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Outposts on the frontier : a fifty-year history of space stations
The International Space Station (ISS) is the largest man-made structure to orbit Earth and has been conducting research for close to a decade and a half. Yet it is only the latest in a long line of space stations and laboratories that have flown in orbit since the early 1970s. The histories of these earlier programs have been all but forgotten as the public focused on other, higher-profile adventures such as the Apollo moon landings. A vast trove of stories filled with excitement, danger, humor, sadness, failure, and success, Outposts on the Frontier reveals how the Soviets and the Americans combined strengths to build space stations over the past fifty years. At the heart of these scientific advances are people of both greatness and modesty. Jay Chladek documents the historical tapestry of the people, the early attempts at space station programs, and how astronauts and engineers have contributed to and shaped the ISS in surprising ways. He delves into the intriguing stories behind the USAF Manned Orbiting Laboratory, the Almaz and Salyut programs, Skylab, the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project, Spacelab, Mir station, Spacehab, and the ISS, and gives past-due attention to Vladimir Chelomei, the Russian designer whose influence in space station development is as significant as Sergei Korolev's in rocketry. This is an informative and dynamic history of humankind's first outposts on the frontier of space.
Book
Observation of ultracold atomic bubbles in orbital microgravity
Substantial leaps in the understanding of quantum systems have been driven by exploring geometry, topology, dimensionality and interactions in ultracold atomic ensembles
. A system where atoms evolve while confined on an ellipsoidal surface represents a heretofore unexplored geometry and topology. Realizing an ultracold bubble-potentially Bose-Einstein condensed-relates to areas of interest including quantized-vortex flow constrained to a closed surface topology, collective modes and self-interference via bubble expansion
. Large ultracold bubbles, created by inflating smaller condensates, directly tie into Hubble-analogue expansion physics
. Here we report observations from the NASA Cold Atom Lab
facility onboard the International Space Station of bubbles of ultracold atoms created using a radiofrequency-dressing protocol. We observe bubble configurations of varying size and initial temperature, and explore bubble thermodynamics, demonstrating substantial cooling associated with inflation. We achieve partial coverings of bubble traps greater than one millimetre in size with ultracold films of inferred few-micrometre thickness, and we observe the dynamics of shell structures projected into free-evolving harmonic confinement. The observations are among the first measurements made with ultracold atoms in space, using perpetual freefall to explore quantum systems that are prohibitively difficult to create on Earth. This work heralds future studies (in orbital microgravity) of the Bose-Einstein condensed bubble, the character of its excitations and the role of topology in its evolution.
Journal Article
Places in the darkness
Hundreds of miles above Earth, the space station Ciudad de Cielo--The City in the Sky--is a beacon of hope for humanity's expansion into the stars. But not everyone aboard shares such noble ideals. Bootlegging, booze, and prostitution form a lucrative underground economy for rival gangs, which the authorities are happy to turn a blind eye to until a disassembled corpse is found dancing in the micro-gravity. In charge of the murder investigation is Nikki \"Fix\" Freeman, who is not thrilled to have Alice Blake, an uptight government goody-two-shoes, riding shotgun. As the bodies pile up, and the partners are forced to question their own memories, Nikki and Alice begin to realize that gang warfare may not be the only cause for the violence.
Book
Space station biomining experiment demonstrates rare earth element extraction in microgravity and Mars gravity
Abstract
Microorganisms are employed to mine economically important elements from rocks, including the rare earth elements (REEs), used in electronic industries and alloy production. We carried out a mining experiment on the International Space Station to test hypotheses on the bioleaching of REEs from basaltic rock in microgravity and simulated Mars and Earth gravities using three microorganisms and a purposely designed biomining reactor.
Sphingomonas desiccabilis
enhanced mean leached concentrations of REEs compared to non-biological controls in all gravity conditions. No significant difference in final yields was observed between gravity conditions, showing the efficacy of the process under different gravity regimens.
Bacillus subtilis
exhibited a reduction in bioleaching efficacy and
Cupriavidus metallidurans
showed no difference compared to non-biological controls, showing the microbial specificity of the process, as on Earth. These data demonstrate the potential for space biomining and the principles of a reactor to advance human industry and mining beyond Earth.
Journal Article
Spaceflight promotes biofilm formation by Pseudomonas aeruginosa
Understanding the effects of spaceflight on microbial communities is crucial for the success of long-term, manned space missions. Surface-associated bacterial communities, known as biofilms, were abundant on the Mir space station and continue to be a challenge on the International Space Station. The health and safety hazards linked to the development of biofilms are of particular concern due to the suppression of immune function observed during spaceflight. While planktonic cultures of microbes have indicated that spaceflight can lead to increases in growth and virulence, the effects of spaceflight on biofilm development and physiology remain unclear. To address this issue, Pseudomonas aeruginosa was cultured during two Space Shuttle Atlantis missions: STS-132 and STS-135, and the biofilms formed during spaceflight were characterized. Spaceflight was observed to increase the number of viable cells, biofilm biomass, and thickness relative to normal gravity controls. Moreover, the biofilms formed during spaceflight exhibited a column-and-canopy structure that has not been observed on Earth. The increase in the amount of biofilms and the formation of the novel architecture during spaceflight were observed to be independent of carbon source and phosphate concentrations in the media. However, flagella-driven motility was shown to be essential for the formation of this biofilm architecture during spaceflight. These findings represent the first evidence that spaceflight affects community-level behaviors of bacteria and highlight the importance of understanding how both harmful and beneficial human-microbe interactions may be altered during spaceflight.
Journal Article
Space stations
Space stations, including Skylab, Mir and the ISS are a vital outposts of scientific endeavour. Although only the ISS remains in orbit, the story of man's quest to live and conduct experiments in space is a tale of adventure, tragedy and genius.
Book
The ASIM Mission on the International Space Station
The Atmosphere-Space Interactions Monitor (ASIM) is an instrument suite on the International Space Station (ISS) for measurements of lightning, Transient Luminous Events (TLEs) and Terrestrial Gamma-ray Flashes (TGFs). Developed in the framework of the European Space Agency (ESA), it was launched April 2, 2018 on the SpaceX CRS-14 flight to the ISS. ASIM was mounted on an external platform of ESA’s Columbus module eleven days later and is planned to take measurements during minimum 3 years. The instruments are an x- and gamma-ray monitor measuring photons from 15 keV to 20 MeV, and an array of three photometers and two cameras measuring in bands at: 180–250 nm, 337 nm and 777.4 nm. Additional objectives that can be addressed with the instruments relate to space physics like aurorae and meteors, and to Earth observation such as dust- and aerosol effects on cloud electrification. The paper describes the scientific objectives of the ASIM mission, the instruments, the mission architecture and the international collaboration supported by the ASIM Science Data Centre. ASIM is the first space mission with a comprehensive suite of instruments designed to measure TLEs and TGFs. Two companion papers describe the instruments in more detail (Østgaard et al. in Space Sci. Rev.,
2019
; Chanrion et al. in Space Sci. Rev.,
2019
).
Journal Article
Space stations : the art, science, and reality of working in space
\"A ... visual history of real and fictional space stations, illustrating pop culture's influence on the development of actual space stations and vice versa\"-- Provided by publisher.
Book
The OCO-3 mission: measurement objectives and expected performance based on 1 year of simulated data
The Orbiting Carbon Observatory-3 (OCO-3) is NASA's next instrument dedicated to extending the record of
the dry-air mole fraction of column carbon dioxide (XCO2) and solar-induced fluorescence (SIF) measurements from space.
The current schedule calls for a launch from the Kennedy Space Center no earlier than April 2019 via a Space-X Falcon 9 and Dragon capsule.
The instrument will be installed as an external payload on the Japanese Experimental Module Exposed Facility (JEM-EF)
of the International Space Station (ISS) with a nominal mission lifetime of 3 years.
The precessing orbit of the ISS will allow for viewing of the Earth at all latitudes less than approximately 52∘,
with a ground repeat cycle that is much more complicated than the polar-orbiting satellites
that so far have carried all of the instruments capable of measuring carbon dioxide from space. The grating spectrometer at the core of OCO-3 is a direct copy of the OCO-2 spectrometer,
which was launched into a polar orbit in July 2014.
As such, OCO-3 is expected to have similar instrument sensitivity and performance characteristics to OCO-2,
which provides measurements of XCO2 with precision better than 1 ppm
at 3 Hz, with each viewing frame containing eight footprints approximately 1.6 km by 2.2 km in size.
However, the physical configuration of the instrument aboard the ISS, as well as the use of a new pointing mirror assembly (PMA),
will alter some of the characteristics of the OCO-3 data compared to OCO-2.
Specifically, there will be significant differences from day to day in the sampling locations and time of day.
In addition, the flexible PMA system allows for a much more dynamic observation-mode schedule. This paper outlines the science objectives of the OCO-3 mission and, using a simulation of 1 year of global observations,
characterizes the spatial sampling, time-of-day coverage, and anticipated data quality of the simulated L1b.
After application of cloud and aerosol prescreening, the L1b radiances are run through the operational L2 full physics retrieval algorithm,
as well as post-retrieval filtering and bias correction,
to examine the expected coverage and quality of the retrieved XCO2 and to show how the measurement objectives are met.
In addition, results of the SIF from the IMAP–DOAS algorithm are analyzed.
This paper focuses only on the nominal nadir–land and glint–water observation modes,
although on-orbit measurements will also be made in transition and target modes, similar to OCO-2,
as well as the new snapshot area mapping (SAM) mode.
Journal Article