Kalendarium historycznych wydarzeń

[Orionid]

'Six Months, Instead of Twelve': 15 Years Since STS-106 (Part 1)
By Ben Evans, on September 5th, 2015


The Zvezda (upper) and Zarya (lower) modules provided the critical cornerstone for early International Space Station (ISS) operations. Fifteen years ago, this week, STS-106 resumed work on the stalled construction effort. Photo Credit: NASA

(...) By Wilcutt’s admission, it was far from straightforward. “Part of my responsibility as Commander is not only the accomplishment of the mission, but the welfare of your people,” he explained. “My crewmembers have families and children, so having them work six days a week, we needed to pour on the training at first, so that we could slack off and give them a little more time with their folks later in the flow.” He paid specific tribute to the Space Shuttle Program (SSP) for having reached a level of maturity to be able to insert an entirely new flight—designated “ISS-2A.2b,” the second half (2b) of the second American assembly mission (ISS-2A) to the International Space Station—into the manifest at six months, as well as extending praise to the Astronaut Office for its ability to rise to every challenge.

For Wilcutt’s colleagues, three of whom had flown before and three others who had yet to savor the weightlessness of space, the feelings were the same. Dan Burbank, making his first flight, had previously worked with the STS-101 crew on their Zvezda training, whilst veteran cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko—who had previously spent four months aboard Mir in July-November 1994—had been specifically assigned to the mission to lead the early outfitting of the service module. He was joined by Morukov, “because there are a number of different tasks on the Russian segment and our Russian experts wanted to have two Russian crewmembers.” Despite their wealth of experience, however, there were challenges in joining a new crew. “It takes a while to get a crew to work together as a crew,” explained Lu, shortly before the STS-106 launch. “You can’t be sort of seven individuals, off doing your own thing. In the end, it has worked out and we’re working together as well as the old 101 crew did back in February.” (...)
https://www.americaspace.com/2015/09/05/six-months-instead-of-twelve-15-years-since-sts-106-part-1/

[Orionid]

'About People Living in Space': 15 Years Since STS-106 (Part 2)
By Ben Evans, on September 6th, 2015


Impressive view of Atlantis and part of the International Space Station (ISS), captured during the STS-106 mission, 15 years ago, this week. Photo Credit: NASA

(...) The main task of the EVA, which marked the sixth spacewalk performed outside the ISS, since the initial excursions of STS-88 astronauts Jerry Ross and Jim Newman in December 1998, was to hook up a series of nine electrical, communications, and telemetry cables between Zvezda and Zarya, as well as installing a stowed magnetometer boom onto the hull of the service module to minimize its propellant consumption. The location of the magnetometer installation site was near the far end of Zvezda. Mastracchio would lift the pair about 50 feet (15 meters) above the payload bay, achieving the maximum reach of the RMS, after which Lu and Malenchenko would be required to clamber, hand over hand, along hand rails, to reach their worksite, at a position 110 feet (33.5 meters) from Atlantis, making this the furthest that tethered spacewalkers had ever ventured outside the shuttle. To place this distance into context, Lu and Malenchenko would be working at a location more than twice as high as the Hubble Space Telescope (HST). (...)

STS-106 had been a remarkable mission; remarkable in many senses, not least in that it had served to prepare Zvezda—the station’s critical living quarters—for the arrival of Expedition 1 crew members Bill Shepherd, Yuri Gidzenko, and Sergei Krikalev in early-November 2000. “The whole station is about people living in space and this is the crew quarters,” said Terry Wilcutt. “And when we say crew quarters, it’s got their sleeping compartments, it has the life support, it’s got the kitchen, basically the galley, the breathing equipment to allow people to live there and recycle oxygen, water, it’s got the attitude control for the entire station…it’s literally the life-support component and the control component for the rest of the station. You have to have it. It’s the place to life and provides the systems to allow you to live in the space station.” (...)
https://www.americaspace.com/2015/09/06/about-people-living-in-space-15-years-since-sts-106-part-2/

[Orionid]

Tym utworem była budzona załoga misji STS-69 8 września 1995.

Hound Dog (Live at The International Hotel, Las Vegas, NV - 8/21/69 Midnight Show)
5142 wyświetlenia•8 sie 2019
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7LNThuJPFbI



A ta piosenka budziła załogę misji STS-106 8 września 2000.

Edwin McCain - I'll Be (Official Music Video)
19 807 273 wyświetlenia RHINO
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5qrTmNDZ-nc

[Orionid]

Space Station 20th: STS-106 Prepares ISS for First Crew
Sept. 8, 2020 John Uri NASA Johnson Space Center

With less than two months remaining before the first Expedition crew took up residence aboard the International Space Station (ISS), during the STS-106 mission the crew of Space Shuttle Atlantis arrived at the facility to prepare it for their arrival. Designed to provide living accommodations for the crew, the Zvezda Service Module, the third element of the growing space station had arrived in July 2000, followed by Progress M1-3, the first cargo resupply vehicle to ISS, on Aug. 8, docking at Zvezda’s aft port. During their eight-day stay at ISS, the seven-member crew of STS-106 transferred supplies to the station, unloaded logistics from the Progress, outfitted the inside of Zvezda with equipment needed by the first Expedition crew, and completed external outfitting during an Extravehicular Activity (EVA) or spacewalk.


Left: STS-106 crew patch.
Right:  TS-106 crew photo, left to right, Morukov, Altman, Mastracchio, Lu, Burbank, Wilcutt, and Malenchenko.

The fourth space shuttle assembly and resupply mission to ISS took off on the morning of Sept. 8, 2000, with its seven-person crew of Commander Terence W. Wilcutt, Pilot Scott D. Altman, and Mission Specialists Edward T. Lu, Richard A. Mastracchio, Daniel C. Burbank, Yuri I. Malenchenko, and Boris V. Morukov. Less than two days after launch, Wilcutt guided Atlantis to a smooth docking with the three-module space station. The STS-106 crew was the first to see Zvezda in space and the first to see the three-module ISS configuration.


Left: Launch of Atlantis on Shuttle mission STS-106.
Right: View of the three-module ISS from Atlantis during the rendezvous and docking maneuver.

The day after docking, Lu and Malenchenko exited the shuttle’s airlock, only the second shuttle-based EVA to include a US and Russian crewmember. The primary tasks of the EVA included the installation of a magnetometer at the end of a 6-foot boom on Zvezda as a navigation aid and the connection of electrical, data, and television cables between Zvezda and Zarya. Mastracchio operating the shuttle’s robotic arm lifted Lu and Malenchenko about 50 feet above the payload bay and from there the duo translated the rest of the way to the magnetometer’s installation site. At about 100 feet from the payload bay, that was the farthest any tethered EVA crewmembers had traveled up to that time. The two then returned to complete the cable connection work and finally returned to the airlock after an EVA lasting 6 hours and 14 minutes.


Left: Lu during the STS-106 EVA.
Right: Malenchenko during the STS-106 EVA.


View of Zarya and Atlantis taken by an EVA crewmember while working on Zvezda’s exterior.

The day after the EVA, the crew opened the hatches to ISS, entering Zvezda for the first time, and began the internal outfitting work. Over the next five days, they transferred more than 6,000 pounds of supplies from the double Spacehab module to ISS including six water bags, all the food for the first expedition, office supplies, medical equipment, and other essential items. They also unloaded 1,300 pounds of supplies from the Progress, including clothing, medical kits, a vacuum cleaner, and laptops. Also stowed aboard the Progress were the Elektron oxygen generation system and the Vozdukh carbon dioxide removal system, which the crew installed aboard Zvezda. In addition, they installed several batteries, a treadmill, and the toilet, and removed launch locks from equipment to make them more readily accessible.


Left: Altman carrying a battery through the transfer tunnel from the Spacehab module.
Middle: Malenchenko checking stowage in Zarya, with food containers in the foreground.
Right: Morukov, left, and Malenchenko at work in the Progress cargo vehicle.


Left: Burbank, left, Lu, and Morukov install the treadmill in Zvezda.
Right: Their work finished, the STS-106 crew pose in Zvezda.

The ISS research program had its very modest beginnings with the STS-106 mission. The flight carried the first three experiments – one was transferred to ISS to be returned on the next shuttle flight, the second was transferred to ISS and stowed to be operated by the Expedition 1 crew, and the third stayed in the shuttle’s middeck as a sortie payload. The Protein Crystal Growth-Enhanced Gaseous Nitrogen (PCG-EGN) Dewar was a passive experiment containing hundreds of flash-frozen samples of protein solutions. Once transferred to a quiescent location in Zarya, the samples thawed over time and the proteins crystallized out of solution. The experiment was returned on the next shuttle mission, STS-92, in October 2000. The Middeck Active Control Experiment-II (MACE-II), designed to provide data on decreasing the effects of vibration on moving structures in space, was flown as passive stowage and transferred to Unity, to be operated by the Expedition 1 crew after their arrival.  The single-locker sized Commercial Generic Bioprocessing Apparatus (CGBA) remained in the middeck throughout the flight and contained two experiments. The first looked at how spaceflight affects the nervous system in fruit flies, a commonly studied laboratory species, and the second studied the effects of spaceflight on gene expression in cultured kidney cells.


Left: The PCG-EGN experiment stowed in the Zarya module.
Right: Morukov tending to the CGBA in the shuttle middeck.

With Altman at the controls, Atlantis undocked from ISS on Sept. 18 and completed a fly around of the refurbished station, with the crew taking photographs to document its condition. Although externally ISS was not dramatically different from when they arrived eight days earlier, internally the modifications the STS-106 crewmembers completed meant that ISS was ready to welcome it first crew. On Sept. 20, they closed Atlantis’ payload bay doors, put on their launch and entry suits, strapped into their seats and fired the shuttle’s engines for the trip back to Earth. Wilcutt guided Atlantis to a smooth night landing on the Shuttle Landing Facility at Kennedy Space Center, ending a highly successful 12-day mission to prepare ISS for its first occupants.


Left: A refurbished ISS as seen from Atlantis during its departure.
Right: Atlantis makes a smooth night landing at Kennedy Space Center.

Enjoy the crew narrate a video about the STS-106 mission.

https://www.nasa.gov/feature/space-station-20th-sts-106-prepares-iss-for-first-crew

[Orionid]

Poniżej lista lotów wahadłowców do ISS w ramach przygotowań do jej stałego zamieszkania.
Obok nazwiska Rosjan biorących udział w tych wyprawach. Spośród nich tylko Boris W. Morukow nie poleciał ponownie na ISS.

STS-88 En/F-13    04.12.1998 - 16.12.1998  Siergiej K. Krikalow
STS-96 Di/F-26     27.05.1999 - 06.06.1999  Walerij I. Tokariew
STS-101 At/F-21   19.05.2000 - 29.05.2000  Jurij W. Usaczow   
STS-106 At/F-22   08.09.2000 - 20.09.2000  Jurij I. Malenczenko, Boris W. Morukow
STS-92 Di/F-28     11.10.2000 - 24.10.2000

[Orionid]

ISS At 20: Remembering STS-106, OTD in 2000
By Ben Evans, on September 8th, 2020


The STS-106 crew departs the Operations & Checkout Building on 8 September 2000. Photo Credit: NASA

(...) From the day of their assignment to the day their Solid Rocket Boosters (SRBs) and main engine blasted them into space, the training regime for STS-106 had run for just over 200 days, one of the shortest (for an entire crew) in shuttle program history.

Altman recalled the long days, Lu remembered tiredness and staying up all night for six months and Burbank expressed surprise that the astronauts managed to build up camaraderie in a fraction of the time normally allocated to a mission. (...)
https://www.americaspace.com/2020/09/08/iss-at-20-remembering-sts-106-otd-in-2000/

[Orionid]

Passing Ships: Remembering the Atlantis-Columbia Photo-Op, 30 Years On
By Ben Evans, on August 9th, 2020


Columbia (left) heads out to the launch pad, as Atlantis (right) returns to the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) in the overnight hours of 8-9 August 1990. Photo Credit: NASA

Thirty years ago today, literally like passing ships in the night, a pair of Space Shuttles inched past each other on the Kennedy Space Center (KSC) crawlerway; one heading for the launch pad, the other rolling back to the cavernous Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB). It was one of the shuttle program’s most impressive and unforgettable photo-ops.

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2L7xXzbi6d0" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2L7xXzbi6d0</a>
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=491&v=2L7xXzbi6d0&feature=emb_title
Video Credit: NASA

(...) To identify the source, more instrumentation was fitted around the disconnect and a second tanking test was performed on 13 July. Sealants were added to stop the leak, but a third test on the 25th revealed that the problem remained.

So it was that in the pre-dawn darkness of 9 August, the STS-38 stack rolled back to the VAB, providing a unique photo opportunity in the process, as the STS-35 stack passed it on its way back out to Pad 39A. And although it was just one of many “rollbacks” conducted during the 30-year shuttle era, the visibility of two vehicles in such close proximity to one another afforded a photo-opportunity which has gone down in the annals of spaceflight lore. Even after 9 August 1990, neither Columbia or Atlantis were by any means out of the woods and their problems would persist in the fall. But before the end of 1990, both STS-38 and STS-35 would have flown—and flown successfully—whilst providing a unique reminder that the shuttle remained fragile in its flexibility and was still very much an experimental flying machine. (...)
https://www.americaspace.com/2020/08/09/passing-ships-remembering-the-atlantis-columbia-photo-op-30-years-on/

[Orionid]

35 lat temu 11 września 1985 roku amerykańska sonda ISEE-3 (International Sun-Earth Explorer 3) , której nazwa z uwagi na nowe zadania została zmieniona na  ICE  (International Cometary Explorer) zbliżyła się na najbliższą odległość 7862 km (można też spotkać wartość 7863 ) od jądra komety 21P / Giacobini-Zinner,  dokonując naukowych pomiarów plazmowego ogona komety. Było to pierwsze w historii zbliżenie sondy do komety.



21P/Giacobini-Zinner


Comet Giacobini-Zinner was captured by the Kitt Peak 0.9-m telescope on 31 October 1998. North is up with east to the left. Image Credit: N.A.Sharp/NOAO/AURA/NSF
https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/asteroids-comets-and-meteors/comets/21p-giacobini-zinner/in-depth/

ISEE-3/ICE

(...) On June 5, 1985, the spacecraft was maneuvered 26,550 km behind Comet Giacobini-Zinner so that its fields and particles instruments could sample the comet's tail. On September 11, the first ever in situ cometary measurements were made as the first first ions were detected as ICE crossed a bow shock. The spaceraft found a region of interacting cometary and solar wind ions, and encountered a comet plasma tail about 25,000 km wide. Water and carbon monoxide ions were also identified, which confirmed the "dirty snowball" theory. The plasma density increased 100 times over the solar wind ambient, and the solar magnetic field was found to be wrapped around the comet nucleus. ICE approached the comet at a distance of 7,862 km at its closest approach on September 11, 1985, with a flyby velocity of 20.7 km/second. Because the spacecraft did not carry any dust protection equipment, it was expected to suffer some damage during the encounter. However, the spaceraft survived relatively unscathed, and analysis of the plasma wave data indicated an dust impact rate of about one per second, which was lower than expected. (...)
https://stardust.jpl.nasa.gov/comets/ice.html

https://skyandtelescope.org/observing/comet-21p-giacobini-zinner-shines-in-september/

https://www.express.co.uk/news/science/1012788/Comet-21P-Giacobini-Zinner-green-comet-when-pass-Earth-date

AA https://www.forum.kosmonauta.net/index.php?topic=4227.msg150258#msg150258

https://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/nmc/spacecraft/display.action?id=1978-079A
https://directory.eoportal.org/web/eoportal/satellite-missions/i/isee-3
https://space.skyrocket.de/doc_sdat/explorer_isee-3.htm

Wątek o ICE https://www.forum.kosmonauta.net/index.php?topic=76.msg276#msg276

[mss]

https://www.nasa.gov/topics/nasalife/features/sept11.html

NASA Remembers Sept. 11

The attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 were a national tragedy that resulted in a staggering loss of life and a significant change in American culture. Each year, we pause and never forget. Beyond remembering and honoring the Americans who died that day, NASA also assisted FEMA in New York in the days afterward, and remembered the victims by providing flags flown aboard the Space Shuttle to their families.
...

[Orionid]

50 lat temu 12 września 1970 roku o 13:25:53 UTC wystartowała RN Proton-K/Blok-D z sondą  Łuna-16, która jako pierwsza automatyczna misja sprowadziła z innego ciała niebieskiego próbki gruntu na Ziemię w dniu 24 września 1970 roku.

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5IwCcrbuUGc" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5IwCcrbuUGc</a>
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5IwCcrbuUGc

Возвращаемый аппарат автоматической станции «Луна - 16»
Прослушать историю

Возвращаемый аппарат советской автоматической станции «Луна-16» - первого автоматического аппарата, доставившего образцы лунного грунта на Землю - имеет сферическую форму диаметром 50 см.
Конструктивно возвращаемый аппарат разделён на три изолированных отсека.

В одном из отсеков устанавливались радиопередатчики УКВ-диапазона, необходимые для радиопеленгации возвращаемого аппарата при его спуске на парашюте на Землю, а также серебряно-цинковая аккумуляторная батарея и программное устройство, предназначенное для управления вводом в действие парашютной системы.
Площадь тормозного парашюта составляла 1,5 кв.м, а площадь основного парашюта - 10 кв.м. Он открывается примерно на высоте 14 километров от земной поверхности. Сложенный парашют занимает второй отсек. Здесь же четыре упругие антенны и два наполненных газом эластичных баллона, обеспечивающих необходимое положение возвращаемого аппарата на поверхности Земли после его посадки.

В третьем отсеке находился цилиндрический контейнер с образцами лунного грунта, находящимися внутри бура грунтозаборного устройства, представляющего собой полую трубку с прочными и острыми зубцами на конце. В контейнере находилось приёмное отверстие со специальным замком, герметично закрывающим крышку после помещения в него образцов лунной породы.

Возвращаемый аппарат отделялся от приборного отсека ракеты «Луна-Земля» за 3,5 часа до входа в атмосферу Земли со скоростью больше 11 км в секунду.

34-хкилограммовый возвращаемый аппарат советской автоматической станции «Луна-16» совершил мягкую посадку на Землю 24 сентября в 80 км юго-восточнее города Джезказгана. Он доставил на Землю 105 грамм реголита из лунного Моря Изобилия.

Возвращаемые аппараты автоматических станций советской лунной программы являются единственными в истории мировой космонавтики аппаратами, побывавшими непосредственно на Луне и вернувшимися на Землю.
https://izi.travel/ru/873d-vozvrashchaemyy-apparat-avtomaticheskoy-stancii-luna-16/ru

“Луна-16”

https://space.skyrocket.de/doc_sdat/luna_e8-5.htm

https://www.forum.kosmonauta.net/index.php?topic=775.msg125327#msg125327

https://www.forum.kosmonauta.net/index.php?topic=292.msg150840#msg150840

[mss]

Never A Better Dollar: Remembering Gemini XI, OTD in 1966 (Part 1)

By Ben Evans, on September 12th, 2020

Sometime late next year, America will venture higher and further from Earth with a human-capable spacecraft than it has done since the end of the Apollo program, with the inaugural launch of the Space Launch System (SLS) and the Artemis-1 mission around the Moon. But although 24 men flew to lunar distance five decades ago, this weekend marks the anniversary of Gemini XI, launched on this day way back in 1966. Not only did Gemini XI astronauts Charles “Pete” Conrad and Dick Gordon perform rendezvous, docking and spacewalking during their three days in space, but they also set a record for the highest altitude ever reached by humans on a non-lunar space mission.

And, as with anything involving Conrad and Gordon, they also had a ton of fun doing it.
(...)


Conrad (left) and Gordon demonstrate the techniques for “tethering” Gemini XI to the Agena Target Vehicle in a post-mission press conference. Photo Credit: NASA


Gemini XI spears away from Pad 19 at Cape Kennedy on 12 September 1966. Photo Credit: NASA

https://www.americaspace.com/2020/09/12/never-a-better-dollar-remembering-gemini-xi-otd-in-1966-part-1/

Gemini XI (11).

[mss]

Ride 'Em, Cowboy: Remembering Gemini XI, OTD in 1966 (Part 2)

By Ben Evans, on September 13th, 2020

More than a half-century ago, in September 1966, Gemini XI astronauts Charles “Pete” Conrad and Dick Gordon embarked on a mission which would set a record for the highest altitude ever reached by humans on a non-lunar spaceflight. Launched within a two-second “launch window” on 12 September 1966 the two men—already best buddies after serving as together on the U.S.S. Ranger a decade earlier—completed the first-ever rendezvous and docking with another space vehicle, on their very first orbit of Earth, before setting out on the remainder of their complex three-day mission: two spacewalks and an altitude which afforded them spectacular views of the Home Planet from 850 miles (1,370 km).
(...)



To this day, Gemini XI retains the record for the highest altitude ever achieved by an Earth-orbital piloted mission. Only the Apollo lunar expeditions traveled further. Photo Credit: NASA

https://www.americaspace.com/2020/09/13/ride-em-cowboy-remembering-gemini-xi-otd-in-1966-part-2/

[Orionid]

Space Station 20th: STS-106 Prepares ISS for First Crew
Sept. 8, 2020 John Uri NASA Johnson Space Center

Misja STS-106 była pierwszą , która przeprowadziła na ISS eksperymenty naukowe.

Space Station 20th: First NASA Research on ISS
Sept. 11, 2020

The International Space Station (ISS) is a unique laboratory operating in low-Earth orbit. Over the past 20 years, more than 3,000 investigations from researchers in 108 countries have been accomplished aboard the orbiting facility. In the early days of ISS assembly, research took place at a more modest level than today. (...)
To get a jump start on conducting research aboard ISS as early as possible, mission managers approved the use of limited resources on the STS-106 mission in September 2000 to launch the first three NASA-sponsored science experiments. (...)

To ease the integration process, the three experiments chosen all had previous flight experience on space shuttle missions, required little crew time, and used little of the available stowage on ascent. One of the experiments would remain in the shuttle middeck throughout the shuttle mission as a so-called sortie payload, a second required only for a crewmember to transfer it to a quiescent location aboard ISS, and the third was passive stowage only, prepositioned on ISS to be operated once the Expedition 1 crew arrived.


Left: Morukov operating the CGBA in the shuttle middeck.
Middle: Wilcutt operating the CGBA.
Right:  CGBA Isothermal Control Module.

The sortie payload consisted of a Commercial Generic Bioprocessing Apparatus (CGBA), a single middeck locker sized apparatus that had flown multiple times on previous space shuttle flights. The CGBA, built by Bioserve Space Technologies at the University of Colorado in Boulder, provided automated processing for biological experiments, minimizing crew interactions to activation, periodic health checks, and deactivation. On STS-106, the CGBA contained the Isothermal Containment Module (ICM) to provide temperature control to the two experiments within the unit. One experiment, Synaptogenesis in Microgravity led by Principal Investigator (PI) Haig Kashishian of Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, used seven Gas Exchange-Group Activation Packs (GE-GAPs) to house and control the development of Drosophila melanogaster, or fruit flies. (...)
https://www.nasa.gov/feature/space-station-20th-first-nasa-research-on-iss

[Orionid]

Polski analizator bada środowisko wokół ISS
26.04.2013

Na zewnątrz Międzynarodowej Stacji Kosmicznej rozpoczął pracę analizator Centrum Badań Kosmicznych PAN. Pomoże on ustalić, jak zmieniające się pole elektromagnetyczne wpływa na stację, jej mieszkańców i eksperymenty. Ułatwi też diagnozowanie pogody kosmicznej.

Na Międzynarodowej Stacji Kosmicznej (International Space Station - ISS) trwa rozruch aparatury wchodzącej w skład eksperymentu Obstanovka (Środowisko). "Jednym z przyrządów, który zaczął gromadzić dane naukowe, jest analizator częstotliwości radiowych RFA, skonstruowany w Centrum Badań Kosmicznych Polskiej Akademii Nauk w Warszawie" – poinformowało CBK PAN w przesłanym w czwartek PAP komunikacie.

Urządzenie ma monitorować w własności elektromagnetycznego środowiska kosmicznego w bezpośrednim sąsiedztwie stacji. Pozwoli również opisywać zmiany najbliższego otoczenia Ziemi wywołane zmienną aktywnością Słońca.

"Międzynarodowa Stacja Kosmiczna to wielki, w znacznej części metalowy obiekt, który przemieszcza się w plazmie wokółziemskiej i ją zaburza. Chcemy się dowiedzieć, jak te zaburzenia wpływają na samą strukturę stacji, na znajdujące się na niej przyrządy i wyniki prowadzonych tu doświadczeń. To pierwsze pomiary tego typu" - wyjaśnia prof. Hanna Rothkaehl z CBK PAN.

W skład zespołu prowadzącego eksperyment Obstanovka wchodzą badacze z Bułgarii, Polski, Rosji, Szwecji, Węgier, Wielkiej Brytanii i Ukrainy. Polskim wkładem w część falowo-plazmową eksperymentu jest analizator częstotliwości radiowych RFA, zbudowany dzięki grantom Ministerstwa Nauki i Szkolnictwa Wyższego.

Eksperyment realizowany przez naukowców z CBK PAN umożliwi poznanie mechanizmów odpowiedzialnych za kształtowanie pogody kosmicznej i jej wpływu na stację.

"Środowisko wokół stacji jest bowiem silnie modyfikowane przez zjawiska, w których główną rolę odgrywają oddziaływania między polami magnetycznymi Ziemi i Słońca" – czytamy w przesłanym PAP komunikacie.

Pomiary pozwolą również zdobyć dokładniejsze informacje o zakłóceniach elektromagnetycznych z powierzchni naszej planety. Szumy generowane przez linie wysokiego napięcia, radiowe i telewizyjne stacje nadawcze, powoli stają się równie istotnym problemem jak kosmiczne śmieci.

Przez ostatni rok analizator RFA przechodził testy w Instytucie Badań Kosmicznych w Moskwie. W lutym tego roku statek transportowy Progress dostarczył przyrząd na Międzynarodową Stację Kosmiczną. Kosmonauta Roman Romanenko podczas spaceru kosmicznego rozłożył na zewnątrz stacji układ anten wykonanych w CBK PAN. Późniejsze testy potwierdziły poprawną pracę przyrządu i umożliwiły rozpoczęcie zbierania danych naukowych.

"Z uwagi na ograniczenia transmisyjne w rosyjskim module stacji, tylko niewielka część danych zarejestrowanych przez przyrząd RFA jest przesyłana od razu na Ziemię. Pełny zestaw wyników trafia na wymienne dyski, które co kilka miesięcy będą transportowane z orbity przez powracających ze stacji kosmonautów" - wyjaśnia prof. Rothkaehl.

PAP - Nauka w Polsce
https://naukawpolsce.pap.pl/aktualnosci/news%2C395108%2Cpolski-analizator-bada-srodowisko-wokol-iss.html
https://www.forum.kosmonauta.net/index.php?topic=1222.msg52940#msg52940

[Orionid]

60 lat temu 25 września 1960 roku miał miejsce nieudany start orbitera Księżyca Pioneer P-30


Launch of an Atlas-Able rocket with Pioneer P-30.

Wrz 25 1960   15:13   Pioneer P-30   Atlas-D Able   Canaveral SLC-12   sonda   F11

Pioneer P-30

(...) The spacecraft was launched on an Air Force-Convair Atlas D intercontinental ballistic missile coupled to Thor-Able upper stages including a Hercules ABL solid propellant third stage. The first stage burned normally for 275 seconds, the two Atlas booster engines were jettisonned as planned after ~250 seconds. At an altitude of about 370 km the first stage separated from the second stage. When the second stage was ignited telemetry showed abnormal burning and the stage failed due to a malfunction in the oxidizer system. The vehicle was unable to achieve Earth orbit, re-entered and was believed to have come down somewhere in the Indian Ocean. Signals were returned by the payload for 1020 seconds after launch. The mission was designed to reach the Moon approximately 62 hours after launch. (...)
https://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/nmc/spacecraft/display.action?id=PIONY

https://space.skyrocket.de/doc_sdat/pioneer_p1.htm