Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
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Category: space

(From left) Expedition 65 crew members Pyotr Dubrov, Oleg Novitskiy and Mark Vande Hei, pose for a photo during Soyuz qualification exams in Moscow.

The Expedition 64 crew continued researching how microgravity affects biology aboard the International Space Station today. The orbital residents also conducted vein and eye checks and prepared for three new crew members due in early April.

NASA Flight Engineer Shannon Walker joined Russian cosmonauts Sergey Ryzhikov and Sergey Kud-Sverchkov for vein and eye scans on Thursday. Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Soichi Noguchi led the effort scanning veins in the trio’s neck, clavicle and shoulder areas using the Ultrasound 2 device in the morning. In the afternoon, Noguchi examined Walker’s eyes using the orbiting lab’s optical coherence tomography gear.

Walker also assisted fellow Flight Engineer Kate Rubins of NASA setting up samples of tiny worms for viewing in a microscope. Rubins captured video of the microscopic worms wriggling around to learn how microgravity affects genetic expression and muscle function. Insights from the Micro-16 study may benefit human health on and off the Earth.

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Discovery may offer clues to carbon’s role in planet and star formation. Much of the carbon in space is believed to exist in the form of large molecules called polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). Since the 1980s, circumstantial evidence has indicated that these molecules are abundant in space.

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Now uncocooned from its protective carbon-fiber shield, the helicopter is being readied for its next steps.

NASA is targeting no earlier than April 8 for the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter to make the first attempt at powered, controlled flight of an aircraft on another planet. Before the 4-pound (1.8-kilogram) rotorcraft can attempt its first flight, however, both it and its team must meet a series of daunting milestones.

Ingenuity remains attached to the belly of NASA’s Perseverance rover, which touched down on Mars Feb. 18. On March 21, the rover deployed the guitar case-shaped graphite composite debris shield that protected Ingenuity during landing. The rover currently is in transit to the “airfield” where Ingenuity will attempt to fly. Once deployed, Ingenuity will have 30 Martian days, or sols, (31 Earth days) to conduct its test flight campaign.

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On March 232021 NASA demonstrated Mars Helicopter Ingenuity’s deployment area/place and Perseverance Rover drives directly to Helipad (helicopter deployment site). Ingenuity is nestled up sideways under the belly of the Perseverance rover, with a cover to protect it from the debris kicked up during landing. General thing for successful flight of Mars Helicopter is Space weather. It relates to effects of our Sun’s radiation on Ingenuity. Everything on Mars, including Ingenuity, is bathed in a background of cosmic rays (high energy particles) from our Milky Way galaxy as well as particles from the Sun. When the Sun has a large flare and ejects electrically-charged particles (a so-called coronal mass ejection), the particles travel at high speed toward Mars and Ingenuity, following the Sun’s magnetic lines of force. As our helicopter has a number of elements that are not specifically engineered to be highly robust to these particles, we keep an eye on solar weather events. If such an event is predicted, and is of very large magnitude, we would possibly delay operating Ingenuity for a day or two to let the surge of particles pass by.

Credit: nasa.gov, NASA/JPL-Caltech, NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU

Source for NASA’s Mars Helicopter Ingenuity page: https://mars.nasa.gov/technology/helicopter/

#mars #helicopter #perseverance

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In celebration of the 40th anniversary of the first Space Shuttle launch, Lego is releasing a new Space Shuttle Discovery set in collaboration with NASA. Discovery was not the first shuttle to take flight — that would be Columbia, which likely stirs up too many sad feelings for a Lego set — but it was the shuttle that launched the Hubble Space Telescope, which is also included in the set.

Available April 1st for $200, the set has 2354 pieces, including three newly designed pieces for the windscreen and payload bay. It also includes 108 drum lacquered silver pieces, the most of any Lego set yet.

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