Space to Ground: One in a Million: April 18, 2025

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 Jaden Jennings. Ideas born on Earth are about to go weightless. NASA is set to launch SpaceX's 32nd resupply mission to the International Space Station carrying science investigations to help advance future deep space exploration and life here on Earth. Smartphone Video Guidance Sensor-2 uses the space station's Astrobee robots to demonstrate using a vision-based sensor developed by NASA to control a formation flight of small satellites. Based on a previous in-space demonstration of the technology, this investigation is designed to refine the maneuvers of multiple robots and integrate the information with spacecraft systems.

The potential benefits of this technology include improved accuracy and reliability of systems for guidance, navigation, and control that could be applied to docking crude spacecraft in orbit and remotely operating multiple robots on the lunar or Martian surface. Timing is everything, and a European Space Agency investigation will examine fundamental physics concepts such as Einstein's theory of relativity. The Atomic Clock Ensemble in Space, or ACES investigation, will use two next generation atomic clocks operated in microgravity from outside of the Columbus module. Results have applications to scientific measurement studies the search for Dark Matter, and fundamental physics research that relies on highly accurate atomic clocks in space. The experiment also tests a technology for synchronizing clocks worldwide using global navigation satellite networks.

NASA astronaut Don Pettit, alongside two Roscosmos cosmonauts, will depart the International Space Station aboard the Soyuz MS-26 spacecraft and return to Earth on Saturday April 19th. The crew will undock from the orbiting laboratory's Rassvet module at 5:57 p. m eastern time, heading for a parachute assisted landing at 9:20 p. m Saturday night in the U. S.

, which will be 6:20 a. m Sunday morning in Kazakhstan. Sunday will be Pettit's 70th birthday. NASA's live coverage of return and related activities will stream on NASA+. A Change of Command ceremony also will stream on NASA platforms at 2:40 p.

m Friday April 18th. Ovchinin will hand over station command to Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Takuya Onishi for Expedition 73, which will begin at the time of undocking. When some people go to work they bring a briefcase. But when Don Pettit went to work on the International Space Station, he brought a camera. "Looking at Earth's horizon and our atmosphere on edge is truly a unique site.

You can also point your camera more zenith and you could look at Milky Way structures. Images from space help tell the story to people on Earth that don't have the opportunity to go into space, so the the photographs help complete the story of what it means for human beings to expand into space and expand into this frontier. " Before we go here's a couple more items. Another first-time flyer, NASA astronaut Chris Williams, will launch to the space station aboard the Roscosmos Soyuz MS-28 spacecraft in November. Williams graduated with the 23rd astronaut class in 2024 and began training for his flight assignment immediately after completing initial astronaut candidate training.

He will serve as a flight engineer and Expedition 74 crew member. And the agency announced that NASA flight engineers Anne McClain and Nichole Ayers will perform a spacewalk next month in preparation for the installment of the next ISS Rollout Solar Array. The Rollout Solar Arrays augment the space station's eight main solar arrays and produce more than 20 kilowatts of electricity. You can keep up with the current crew on station as well as the science by following us on social media @NASA_astronauts, @Space_Station and @ISS_Research. And that's Space to Ground for now.

Thank you so much for watching.

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