HOUSTON (NASA PR) — The International Space Station is the setting today for a student competition to control tiny, free-floating satellites aboard the orbiting lab. Meanwhile, the Expedition 60 crewmembers conducted a variety of research operations and continued configuring a pair of spacesuits.
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KOUROU, French Guiana (ESA PR) — The second satellite to join the constellation that forms the European Data Relay System (EDRS) has been successfully launched.
The satellite was launched on board an Ariane 5 from Europe’s Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana, on 6 August at 21:30 CEST (19:30 UTC).
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PARIS (ESA PR) — Over two weeks have flown by since ESA astronaut Luca Parmitano was launched to the International Space Station for his second six-month stay in orbit. His arrival, alongside NASA astronaut Andrew Morgan and Roscosmos Soyuz commander Alexander Skvortsov, boosted the Station’s population to six and the crew has been busy ever since – performing a wide range of science in space.
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SINT-STEVENS-WOLUWE, Belgium — 13 July 2018 (ESA PR) — Europe’s new commercial research facility on the International Space Station, called ICE Cubes or International Commercial Experiments Service, is inaugurating its new service today with a special event in Belgium. With the first experiments installed, the service is ready to perform operations in orbit.
HOUSTON (NASA PR) — A new, simple and cost-effective way to conduct experiments and test technology aboard the International Space Station offers another option to make space more accessible for out-of-this-world research.
Friedrichshafen/Bremen, Germany (Airbus PR) – Airbus, in cooperation with IBM, is developing CIMON (Crew Interactive MObile CompanioN), an AI-based assistant for astronauts for the DLR Space Administration. The technology demonstrator, which is the size of a medicine ball and weighs around 5 kg, will be tested on the ISS by Alexander Gerst during the European Space Agency’s Horizons mission between June and October 2018.
COLOGNE, Germany (DLR PR) — The Columbus space laboratory began its journey into space on 7 February 2008 and has now been the scientific heart of European research on the International Space Station (ISS) for ten years. In microgravity, researchers gain unique insights from a wide range of disciplines from astrophysics, through materials research, to psychology and medical treatment options. The German Aerospace Center (Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt; DLR) supervised the development and construction of the ISS module on behalf of the European Space Agency (ESA), is involved with experiments at a research level and runs the operation from its Columbus Control Center in Oberpfaffenhofen.
NOORDWIJK, Netherlands (Airbus PR) – The European Space Agency (ESA) and Airbus have signed a commercial partnership (PPP) agreement for construction, launch and operations of the commercial “Bartolomeo” platform. Airbus’ new external payload hosting facility will be attached to the European Columbus module of the International Space Station (ISS) from mid-2019.
Video Caption: After a fruitful 2017 with many exciting launches and the end of some historic missions, ESA is ready for the year to come.
2018 will see the 10th anniversary of the International Space Station’s Columbus module and an ESA astronaut taking the helm of the ISS as commander.
There will be more launches of new Earth observation and exploration satellites and ESA will venture to the innermost planet in our Solar System.
2018 will also mark the completion of the first part of the Copernicus constellation observing the Earth and of the full Galileo constellation, Europe’s own satellite navigation system.
COLOGNE, Germany (CSA PR) — The International Space Station (ISS) is a busy laboratory for an assortment of science experiments and technology demonstrations. At any one time, the Station’s rotating crew of six astronauts are responsible for the success of an ever-changing lineup of 200 experiments, whose investigators hail from more than 30 countries.
Summary
21 June 2012 (Astrium PR) — Astrium, Europe’s number-one space company, has been awarded two studies by the European Space Agency (ESA) to define how to evolve technologies used on the Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV) and the Columbus space laboratory for future space vehicles. The envisaged value of both studies is €13 million [$16.5 million] — €6.5 million [$8.25 million] per study.
Flight Global has a report about a recent meeting held by NASA chief Mike Griffin and Italian Space Agency President (ASI) Giovanni Fabrizio Bignami to help map out an international human exploration strategy.
The story says that U.S. and Italian officials agreed that Europe needs autonomous human access to space. They also agreed that studies of nuclear propulsion and the orbital assembly of Mars spacecraft are necessary.
Italy has been heavily involved in human spaceflight, providing two nodes for the International Space Station as well as making major contributions to ESA’s Columbus module and the Automated Transfer Vehicle.
