thousands of images of the planet and countless hours of video, including storms in real time. From lighting storms across south africa at night to hurricane milton, that traversed the gulf of mexico this week, we have collected valuable data that has helped inform us on how storms form and intensiy, how precipitation within tropical cyclones and hurricanes behave, and have develped weather models that can help generate life-saving weather forecasts. Learn more at nasa.

gov/earth. You can keep up with all things on the 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 it for space to ground this week.

Thank you so much for watching.

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