Blob Outside of Space Station

Cosmonauts on board the International Space Station (ISS) conducted a spacewalk in order to fix a leaking radiator on Wednesday.


The leak, confirmed earlier this month by Russian space agency Roscosmos, came from the backup radiator mounted on the outside of the Nauka module launched in 2021. The main radiator remains operational, but Rosmocos scheduled in a spacewalk to fix the problem.

Inspecting the source of the leak, Oleg Kononenko reported seeing a number of holes on the radiator panel.

"The holes have very even edges, like they've been drilled through," Kononenko told Moscow Mission Control, Space.com reports. "There are lots of them. They are spread in a chaotic manner."

The cosmonauts were equipped with a cloth towel to soak up any escaping liquid, but Kononenko was told to leave the area immediately after encountering a blob of coolant, which had moved onto his safety tether.  READ MORE...

China Doubles Size of its Space Station

In a matter of less than two years, China assembled three modules of its space station dubbed Tiangong, an orbital habitat that can accommodate a crew of three astronauts.

And while it's still significantly smaller than the International Space Station — which took well over a decade to complete — that could soon change.


China is now planning to expand the station with an additional three modules, Reuters reports, offering the country and its international partners an important alternative to the ISS, which is set to be retired by the end of the decade.


Even with the additional three modules, Tiangong will still be only about 40 percent of the mass of the ISS, per the report — but a growing space for research in orbit is still arguably a lot better than not having one at all.

Heavenly Palace
Space contractor the China Academy of Space Technology (CAST) announced this week that the station's lifespan will also be 15 — not the previously announced ten — years, according to Reuters, meaning that it'll outlive the ISS by several years if things go according to plan.  READ MORE...

Turn Asteroid Into a Space Station

The basic idea of turning an asteroid into a rotating space habitat has existed for a while. Despite that, it's always seemed relatively far off regarding technologies, so the concept hasn't received much attention over the years.


But, if you're retired and have an underlying interest in researching space habitats, developing a detailed plan for turning an asteroid into one seems like a great use of time.


And that is precisely what David W. Jensen, a retired Technical Fellow at Rockwell Collins, recently did. He released a 65-page paper that details an easy-to-understand, relatively inexpensive, and feasible plan to turn an asteroid into a space habitat.


Fully diving into the report's details would be far beyond the scope of this article, but we can hit the highlights. Dr. Jensen breaks the discussion into three main categories – asteroid selection, habitat style selection, and mission strategy to get there (i.e., what robots to use). Let's tackle each of them in turn.

Asteroid selection focused on which asteroid would make the best candidate to be transformed into a rotating space habitat. Considerations for this part include what the asteroid is made of, its proximity to Earth (and "delta-V," i.e., how much energy it takes to reach), and its overall size.  READ MORE...

China's New Space Station

China launched a 23-tonne research lab module to its newly built space station Tiangong on Sunday 24 July. The lab Wentian, or "Quest for the Heavens", is expected to carry out biological and life science research.

This is China's latest step to become a leading space power.

What is the Tiangong space station?
Tiangong space station, or "Heavenly Palace", is China's new permanent space station. 

The country has previously launched two temporary trial space stations, named as Tiangong-1 and Tiangong-2.

The new lab Wentian is the second of three key modules to Tiangong. 

The first key module Tianhe - which contains living quarters for crew members - was sent into orbit in April 2021. 

The other key module, Mengtian science lab, is due to be launched by the end of 2022.  READ MORE...

Artificial Gravity Space Station

Vast is focused on creating large spinning structure that create a gravity-like pull. 

Credit: Vast Space artist's concept

PARIS – Vast Space, a Southern California startup founded by cryptocurrency billionaire Jed McCaleb, plans to establish an artificial-gravity space station in low Earth orbit.

McCaleb envisions a future where millions of people are living throughout the solar system. Since other companies are helping to reduce launch costs, McCaleb thinks the next important step will be creating large structures where people can live and work in space.

“Earth has finite resources, but out in the solar system, there is an enormous untapped wealth, both in terms of energy and matter, that could support many ‘Earths,'” McCaleb told SpaceNews by email. “Likewise, mankind needs a frontier. 

Every prosperous civilization has had one to push off into – nevertheless, we haven’t had one for some time. Without a frontier, the world becomes a zero-sum game, which is detrimental to the psyche of a civilization. And in terms of the long-term future of humanity, we will need to live off of the Earth eventually.”


McCaleb, whose wealth Forbes pegs at $2.5 billion, initially plans to self-finance Vast’s work.

“I’ve done many software startups and had great success in the crypto world, which gave me enough resources to attempt something ambitious in space,” McCaleb said. “Eventually, we hope to have some form of revenue generation. I’d like Vast to have a usable station in space by that time.”

Over the long term, Vast is likely to seek outside investment. In the near term, though, the company will “focus on the mission and not become beholden to investors,” McCaleb said. “And at some point, we would like to get customers, like NASA or other national programs.”  READ MORE...

NASA Teleports Physician to Space Station

NASA flight surgeon Dr. Josef Schmid gives a space greeting Oct. 8, 2021, as he is holoported 

on to the International Space Station.  ESA (European Space Agency) astronaut Thomas Pesquet

What's happening  --  A NASA flight surgeon was holoported beyond Earth and shook hands with astronaut Thomas Pesquet

Why it matters  --  "It is a brand new way of human exploration where our human entity is able to travel off the planet," according to NASA flight surgeon, Josef Schmid.

I have a new noun to add to your vocabulary: holoportation. It's an amalgam of "hologram" and "teleportation," and it isn't a niche sci-fi term buried somewhere in Isaac Asimov novels and Star Trek episodes.

In October, NASA used this mind-boggling, futuristic mechanism to bring NASA flight surgeon Dr. Josef Schmid onto the International Space Station while he was safely planted on our planet. No rockets necessary.

Schmid was joined on this transdimensional journey by Fernando De La Pena Llaca, the CEO of AEXA Aerospace, an organization that helped develop the holoportation equipment, and a few other team members.

"It is a brand new way of human exploration where our human entity is able to travel off the planet," Schmid said in a statement earlier in April. "Our physical body is not there, but our human entity absolutely is there."  READ MORE...