The International Space Station with ESA’s Columbus laboratory flies 400 km high at speeds that defy gravity – literally. At 28 800 km/h it only takes 90 minutes for the weightless laboratory to make a complete circuit of Earth. Astronauts working and living on the Station experience 16 sunrises and sunsets each day.
Posted on Monday July 19th, 2021 by Nadjejda
ESA astronaut André Kuipers first encountered the European Robotic Arm (ERA) on paper, when it was intended for a proposed spaceplane called Hermes. Many iterations later, this European-built robot will soon be launched to the International Space Station – its new home in orbit.
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Posted on Thursday July 8th, 2021 by Nadjejda
The robotic arm gently transfers the astronaut to the far end of the International Space Station to install a radiator on the Russian side. A mix of commands and data flows between the robot and the human in outer space, and between the crew inside the station and the teams on Earth.
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Posted on Tuesday July 6th, 2021 by julien
As Europe celebrates 20 years of ESA astronauts on the International Space Station guest blogger Szabolcs Nagy looks at the history and methods of photographing the outpost.
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Posted on Monday March 22nd, 2021 by julien
The month of February saw astronauts and ground control work on maintaining and checking new hardware installed inside and out Europe’s Columbus laboratory. With a spacewalk in January to install the external commercial facility Bartolomeo and ColKa antenna, astronauts, and mission control set up the systems and troubleshoot – alongside all the regular European science. […]
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Posted on Thursday March 11th, 2021 by julien
Info on the spacewalk set for Saturday 13 March to finish Bartolomeo installation and more.
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Posted on Tuesday October 27th, 2020 by Ally
Monday 2 November marks 20 years since the first crew took up residence on the International Space Station. Since then the football field-sized feat of engineering has hosted 26 European missions and supported over 2700 international experiments to improve life on Earth and in space.
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Posted on Friday October 16th, 2020 by Annelies Van Dam
As any scientist will confirm, a huge part of doing science is being attentive. Making sure experiments run smoothly. Observing outcomes. Fine-tuning settings to the tiniest degree. With many different experiments running simultaneously on the Space Station, 400 kilometres above the earth, at a speed of roughly 28 000 km/h, attention to detail becomes an invaluable virtue.
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Posted on Tuesday July 21st, 2020 by Ally
Last Thursday, NASA astronauts Chris Cassidy and Bob Behnken performed the 11th spacewalk in a three-and-a-half-year effort to upgrade the International Space Station’s power system.
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