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Draco mission made for destruction

Tuesday, 24 September 2024 12:00
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ESA Space Debris project - DRACO

Over the nearly 70 years of spaceflight, about 10 000 intact satellites and rocket bodies have reentered the atmosphere with many more to follow. Yet for such a ubiquitous event, we still lack a clear view on what actually happens to a satellite during its fiery last moments.

ESA is preparing the Destructive Reentry Assessment Container Object (Draco) mission that will collect unique measurements during an actual reentry and breakup of a satellite from the inside. A capsule especially designed to survive the destruction will transmit the valuable telemetry shortly after.

LUNA infographics

Tuesday, 24 September 2024 07:53
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LUNA infographics Image: LUNA infographics
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Station Science Top News: September 20, 2024 - NASA
The ECOSTRESS instrument on the International Space Station. Credit: NASA

At the International Space station, researchers are making strides in everything from Earth science to chemical properties. Here's what they're up to and why it matters.

Recently, researchers have found that eddies, or swirling wind patterns, increased moisture evaporation in an alfalfa field. A better understanding of the complex exchange of water and heat between the ground and atmosphere could improve remote sensing products and their use in agricultural water management.

The station's ECOSTRESS instrument takes high-resolution thermal infrared measurements of Earth's surface that provide data on changes in , vegetation water stress, and agricultural water use. Researchers use observations from the USGS Landsat 8 and 9 satellites and ECOSTRESS to validate and update data on Earth's surface energy (the amount of energy absorbed from the sun and radiated back into the atmosphere).

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Low gravity in space travel found to weaken and disrupt normal rhythm in heart muscle cells
Heart tissues within one of the launch-ready chambers. Credit: Jonathan Tsui

Johns Hopkins Medicine scientists who arranged for 48 human bioengineered heart tissue samples to spend 30 days at the International Space Station report evidence that the low gravity conditions in space weakened the tissues and disrupted their normal rhythmic beats when compared to Earth-bound samples from the same source.

The scientists said the tissues "really don't fare well in space," and over time, the tissues aboard the space station beat about half as strongly as tissues from the same source kept on Earth.

The findings, they say, expand scientists' knowledge of low gravity's potential effects on astronauts' survival and health during long space missions, and they may serve as models for studying heart muscle aging and therapeutics on Earth.

A report of the scientists' analysis of the tissues is published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Previous studies showed that some astronauts return to Earth from outer space with age-related conditions, including reduced heart muscle function and arrythmias (irregular heartbeats), and that some—but not all—effects dissipate over time after their return.

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A Soyuz capsule with 2 Russians and 1 American from the International Space Station returns to Earth
In this photo taken from video released by Roscosmos space corporation, rescue team members help NASA astronaut Tracy Dyson to leave the capsule shortly after the landing of the Russian Soyuz MS-25 space capsule carrying the NASA astronaut Tracy Dyson and the Roscosmos cosmonauts Oleg Kononenko and Nikolai Chub, south-east of the Kazakh town of Zhezkazgan, Kazakhstan, Monday, Sept.
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A Soyuz capsule with 2 Russians and 1 American from the International Space Station returns to Earth
In this photo taken from video released by Roscosmos space corporation, rescue team members help NASA astronaut Tracy Dyson to leave the capsule shortly after the landing of the Russian Soyuz MS-25 space capsule carrying the NASA astronaut Tracy Dyson and the Roscosmos cosmonauts Oleg Kononenko and Nikolai Chub, south-east of the Kazakh town of Zhezkazgan, Kazakhstan, Monday, Sept.
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iss
Credit: CC0 Public Domain

What was supposed to be a weeklong test flight in space has turned into a months-long stay for astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams. While the unexpected delays from their mission may not have any negative side effects on the future of space exploration, it could affect their physical and mental health.

What happens to your body when you're in outer space?

Jacqueline McCleary, assistant physics professor at Northeastern University, says the term for the effects of being in space are summed up by the acronym RIDGE, which stands for radiation, isolation and confinement, distance from Earth, gravity fields, and hostile/closed environments.

All those factors can affect a person, McCleary says.

"All involves being in a microgravity environment," she says. "Astronauts essentially … are perpetually falling in an elevator."

'Motion sickness on steroids'

The longest space mission on record was about 476 days, McCleary says, so knowledge on the long-term effects are limited and research is still ongoing.

Wilmore and Williams blasted off from Florida on June 5. So, as of Sept. 20, they have been in space 107 days.

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