Jeff Foust reports via SpaceNews: A NASA official opened the door to keeping the International Space Station in operation beyond 2030 if commercial space stations are not yet ready to take over by the end of the decade. Speaking at the Beyond Earth Symposium here Nov. 2, Ken Bowersox, NASA associate administrator for space operations, said it was "not mandatory" to retire the ISS as currently planned at the end of the decade depending on the progress companies are making on commercial stations. "The timeline is flexible," he said of that transition from the ISS to commercial stations. "It's not mandatory that we stop flying the ISS in 2030. But, it is our full intention to switch to new platforms when they're available." [...]

Bowersox acknowledged that schedule depends on the readiness of those commercial stations. "When it happens is going to depend a lot the maturity of the market," he said, which includes both the status of commercial stations and non-NASA customers for them. He made it clear that NASA does not expect to be the only customer for commercial stations. NASA's current requirements for those stations anticipate having two astronauts at a time on them, less than the ISS. "We looked at what we thought would be reasonable and what would actually give us a cost savings," he said of that requirement. "My biggest concern is if we get too far ahead of where the market and NASA has to carry the full cost of the platforms for longer, and we transition too quickly," he said. That could force NASA to move money from current ISS utilization to support those stations. "If we have a badly managed transition, we could find ourselves getting weak in those areas."

Jude Karabus writes via The Register: NASA has confirmed it will ask American companies to duke it out for the opportunity to deorbit the International Space Station -- quietly releasing a request for proposals last week. The specs, which appeared on U.S. government e-procurement portal SAM.gov, are for a vehicle the agency has dubbed the U.S. Deorbit Vehicle (USDV), which will be focused on the space station's final deorbit activity. According to NASA, it will be a "new spacecraft design or modification to an existing spacecraft" that must function on its first flight (yep, important that), as well as have "sufficient redundancy and anomaly recovery capability to continue the critical deorbit burn."

NASA is getting in well ahead of the 2030 deadline, by which time the agency is hoping to have "seamlessly transitioned" to commercially owned and operated platforms in low Earth orbit (LEO). The vehicle will take years to develop, test, and certify. The request for proposals (RFP) is a confirmation that the agency is going to go with the second option it floated in March, saying a private contractor would cut costs down from a predicted $1 billion.

SonicSpike shares a report from NASA: In 2023, NASA is sending a technology demonstration known as the Integrated LCRD Low Earth Orbit User Modem and Amplifier Terminal (ILLUMA-T) to the space station. Together, ILLUMA-T and the Laser Communications Relay Demonstration (LCRD), which launched in December 2021, will complete NASA's first two-way, end-to-end laser relay system. With ILLUMA-T, NASA's Space Communications and Navigation (SCaN) program office will demonstrate the power of laser communications from the space station. Using invisible infrared light, laser communications systems send and receive information at higher data rates. With higher data rates, missions can send more images and videos back to Earth in a single transmission. Once installed on the space station, ILLUMA-T will showcase the benefits higher data rates could have for missions in low Earth orbit.

"Laser communications offer missions more flexibility and an expedited way to get data back from space," said Badri Younes, former deputy associate administrator for NASA's SCaN program. "We are integrating this technology on demonstrations near Earth, at the Moon, and in deep space." In addition to higher data rates, laser systems are lighter and use less power -- a key benefit when designing spacecraft. ILLUMA-T is approximately the size of a standard refrigerator and will be secured to an external module on the space station to conduct its demonstration with LCRD. Currently, LCRD is showcasing the benefits of a laser relay in geosynchronous orbit -- 22,000 miles from Earth -- by beaming data between two ground stations and conducting experiments to further refine NASA's laser capabilities. "Once ILLUMA-T is on the space station, the terminal will send high-resolution data, including pictures and videos to LCRD at a rate of 1.2 gigabits-per-second," said Matt Magsamen, deputy project manager for ILLUMA-T. "Then, the data will be sent from LCRD to ground stations in Hawaii and California. This demonstration will show how laser communications can benefit missions in low Earth orbit."

ILLUMA-T is launching as a payload on SpaceX's 29th Commercial Resupply Services mission for NASA. In the first two weeks after its launch, ILLUMA-T will be removed from the Dragon spacecraft's trunk for installation on the station's Japanese Experiment Module-Exposed Facility (JEM-EF), also known as "Kibo" -- meaning "hope" in Japanese. NASA's Laser Communications Roadmap. Following the payload's installation, the ILLUMA-T team will perform preliminary testing and in-orbit checkouts. Once completed, the team will make a pass for the payload's first light -- a critical milestone where the mission transmits its first beam of laser light through its optical telescope to LCRD. Once first light is achieved, data transmission and laser communications experiments will begin and continue throughout the duration of the planned mission.

For SpaceX's 11th crewed mission — its eighth flight for NASA — "A SpaceX Dragon spacecraft carrying four astronauts will arrive at the International Space Station early Sunday," reports Space.com, "and you can watch it all live online in a free livestream." The Crew Dragon capsule Endurance is scheduled to reach the International Space Station at 8:39 a.m. EDT (1239 GMT), where it will dock itself to a space-facing port on the outpost's U.S.-built Harmony module.

The docking will mark the end of a nearly 30-hour journey for the capsule's four-person crew, which launched in the wee hours of Saturday from NASA's Pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida... "SpaceX, thanks for the ride, it was awesome," Crew-7 commander Jasmin Moghbeli of NASA said after the crew reached orbit. "Go Crew-7, awesome ride." SpaceX's Crew-7 mission for NASA is ferrying Moghbeli to the ISS with a truly international crew: pilot Andreas Mogensen of the European Space Agency; and mission specialists Konstantin Borisov of Russia's Roscosmos agency and Satoshi Furukawa of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency. The quartet is the first all-international crew, with members from four different agencies and countries, to fly on the same Dragon capsule...

The Crew-7 astronauts are beginning a six-month expedition to the space station and will relieve the four astronauts of NASA's Crew-6 mission, who are due to return shortly after Moghbeli and her crew arrive.
SpaceX has created a "follow Dragon" web page with graphics tracking the capsule's progress to the Space Station...

Using data collected from the International Space Station (ISS), scientists found that a small yet growing percentage of tree leaves in tropical forests are approaching the maximum temperature threshold for leaves to photosynthesize," reports Live Science. If this trend continues, it could spell disaster for Earth's climate systems and biodiversity. The findings have been published in the journal Nature. From the report: The average critical temperature beyond which photosynthetic machinery in tropical trees begins to fail is 116 degrees Fahrenheit (46.7 degrees Celsius). Currently, only 0.01 % of all leaves surpass this critical temperature every year. But scientists warn that air temperature rises of 7.2 F (4 C) could push trees in tropical forests beyond a tipping point and into mass death. "It's concerning from our perspective that you see nonlinear trends. So you heat the air by, let's say, 2, 3 degrees Celsius [3.6 to 5.4 F], and the actual upper temperature of these leaves goes up by 8 degrees [Celsius; 14.4 F]," Christopher Doughty, an associate professor of ecoinformatics at Northern Arizona University, said during a press conference on Monday (Aug. 21). "Even though a small percentage of leaves are currently doing this, our best guess is that a 4 degrees Celsius increase in temperature could cause some serious issues for certain tropical forests." [...]

Plugging these peak temperatures into a mathematical model, the scientists found that an average 7 F (3.9 C) increase in the air temperature surrounding the leaves caused those most exposed to the heat to have their water-carrying stomata closed off by the tree, leading to their deaths. This triggered a cascade effect, increasing the temperature around the remaining leaves and potentially killing them, their branches and the trees in turn. "If you have 10% of the leaves dying, the whole branch is going to be warmer because a critical part of that branch can no longer cool the broader branch. Likewise you can make that assumption across the whole forest when a tree dies," Doughty said.

A retired Technical Fellow from Rockwell Collins "released a 65-page paper that details an easy-to-understand, relatively inexpensive, and feasible plan to turn an asteroid into a space habitat," reports Universe Today (in an article republished at Science Alert): Dr. David W. 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)... He eventually settled on a torus as the ideal habitat type and then dives into calculations about the overall station mass, how to support the inner wall with massive columns, and how to allocate floor space.

All important, but how exactly would we build such a massive behemoth? Self-replicating robots are Dr. Jensen's answer. The report's third section details a plan to utilize spider robots and a base station that can replicate themselves. He stresses the importance of only sending the most advanced technical components from Earth and using materials on the asteroid itself to build everything else, from rock grinders to solar panels...

With admittedly "back-of-the-envelope" calculations, Dr. Jensen estimates that the program would cost only $4.1 billion. That is far less than the $93 billion NASA plans to spend on the Apollo program. And the result would be a space habitat that provides 1 billion square meters of land that didn't exist before. That's a total cost of $4.10 per square meter to build land — in space. Possibly even more impressive is the timeline — Dr. Jensen estimates that the entire construction project could be done in as little as 12 years. However, it will still take longer to fill the habitat with air and water and start regulating its temperature.

Recently Ars Technica reported on "another application for SpaceX's Starship architecture that the company is studying," adding that NASA "is on board to lend expertise.

"Though still in a nascent phase of tech development, the effort could result in repurposing Starship into a commercial space station, something NASA has a keen interest in because there are no plans for a government-owned research lab in low-Earth orbit after the International Space Station is decommissioned after 2030." NASA announced last month a new round of agreements with seven commercial companies, including SpaceX. The Collaborations for Commercial Space Capabilities (CCSC) program is an effort established to advance private sector development of emerging products and services that could be available to customers — including NASA — in approximately five to seven years... NASA passed over SpaceX's bid for a funded space station development agreement in 2021, identifying concerns about SpaceX's plans for scaling its life-support system to enable long-duration missions and SpaceX's plan for a single docking port, among other issues. The space agency isn't providing any funding for the new CCSC effort, which includes the Starship space station concept, but the government will support the industry with technical expertise, including expert assessments, lessons learned, technologies, and data.

Apart from the SpaceX agreement, NASA said it will provide non-financial support to Blue Origin's initiative to develop a crew spacecraft for orbital missions that would launch on the company's New Glenn rocket. The agency also supports Northrop Grumman's development of a human-tended research platform in low-Earth orbit to work alongside the company's planned space station. The other companies NASA picked for unfunded agreements were: Sierra Space's proposal for a crewed version of its Dream Chaser spacecraft, Vast's concept for a privately owned space station, ThinkOrbital's plan to develop welding, cutting, inspection, and additive manufacturing technology for construction work in space, and Special Aerospace Services for collaboration on an autonomous maneuvering unit to assist, or potentially replace, spacewalkers working outside a space station.

Despite the lack of NASA funding, the new collaboration announcement with SpaceX laid out — in broad strokes, at least — one of the directions SpaceX may want to take Starship. NASA said it will work with SpaceX on an "integrated low-Earth orbit architecture" that includes the Starship vehicle and other SpaceX programs, including the Dragon crew capsule and Starlink broadband network.
The artice links to a recent NASA document detailing SpaceX's space station concept. Phil McAlister, who heads NASA's commercial spaceflight division, says its size and reduced cost "could have a far-reaching impact on the sustainable development of the low-Earth orbit) economy...

"Adding increased confidence is the company's plan to self-fund Starship development from its launch and satellite enterprises."

Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader Amiga Trombone for sharing the article.

Airbus is forming a joint venture with US start-up Voyager to compete to build a replacement for the International Space Station, an internationally funded laboratory in space that is due to be decommissioned by the end of the decade. From a report: The deal announced on Wednesday formalises the partnership unveiled in January on Voyager's Starlab project and will see Airbus replace US defence company Lockheed Martin as its main industrial partner. Starlab is one of the frontrunners in a race launched by Nasa four years ago to develop commercial alternatives to the ISS, which was launched 23 years ago and orbits some 420 kms above the earth.

The ISS is an international collaboration, funded by national space agencies from the US, EU, Canada, Japan and Russia. Since its launch it has hosted 258 astronauts and cosmonauts from 20 countries. Among the other contenders in the race trying to build a replacement is Jeff Bezos's Blue Origin, which is leading a consortium offering a 30,000 sq ft "ecosystem" of different habitats and services for industry, research and tourism. Nasa has allocated $550mn to four consortiums in the first phase of the competition, which will examine the spacecraft design and the business cases of each contender. The US agency has insisted each be commercially viable.

Boeing's CST-100 Starliner program, developed for NASA since 2014, has incurred total losses exceeding $1 billion, with an additional $257 million loss announced in the second quarter of 2023. Gizmodo reports: Boeing's total losses now amount to a staggering $1.14 billion for the Starliner program. The impact of these setbacks is evident in the company's Defense, Space, and Security division, which reported a significant loss of $527 million during the second quarter, with the Starliner project accounting for a substantial portion of this downturn, according to Ars Technica. Adding insult to injury, there's still no indication as to when Starliner will perform its first flight with a crew on board.

Boeing, currently operating under a fixed-price contract with NASA, is obligated to absorb any additional costs. The company signed a $4.2 billion contract in 2014 as part of NASA's Commercial Crew Program, encompassing six operational Starliner missions. NASA also holds a parallel contract with SpaceX. Since 2020, SpaceX's Crew Dragon capsule has completed six crewed flights for NASA, with a seventh mission planned for this coming August and an eighth tentatively planned for February 2024. Boeing has yet to fly Starliner with a crew on board, though it did perform a reasonably successful uncrewed mission in May 2022.

In its latest financial earnings statement, Boeing said the Starliner program "recorded a $257 million loss primarily due to the impacts of the previously announced launch delay." The company initially aimed for a Crew Flight Test (CFT) launch on July 1, with NASA astronauts Sunita Williams and Barry "Butch" Wilmore destined for the International Space Station (ISS). However, Boeing announced an indefinite delay to the launch on June 1 due to the discovery of two major safety issues. The first problem has to do with the load capacity of Starliner's three parachutes, designed to ensure a safe landing for the crew vehicle. The fabric sections of the parachutes have a failure load limit lower than anticipated, implying that if one parachute fails, the remaining two would be incapable of adequately decelerating the spacecraft for its landing in New Mexico. The second issue involves hundreds of feet of protective tape used to insulate the wiring harnesses inside the Starliner vehicle, which were found to be flammable. Mark Nappi, Boeing Starliner program manager and vice president, explained during the June briefing that it's too late to remove the flammable tape without inflicting further damage to the vehicle. Instead, Boeing and NASA are considering solutions involving additional wrapping over the existing tape in high-risk areas to mitigate fire hazards. On Wednesday, Boeing President and CEO David Calhoun said: "On Starliner, we are in lockstep with our customer. We prioritize safety and we're taking whatever time is required. We're confident in that team and committed to getting it right."

NASA has expanded its contracts with Axiom Space and Collins Aerospace to design and develop new spacesuits, providing each company with an additional $5 million. Engadget reports: NASA has ordered a spacesuit from Axiom Space meant for use in Low Earth Orbit, specifically for spacewalks outside the International Space Station. The original contract for Axiom was for a spacewalking system that the Artemis III astronauts will wear on the lunar surface when they land on the moon. Axiom unveiled a prototype for its original order in March, showcasing a suit with joints that allow wearers to move around with ease and a helmet equipped with a light and an HD camera. Meanwhile, Collins Aerospace has received an order for a spacesuit meant for use on the lunar surface. The company was previously contracted to develop a spacewalking suit for use outside the ISS. In other words, each company has received a new order that mirrors the other's previous one.

Redundancy is an important part of space tech development. In this case, spacesuits meant for the same purpose developed by two different companies could ensure that astronauts will have something to use if the other one fails for any reason. That said, the new task orders are for the companies' initial "design modification work" -- they're essentially modifying their original suits for a new purpose -- and NASA wants to see them first before committing to their continued development. Axiom told SpaceNews that if NASA decides to push through with the new spacesuits' development, the full order will cost the agency $142 million over four years.

The international space station is equpped with four 39-foot blankets (11.8-meters), reports CBS News. The first one was delivered in December of 2000 — and now it's time for some changes: Two astronauts ventured outside the International Space Station Friday and installed the fifth of six roll-out solar array blankets — iROSAs — needed to offset age-related degradation and micrometeoroid damage to the lab's original solar wings.

Floating in the Quest airlock, veteran Stephen Bowen, making his ninth spacewalk, and crewmate Woody Hoburg, making his first, switched their spacesuits to battery power at 9:25 a.m. EDT, officially kicking off the 264th spacewalk devoted to ISS assembly and maintenance and the seventh so far this year. NASA is in the process of upgrading the ISS's solar power system by adding six iROSAs to the lab's eight existing U.S. arrays. The first four roll-out blankets were installed during spacewalks in 2021 and 2022. Bowen and Hoburg installed the fifth during Friday's spacewalk and plan to deploy the sixth during another excursion next Thursday.

The two new iROSAs were delivered to the space station earlier this week in the unpressurized trunk section of a SpaceX cargo Dragon. The lab's robot arm pulled them out Wednesday and mounted them on the right side of the station's power truss just inboard the starboard wings... As the station sailed 260 miles above the Great Lakes, the 63-foot-long solar array slowly unwound like a window shade to its full length. Well ahead of schedule by that point, the spacewalkers carried out a variety of get-ahead tasks to save time next week when they float back outside to install the second new iROSA.

They returned to the airlock and began re-pressurization procedures at 3:28 p.m., bringing the 6-hour three-minute spacewalk to a close. With nine spacewalks totaling 60 hours and 22 minutes under his belt, Bowen now ranks fifth on the list of the world's most experienced spacewalkers.
"Combined with the 95-kilowatt output of the original eight panels, the station's upgraded system will provide about 215,000 kilowatts of power."

Artificial photosynthesis, inspired by the natural process that enables plants to convert sunlight, water, and carbon dioxide into oxygen and energy, could be crucial for space exploration and colonization. By using semiconductor materials and metallic catalysts, these devices could efficiently produce oxygen and recycle carbon dioxide, reducing reliance on heavy and unreliable systems currently used on the International Space Station. ScienceAlert reports: As my colleagues and I have investigated in a new paper, published in Nature Communications, recent advances in making artificial photosynthesis may well be key to surviving and thriving away from Earth. [...] We produced a theoretical framework to analyze and predict the performance of such integrated "artificial photosynthesis" devices for applications on Moon and Mars. Instead of chlorophyll, which is responsible for light absorption in plants and algae, these devices use semiconductor materials which can be coated directly with simple metallic catalysts supporting the desired chemical reaction. Our analysis shows that these devices would indeed be viable to complement existing life support technologies, such as the oxygen generator assembly employed on the ISS. This is particularly the case when combined with devices which concentrate solar energy in order to power the reactions (essentially large mirrors which focus the incoming sunlight).

There are other approaches too. For example, we can produce oxygen directly from lunar soil (regolith). But this requires high temperatures to work. Artificial photosynthesis devices, on the other hand, could operate at room temperature at pressures found on Mars and the Moon. That means they could be used directly in habitats and using water as the main resource. This is particularly interesting given the stipulated presence of ice water in the lunar Shackleton crater, which is an anticipated landing site in future lunar missions.

On Mars, the atmosphere composes of nearly 96% carbon dioxide - seemingly ideal for an artificial photosynthesis device. But the light intensity on the red planet is weaker than on Earth due to the larger distance from the Sun. So would this pose a problem? We actually calculated the sunlight intensity available on Mars. We showed that we can indeed use these devices there, although solar mirrors become even more important. [...] The returns would be huge. For example, we could actually create artificial atmospheres in space and produce chemicals we require on long-term missions, such as fertilizers, polymers, or pharmaceuticals. Additionally, the insights we gain from designing and fabricating these devices could help us meet the green energy challenge on Earth.

"A Boeing official said Thursday that the company was 'standing down' from an attempt to launch the Starliner spacecraft on July 21," reports Ars Technica, "to focus on recently discovered issues with the vehicle." Starliner's program manager said they'd spent last weekend investigating the problems, and "after internal discussions that included Boeing chief executive Dave Calhoun, the company decided to delay the test flight" carrying astronauts to the International Space Station. The issues seem rather serious to have been discovered weeks before Starliner was due to launch on an Atlas V rocket. The first involves "soft links" in the lines that run from Starliner to its parachutes. Boeing discovered that these were not as strong as previously believed. During a normal flight, these substandard links would not be an issue. But Starliner's parachute system is designed to land a crew safely in case one of the three parachutes fails. However, due to the lower failure load limit with these soft links, if one parachute fails, it's possible the lines between the spacecraft and its remaining two parachutes would snap due to the extra strain.

The second issue involves P-213 glass cloth tape that is wrapped around wiring harnesses throughout the vehicle. These cables run everywhere, and Nappi said there are hundreds of feet of these wiring harnesses. The tape is intended to protect the wiring from nicks. However, during recent tests, it was discovered that under certain circumstances possible in flight, this tape is flammable.
Thanks to xanthos (Slashdot reader #73,578) for sharing the article.

The Japanese space agency (JAXA) and NASA plan to launch a satellite made of wood in 2024. The Independent reports: The high durability of wood in space was recently tested and confirmed at the International Space Station (ISS) by an international group of scientists led by those from Kyoto University. Their experiments showed wood samples tested at the ISS for durability underwent minimal deterioration and maintained good stability. Preliminary inspection, including strength tests and crystal structural analyses, of the wood samples was also done once they were brought back to Earth from the ISS by Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata.

Despite extreme conditions in space, including temperature changes and exposure to intense cosmic rays and dangerous solar particles for 10 months, tests found no changes in the samples, such as cracking, warping, peeling or surface damage, according to a recent Kyoto University statement. The retrieved wood specimens were tested and showed no deformation after space exposure and also did not undergo any mass change before and after space exposure, scientists said.

The international research group has determined that the satellite LignoSat, slated to be jointly launched in 2024 by Nasa and Japan's space agency Jaxa, will likely use Magnolia wood -- "Hoonoki" in Japanese. Magnolia, researchers said, has relatively high workability, dimensional stability and overall strength, making its properties ideal for the mission. Wood also has some benefits compared to complex alloys used in space vehicles, as it is environmentally friendly, easier to produce and can be disposed off better at the end of a satellite's life. Such wooden satellites may also be designed to completely burn up on re-entry into the atmosphere and even if small fragments did survive, they may decompose easily.

schwit1 shares a report from UPI: SpaceX confirmed Wednesday it signed a contract to launch the world's first commercial space station. The company also will perform manned space flights shortly after launching the station into orbit "no later than August 2025," SpaceX said in a statement. The Haven-1 space station is being built by Vast, a private aerospace company based in Long Beach, Calif. Its "mission is to contribute to a future where billions of people are living and thriving in space -- a future in which the human population and our resources expand far beyond our current imagination." Vast is solely funded by its billionaire founder and CEO Jed McCaleb.

SpaceX will use its Falcon 9 rocket to carry the Haven-1 station into orbit. Manned crews will then use the company's Dragon reusable spacecraft to get to the space station, docking for up to 30 days while in orbit. Vast plans for the initial module to become part of a larger 100-meter-long multi-module spinning space station with artificial gravity. SpaceX confirmed it also will provide crew training, as well as spacesuit and spacecraft ingress and egress exercises. SpaceX also will conduct mission simulations, as part of the agreement with Vast. Crew selection is underway, the company said Wednesday, and will be announced at a future date.

schwit1 writes:

Crippled by war and sanctions, Russia now faces evidence that its already-struggling space program is falling apart. In the past three months alone, Roscosmos has scrambled to resolve two alarming incidents. First, one of its formerly dependable Soyuz spacecraft sprang a coolant leak. Then the same thing happened on one of its Progress cargo ships. The civil space program's Soviet predecessor launched the first person into orbit, but with the International Space Station (ISS) nearing the end of its life, Russia's space agency is staring into the abyss.

"What we're seeing is the continuing demise of the Russian civil space program," says Bruce McClintock, a former defense attache at the US embassy in Moscow and current head of the Space Enterprise Initiative of the Rand Corporation, a nonprofit research organization. Around 10 years ago, Russian leaders chose to prioritize the country's military space program -- which focuses on satellite and anti-satellite technologies -- over its civilian one, McClintock says, and it shows.

Russia's space fleet is largely designed to be expendable. The history of its series of Soyuz rockets and crew capsules (they both have the same name) dates back to the Soviet era, though they've gone through upgrades since. Its Progress cargo vessels also launch atop Soyuz rockets. The cargo ships, crewed ships, and rockets are all single-use spacecraft. Anatoly Zak, creator and publisher of the independent publication RussianSpaceWeb, estimates that Roscosmos launches about two Soyuz vehicles per year, takes about 1.5 to 2 years to build each one, and doesn't keep a substantial standing fleet.

While Roscosmos officials did not respond to interview requests, the agency has been public about its recent technical issues.

Plus this, which failed to make headlines here: "For crewed launches, Russia has long depended on its Baikonur spaceport in neighboring Kazakhstan. But the nation has charged costly annual fees, and in March Kazakhstan seized Russian spaceport assets, reportedly due to Roscosmos' debt."

An anonymous readers this surprising story from Mashable: When a Russian spaceship docked as a lifeboat for three stranded men at the International Space Station in February, one may have wondered if Sergei Krikalev, heading the rescue mission, felt any deja vu.

If that name doesn't ring a bell, he's also sometimes known as "the last Soviet" for his more than 311 days spent in space as the Soviet Union collapsed 250 miles beneath him in 1991. He was only meant to be at the Mir station for five months. Instead, he remained for close to a year, never abandoning the outpost.

Today, Krikalev, the former cosmonaut, is the executive director of human spaceflight for the Russian space agency. That means it's on his watch to make sure NASA astronaut Frank Rubio and cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitry Petelin get back home safely after their ship sprang a leak at the station in December 2022. The three marooned crew members were supposed to return this month. But their mission will now stretch for a year, until a new crew arrives to relieve them on a separate spacecraft in six months.

Krikalev's story of being stranded in space is now getting a perhaps overdue spotlight with a new podcast series called "The Last Soviet." And it's being told by another cosmonaut, Lance Bass.... Few may remember that boy-band member Bass almost made it to space on a Soyuz spacecraft himself. In 2002, he spent about six months, off and on, training in Star City, Russia, and was certified by Russia and NASA to fly a mission to the space station.

SpaceX is livestreaming coverage of its latest launch tonight. SpaceX and NASA were "preparing to launch a fresh crew to the International Space Station," reports CNN, "continuing the public-private effort to keep the orbiting laboratory fully staffed and return astronaut launches to U.S. soil

For this mission a reusable Falcon 9 rocket will eventually propel a Crew Dragon capsule into space — carrying six astronauts "from all over the world — two NASA astronauts, a Russian cosmonaut and an astronaut from the United Arab Emirates... to take over operations from the SpaceX Crew-5 astronauts who arrived at the space station in October 2022." They're expected to spend up to six months on board the orbiting laboratory, carrying out science experiments and maintaining the two-decade-old station.... During their stint in space, the Crew-6 astronauts will oversee more than 200 science-oriented projects, including researching how some substances burn in the microgravity environment and investigating microbial samples that will be collected from the exterior of the ISS.

They will play host to two other key missions that will stop by the ISS during their stay. The first is the Boeing Crew Flight Test, which will mark the first astronaut mission under a Boeing-NASA partnership. Slated for April, the flight will carry NASA astronauts Barry Wilmore and Sunita Williams to the space station, marking the last phase of a testing and demonstration program Boeing needs to carry out to certify its Starliner spacecraft for routine astronaut missions.

Then, in May, a group of four astronauts will arrive on a mission called AX-2 — a privately funded tourism mission to the space station. That mission, which will be carried out by a separate SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule, will include former NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson, now a private astronaut with the Texas-based space tourism company Axiom, which brokered and organized the mission. It will also include three paying customers, similar to the AX-1 mission that visited the ISS last year.
"It's another paradigm shift," mission commander Stephen Bowen said in January. "Those two events — huge events — in spaceflight happening during our increment, on top of all the other work we get to do, I don't think we're going to fully be able to absorb it until after the fact."

Roughly 25 hours after the launch the crew capsule willdock with the space station. This will be SpaceX's seventh astronaut-carrying flight for NASA since 2020.

Russia launched a Soyuz spacecraft that will replace a capsule that sprang a coolant leak in December, leaving two cosmonauts and one NASA astronaut without a ride home. CNN reports: Liftoff of the capsule, called the Soyuz MS-23, took place out of Russia's Baikonur Cosmodrome launch site in Kazakhstan on Thursday at 7:24 p.m. ET, which is 5:24 a.m. Friday local time. The uncrewed spacecraft will spend about two days in orbit, maneuvering toward the International Space Station It's expected to dock with the Poisk module -- which is on the space station's Russian-run portion -- just after 8 p.m. ET Saturday.

The Soyuz MS-23 will be the return vehicle for cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitri Petelin and NASA astronaut Frank Rubio, all of whom traveled to the space station aboard the Soyuz MS-22 capsule in September. Rather than flying with crew members aboard, the Soyuz MS-23 launched on Thursday with only a "Zero-G indicator," which can be any object that is left in the cabin and is designed to float freely when the capsule enters microgravity. For this mission, the indicator is a teddy bear tethered by a string inside the cabin.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: Vast Space, a company that emerged from stealth last September with the aim of building artificial gravity space stations in low Earth orbit, has acquired space tug startup Launcher, TechCrunch has exclusively learned. The acquisition, a first for Vast, will give the company access to Launcher's Orbiter space tug and payload platform and its liquid rocket engine, E-2. Under the terms of the deal, Vast will also absorb all of Launcher's talent, including Launcher founder Max Haot, who will join as president. The two companies told TechCrunch that the deal has been in the works for months, with both signing a Letter of Intent to acquire back in November.

The deal could be a big accelerator for Vast; the company's founder, billionaire crypto pioneer Jed McCaleb, said Vast will use the Orbiter tug to test space station subsystems and components in orbit as soon as June of this year, and then again around October. Those two missions, which will be Orbiter's second and third flights, will also carry customer payloads. Vast will continue to operate Orbiter as a commercial product; Haot said they had more than five customer contracts and are signing more. Haot added that the space tug's abilities, like approaching and moving away from spacecraft and hosting payloads, as well as its technologies like flight software, avionics and guidance, navigation and control systems will complement development of the space station. "The two companies declined to provide much more detail about the upcoming missions using Orbiter, nor did they offer any detail about future timelines for development, partnerships or form factor of the station," notes TechCrunch. "But they did say that the first station the company sends to space will be zero G, with artificial gravity stations following."

More generally, McCaleb said that acquisitions are not part of Vast's larger strategy. "Acquisitions typically go pretty wrong," he said. "For the most part, the combined team now plus a few more folks, we'll be able to do quite a bit."