In Conversation with Astronaut Paolo Nespoli

On July 28 2017, European Space Agency astronaut Paolo Nespoli alongside Soyuz MS-05 crew mates Sergey Ryazanskiy and Randy Bresnik will launch on a five-month mission to the International Space Station as part of Expedition 52/53. Five years ago I was lucky enough to interview Nespoli following a talk he gave in Dublin's Little Museum celebrating Science Week 2012.

What were your favourite subjects in school?

Hmm... Well I liked the science things such as math and physics. But I mean I wasn't an exceptional student, I was just a regular guy. I think one of the problems was that school at that time was not really interested in adapting to the student. It had a programme that was not challenging for me, so I didn't really care. I remember I did really poor in Latin. So the bottom line really is that science was my preferred subject, but it's not like I was excelling.

Science Week 2012 interview with Paolo Nespoli at Dublin's Little Museum

So then you took these interests and you ended up studying aeronautical engineering in New York. At what point then did you decide that you wanted to become an astronaut?

The idea of becoming an astronaut came when I was around 10, and I saw American astronauts jumping on the Moon. I think I was 12 or something like that. And then when I saw this guy called John Young jumping on the moon I just thought "Wow!" I want to become an astronaut." But at the time it was just an idea.

Later on when I decided to go back to university, I decided to become an engineer not because I wanted to be an astronaut, but because I liked engineering, so there is a false assumption that you need to figure out what field you need to take in order to become an astronaut - it does not work that way. I caution people all the time - you need to find your passion, and if that passion is in a technical field, then you need to find which technical field. It could be mathematics, physics, engineering, it could be medicine, it could be oceanography. It could be anything. But you don't do a technical degree just so you can become an astronaut, because there is a very good chance that you won't be an astronaut. So you better find a field that you like, pursue it, hope that everything goes okay, and then you will become an astronaut. But you need to have a profession that you can do with pleasure, with passion.

"I saw this guy called John Young jumping on the moon and I just thought "Wow!" I want to become an astronaut!"

So then after years of training, in 2007 you are about to make your first launch on STS-120. What were the main emotions that you felt on launch day, as you were getting ready to make your first flight?

Well you know, the launch itself is a bit of an anti-climax I think. Meaning that you have waited for that for a good part of your life, and finally you are there. And I think what I felt was a huge sense of being relieved. Finally I am here. Finally today is the day in which we launch. The day that I am no longer in a simulator, or doing a sport in which I could injure myself and break a leg and then you don't launch anymore. It's the day that the rocket is working. I mean there are a few chances that they might delay it, but you know, it's a day in which everything gets put together and it's a very happy day.

I felt a good sense of accomplishment that I was able to get there. But I was really concentrated on what I needed to do to do my part in this launch. I wanted to make sure that I am not the cause for a delay or even putting myself or somebody else's life in danger, so I was very much concentrated on my tasks. That took most of my brain power.

Nespoli speaking at Dublin's Little Museum for Science Week 2012.

Three years later you launched on the Soyuz Spacecraft as part of Expedition 26/27. What are the main differences between launching on the Soyuz and launching on the shuttle?

Flying the Soyuz is like driving a Ferrari in a circuit. I mean it's an extremely capable vehicle because it's extremely fast, and it performs very well. At the same time it's very delicate.  Anything can influence the launch sequence, the rocket itself, and the crew.

While the Soyuz is a very small piece of equipment, it's still very reliable, and when the Russians say you will launch on the 15th of December at one o'clock at night - you will launch on the 15th of December at one o'clock at night!

If you have flown on the shuttle, you kind of look at it with skepticism. You then rethink this when you train, because you see how reliable it is. How ingenious it is able to do these complex tasks with little equipment and little complexity. So there's a lot of things to be said about that. I think we can learn from both the philosophies of the shuttle and the Soyuz because we really need to build  a capable vehicle that will bring us to the Moon and Mars and continue exploration. We need to make it perform and we also need to understand that complicating things is not really efficient and does not work.

So then when you arrived at the space station after your two day catch up, what were the main thing that you wanted to achieve during your 6 months on station?

My goal was to be a good crew member. This means working effectively with Mission Control, the other crew members, to do my best, get all he scientific results from all the experiments we performed, and most of all making the space station work effectively. So I wanted to do a good mission. Nothing exceptional but a decent and good mission, and it turned out that this is exactly what I did.

It was nice being up there you know, I really enjoyed it, and I felt that after the initial period of adapting to life in space; which was really hard work, I felt I was able to contribute effectively to what was going on. I worked really well with Mission Control, I worked really well with my crew members. I made myself available any time I could, to go above and beyond what was the call of duty. I made myself available to work on weekends because I felt it's such an exceptional place to be, and I really need to take advantage of all the things that are there.

You orbited the Earth once every 90 minutes. What was the best thing you have seen from space?

Paolo Nespoli training at Star City, Russia. credit: ESA

Difficult to say. It's difficult to say because I started the mission looking out of the Cupola (360 degree field of view window on the ISS). By the way it's not so easy to look down because of things like time. If you have a few minutes in the Cupola, most of the time you see oceans and clouds. I mean there are a LOT of clouds! I would say that more than 50% of the planet is covered by clouds. And it also very difficult to make out where you are. However this is only at the beginning. Then there is a magic moment about one third into the mission where suddenly, you understand where you are. You peek out of the window and now you know what continent you are flying over, what nation you are looking at, what river, what sea it is. Then you start picking out things- special places, mines, cities. It becomes really really interesting. Then I thought I'm going to take a picture of 2 or 3 exceptional places that I really want to go and see once I go back to Earth.

I wanted to go back and see those places, and then I started taking pictures. Sure enough, instead of ending up with 2 or 3, I ended up with three hundred and something, which obviously is impossible because I don't have either the money or the time to visit all those places. So really it is difficult to say which is the best, because from up there, everything looks so astonishing. I mean frozen lands from up there look pretty inhospitable, but from space they look wonderful. Just so interesting.

When Expedition 27 was coming to an end, what were your feelings as you prepared to leave the ISS, your home for the last 6 months?

Well you know, six months pass fairly quickly, which is astonishing, but this is what happens. And six months pass even quicker because we had so many visiting vehicles- 2 shuttles and things like that, so we were always busy busy busy. But it turns out that the last shuttle was delayed, and it came at exactly the moment in which we needed to leave which caused an operational problem. They actually delayed our return by a week, and they were thinking of delaying it even more. We even asked to be delayed even more because we wanted to stay up there. Then it turned out that this was not possible. But I would have to say in my opinion the strongest emotion was that I was glad that the six months had passed in a pretty good way.

I felt I worked effectively with Mission Control and the other crew members. We got a lot of data, we really worked well in orbit, nothing major happened, so I had a good sense of accomplishment which was pretty good. I have to say however that I was not ready to go home really, because I had other things to do, but you know, time passes and things need to be done. And I have to say that in a certain way when I was going home that it was a good mission. I mean it doesn't take much to turn a good mission into a disaster, so in a certain way I was happy to be where I was. I did not cry when I left the station, well.. maybe I cried but it was more emotional I think. I did not live with displeasure, I mean, I was very neutral. I was coming back but I was neither happy nor sad. I think I came back exactly the time I needed to come back.

In the last couple of weeks, it has been announced that there will be a year long mission to the ISS. Do you feel that now is the right time to carry out a mission like this?

The Soyuz MS-05 crew ready for launch credit: Roscosmos

I feel we need to know more about what happens to the body and what happens to the mind when you stay in space for a long time. There was a Russian cosmonaut who stayed in space for well over a year, so the Russians have done  this in a more restricted and confined environment (Mir Space Station) than what is today space station, where we have internet, telephone, teleconference capabilities so we can talk to Mission Control whenever we want. So I feel we need to understand more about longer duration missions if we want to go to Mars and continue exploration.

I think it's a good time for NASA, and the community to tackle a one year mission. I personally would like to go on a one year mission. I know many US astronauts who volunteer for that, so NASA really had problems to select an astronaut, but basically yeah, I think that now is a good time, and I think we should do it.

Do you feel that in order to achieve the goal of landing on Mars, all space faring nations like the US, Europe, Russia, China and India all need to work together in order to achieve this goal?

Well you know, there are technical considerations, and there are political considerations. I'm not sure I can do political considerations because this is not my field. But obviously, in my opinion, the most problematic point of going to Mars is to find secure political support. It's not a technological problem, it's not a capability problem, it's more support. Going to Mars costs a lot, and we need good political will, and I feel that now, we do not have such a political will.

I think that going to Mars will be better done if completed on an international point of view. A mission to Mars by the human race. Instead of just by Italy, United States, Russia or China or whatever. I think it would be better if we went as humanity, but I am not sure if this would work. It might be that the Chinese decide that it is an important strategical goal for their nation to go to Mars, and they will decide to go. For sure it's easy if one nation decides. It's more difficult if a consortium of nations is in charge of this task. I don't know! I feel it would be much better for humanity if we went as human beings, as united nations or something like that. But as you know it's not so simple!

To celebrate Paolo's return to the ISS, Blackrock Castle Observatory are offering free admission from 16:30 – 17:00. For more information, please click here.

Live coverage of the Soyuz MS-05 launch, rendezvous and docking to the International Space Station will be available on NASA TV.

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Space Station Trio Return to Earth After 73 Million Mile Journey

After a journey of over 73 million miles, the Expedition 49/50 crew have safely returned to Earth after completing a 173 day mission to the International Space Station.

Soyuz commander Sergey Ryzhikov with crew mates Andrey Borisenko and Shane Kimbrough landed their vehicle in the remote steppe of Kazakhstan, southeast of the remote town of Dzhezkazgan at 11:21 p.m. GMT.

Kimbrough, Ryzhikov and Borisenko adjust to life back on Earth shortly
after landing. credit: NASA/Ingalls

The trio bid farewell to their crew mates early this morning before hatches between the station and the Soyuz were closed. This was followed at 7:56 a.m. by the undocking of the spacecraft from the station's Poisk module - marking the official beginning of Expedition 51.

Since their arrival to station the crew have conducted hundreds of scientific experiments across a wide range of scientific fields including biology, biotechnology, physics, Earth observation and human physiology experiments.

Landing in perfect conditions under clear skies, the crew were extracted one by one from the vehicle by Russian search and recovery forces at the landing site and flown to the remote town of Karaganda a short time later for a welcoming ceremony.

Ryzhikov and Borisenko will board a Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center plane for a flight back to Star City to be reunited with their families, while Kimbrough will return to the Johnson Space Center in Houston.

This morning's landing brings to an end the first long duration space flight for Ryzhikov, and the second for his Russian crew mate Borisenko, who first flew to the station as a Flight Engineer on Expedition 27/28. He now logs a total of 337 days in space.

NASA astronaut Shane Kimbrough, who previously flew on a short-duration mission to the station on space shuttle mission STS-126, returns to Earth with a combined 184 days in space under his belt.

Before his departure this morning, Kimbrough handed over the reigns of the International Space Station to Whitson in the traditional Change of Command ceremony, in which he recognised the difference science conducted in space has for people the world over;

"We get the ability to interact with things up here that benefit all humanity."

The Soyuz MS-02 carrying Ryzhikov, Borisenko and Kimbrough shortly before landing at 11:21 a.m. GMT.
Credit: NASA/Ingalls

In the meantime, station commander Peggy Whitson alongside Russian cosmonaut Oleg Novitskiy and European Space Agency astronaut Thomas Pesquet remain aboard station. Whitson, who became the first two-time female commander of the International Space Station with this morning's departure paid tribute to her commander for the past four and a half months.

"Up here we don't wear shoes but Shane's leaving me some big socks to fill!"

Meanwhile back on Earth, veteran Russian cosmonaut Fyodor Yurchikhin and NASA astronaut Jack Fischer are in the final stages preparations for their launch to the International Space Station. The duo will launch in their Soyuz MS-04 spacecraft from the Baikonur Cosmodrome on April 20.

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Space Station Trio Return to Earth

After a journey spanning almost 79 million miles, the crew of the Soyuz TMA-19M spacecraft have safely returned to Earth after completing their 186 day-long mission to the International Space Station.

Soyuz commander and veteran cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko alongside crew mates Tim Peake and Tim Kopra landed their vehicle in the remote steppe of Kazakhstan at 9:15 a.m. UTC -  just three hours after leaving their home for the past six months.

Malenchenko, Kopra and Peake shortly before closing the hatches
between their Soyuz and the International Space Station.
 credit: Roscosmos

The trio bid farewell to their Expedition 47 crew mates early this morning before hatches between the station and the Soyuz were closed. This was followed at 6:52 a.m. by the undocking of the spacecraft from the station's Rassvet module - marking the official beginning of Expedition 48.

Since their arrival to station the crew have conducted hundreds of scientific experiments across a wide range of scientific fields including physics, Earth observation and human physiology experiments. The crew also saw off One Year Crew members Scott Kelly and Mikhail Kornienko back in March.

Having landed under cloudy conditions amid high winds, the crew were extracted one by one from the vehicle by Russian search and recovery forces at the landing site and flown to the remote town of Karaganda a short time later for a welcoming ceremony.

Malenchenko will board a Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center plane for a flight back to Star City to be reunited with his family, while Peake will return to the European Astronaut Center in Cologne and Kopra will return to the Johnson Space Center in Houston.

This morning's landing concludes the fifth long duration space flight, and the fourth aboard the International Space Station for Malenchenko, who has now logged a total of 828 days in space. European Space Agency astronaut Tim Peake - the first British astronaut to visit the space station Peake logs 186 days in space while and NASA astronaut Kopra now has a total of 244 days of spaceflight across two missions.

In the meantime, station commander Jeff Williams along with Russian flight engineers Alexei Ovchinin and Oleg Skripochka will remain aboard the station until September. Before his departure this morning, Expedition 47 commander Kopra handed over the reigns of the International Space Station to Williams in the traditional Change of Command ceremony in which he paid tribute to the space station programme;

Peake, Malenchenko and Kopra shortly after landing in the remote
steppe of Kazakhstan after 186 days aboard the ISS.
credit: NASA

"We've been so privileged to work here on board with a huge variety of science experiments that we know are going to be a stepping stone for human exploration.. together we've demonstrated that we have a world-class orbiting laboratory."

They will occupy the complex for the next three weeks before being joined in July by the crew of the Soyuz MS-01 comprising of Russian cosmonaut Anatoly Ivanishin, NASA astronaut Kate Rubins and Takuya Onishi of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency. The trio are set to launch aboard a Soyuz rocket from the Baikonur Cosmodrome on July 6th.

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SpaceX Dragon Returns to International Space Station

The SpaceX Dragon cargo vehicle has arrived at the International Space Station on its eighth flight to resupply the orbiting complex.

The Commercial Resupply Services(CRS)-8 was captured by ESA astronaut Tim Peake using the station's robotic arm, Canadarm2. Capture was confirmed to have taken place at 7:23 a.m. Eastern Time as the station flew 250 miles over the Pacific Ocean.

Dragon and Cygnus docked to the International Space Station simultaneously
for the first time. credit: NASA TV

Shortly after grapple, the Expedition 47 Flight Engineer informed teams of flight controllers in Mission Control in Houston and in SpaceX Headquarters in Hawthorne California of his success;

"Looks like we've captured a Dragon" 

Two hours later at 9:57 a.m. robotic operators in Mission Control in Houston slowly berthed the vehicle to the Earth-facing port of the station's Harmony module.

Today's arrival is an historic one, as it marks the first time that two commercially-built cargo vehicles will be docked to the International Space Station simultaneously. Orbital ATK's Cygnus cargo craft is currently bolted to the Unity module of the ISS having arrived on March 26.

It also marks only the second time in the history of the International Space Station programme that six visiting vehicles have been docked to the station at once.

Dragon, making its Return to Flight to the ISS following a catastrophic launch anomaly in June 2015, launched atop a Falcon 9 rocket at 9:43 p.m. Eastern Time on Friday April 8 from Cape Canaveral carrying 6,900 pounds/3,130 kilograms worth of science research, crew supplies and hardware to the orbiting laboratory in support of the Expedition 47 and 48 crews.

Just minutes after first stage separation, the rocket's first stage fell back to Earth, fired its thrusters and deployed its landing legs before successfully landing upright for the first time on a barge at sea. Friday's activities marked the second time that Elon Musk's company has accomplished such a feat - the first coming back on December 21.

Today's arrival will bring to an end the recent period of busy traffic to and from the International Space Station. CRS-8 is the fourth visiting vehicle to visit the laboratory in as many weeks, following the arrival of the Soyuz TMA-20M, Cygnus CRS OA-6 and the Progress 63P.

On April 15, robotic operators will once again take control of Canadarm2 and remove the much anticipated Bigelow Expandable Activity Module(BEAM), and berth it to the aft port of the station's Tranquility module.

Bigelow Expandable Activity Module(BEAM)

BEAM is an expandable habitat built by Bigelow Aerospace that will remain on station for a period of two years. NASA and its partners are currently investigating the practicalities of using expandable habitats in the near-Earth environment as well as on future missions to the Moon or Mars.

This will be the first time an expandable habitat will be docked to the station, so the procedure will take some time, allowing teams to closely observe the expansion process as well as the safety of the crew and the station. During this time the module will expand from its packed dimensions of 7.75 feet in diameter and 5.7 feet long, to its pressurised size of 10,5 feet in diameter and 12 feet long.

The Bigelow Expandable Activity Module(BEAM) being loaded into the
trunk of the SpaceX Dragon capsule at Cape Canaveral. credit: NASA

The expandable module is made up of soft fabrics instead of metal which allows the habitat to be packed to a small volume during launch and later expanded to its full size in space. Two radiation sensors, temperature and micrometeorite impacts inside BEAM will help scientists and engineers to better understand thermal, radiation and long-term leak performance of expandable habitats.

The habitat will be inflated by the crew at the end of May and it is expected that crew members will enter BEAM twice or three times per six month increment to swap out sensors that need to be returned to Earth for analysis.

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One Year Crew Returns from International Space Station

Astronaut Scott Kelly and cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko have returned to Earth after spending almost one year living and working in low-Earth orbit aboard the International Space Station.

The One Year crew alongside their Soyuz commander Sergey Volkov bid farewell to the International Space Station as the hatches between the station and the Soyuz TMA-18M spacecraft were closed at 9:43 p.m. GMT on March 1.

Year in Space crew members Kelly and Kornienko shortly after landing in Kazakhstan
after spending 340 days aboard the International Space Station.
credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls

The Soyuz craft departed the complex a couple of hours later when it undocked from the space station's Poisk module at 1:02 a.m. on the morning of March 2.

Following a series of orbital maneuvers, the Soyuz performed its de-orbit burn to reduce the spacecraft's speed and altitude for a fiery re-entry through the Earth's atmosphere.

Just over three hours after departing the ISS, Volkov, Kelly and Kornienko landed their vehicle in the remote steppe of Kazakhstan at 4:26 a.m. - bringing the Year in Space mission to an end. The crew were then placed in reclining chairs next to their Soyuz before being carried a short distance to an awaiting medical tent to get the crew out of their Sokol launch and entry suits to participate in brief field tests.

These field test studies are conducted to see the effect that long term weightlessness has on the astronaut's ability to stand from a seated position, walk through obstacles and stand upright. This will help investigators further understand what future space farers will be able to do once they've landed on Mars having spent months in a weightless commute.

In a recent interview with NASA TV, Kelly was asked what he thought was the biggest accomplishment of this flight - "We absolutely accomplished an incredible amount of work both on the US Operational Segment and on the Russian Segment."

"Our time here has demonstrated not only the capability for us to stay in space for a long time and to do well, but also the capability of ground teams to support us, the sytsems that keep us alive and the resuspply in a way that is forward thinking towards a potential flight to Mars. We've collected a lot of data during our time here and that data is something that's going to be analysed later.. but I think it's been a great success and a real privilege to part of it."

Over the past 340 days, Kelly and Kornienko:

• Completed 5,440 orbits of the Earth.
• Ran over 640 miles on the station's treadmill.
• Travelled 143,846,525 miles - roughly the distance from Earth to Mars. A return journey to the red planet is expected to last 500 days or longer.
• Conducted over 400 scientific experiments during the course of their stint aboard the complex.

Coming Home: Kelly, Volkov and Kornienko tightly packed inside their Soyuz
credit: NASA

"Misha and I are only one data point. You need a lot more numbers to draw specific conclusions but I'm hoping what we find is a lot of information that will help us eventually continue on our path toward Mars."

Another unique investigation conducted over the past year is the Twins Study. Former NASA astronaut Mark Kelly, Scott Kelly's identical twin has served as the control subject for his brother on orbit. This study hopes to investigate if the effect of long-duration spaceflight has any difference on the body on a genetic level.

Today's landing brings to an end the fourth spaceflight for Scott Kelly who has now logged 520 days in space and sets the record for the most time in space for an American. Mikhail Kornienko now logs 516 across two space station expeditions. Soyuz commander Sergey Volkov returns to Earth with 548 days in space across three long-duration stays aboard the International Space Station.

The departure of the Soyuz marked the official beginning of Expedition 47 after Kelly handed over the reigns of the orbiting laboratory to Tim Kopra of NASA. Kopra remains aboard the station with cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko and ESA astronaut Tim Peake.

The trio will be joined on March 19 when the Soyuz TMA-20M docks to the vacant docking port on Poisk - bringing Alexei Ovchinin, Oleg Skripochka and Jeff Williams to the station for a six month mission.

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Astronauts Complete Shortened Spacewalk to Replace Faulty Power Unit

Two astronauts aboard the International Space Station have completed an abbreviated four hour, forty three minute-long spacewalk to replace a faulty power unit on the exterior of the International Space Station.

On their 32nd day in space, NASA astronaut Tim Kopra and Tim Peake of the European Space Agency began their Extra-Vehicular Activity(EVA) from the U.S. Quest airlock at 12:48 p.m. GMT. while the ISS was flying 250 miles over the Southern Indian Ocean.

Tim Peake smiles for the camera as he became Britain's first astronaut
to walk in space. credit: NASA

They quickly translated some 200 feet to the S6 truss on the starboard edge of the space station to remove a faulty power regulator known as a Sequential Shunt Unit(SSU) that failed on November 13 2015.

Working in tandem, the pair removed the old Sequential Shunt Unit while the station was in orbital night time. This removed the possibility of sparking as no power was being generated by the station's solar arrays at this time. Kopra and Peake installed a new SSU a short while later. The new unit is nicknamed "Dusty" as it has been aboard the complex since 1999.

Aboard the International Space Station are eight power channels along which solar power generated by the station's eight solar arrays flows to operate on board systems. The purpose of the SSU is to regulate power output of the solar arrays to 160 volts. The ISS can operate with only seven channels in operation, but if another were to fail some on board systems would need to be shut down.

With the primary task of the Extra-Vehicular Activity(EVA) complete, the spacewalking duo focused their attention on routing a series of cables that will be used to prepare the orbiting laboratory for the upcoming installation of International Docking Adapters on Pressurised Mating Adapters that will serve as docking ports for future commercial crew and resupply vehicles visiting the International Space Station.

However shortly after 4 p.m. lead spacewalker Kopra soon noticed that a volume of cold water had found its way into his helmet. He also noted that his shoulders and wrists were also wet as a result of the leak.

The drinking water astronauts use to keep hydrated is kept at ambient temperature, indicating that the water stemmed from a leaking cooling garment inside his spacesuit.

Although the spacewalkers were in no immediate danger, lead Flight Director Royce Renfrew made the decision to terminate the EVA early and bring Kopra and Peake back inside.
Renfrew later spoke to NASA Public Affairs Officer Rob Navias on his decision which you can watch here.

"We're in a terminate case," radioed NASA astronaut Reid Wiseman in Mission Control, relaying Renfrew's decision. "We want you to start heading back to the airlock."

This follows a similar incident in July 2013 in which ESA astronaut Luca Parmitano's helmet filled with a large volume of water, leading to the immediate abort of that particular spacewalk.

This was the 192nd spacewalk in support of space station assembly and maintenance. Today also marks the first time a British citizen has conducted an EVA with Tim Peake making the first spacewalk of his career. Today's excursion marks the third spacewalk for Tim Kopra.

15 Photos Celebrating 15 Years of Human Presence on Space Station

Fifteen years ago today on November 2 2000, the first Expedition crew arrived at the International Space Station.

Expedition 1 Commander Bill Shepard alongside cosmonaut flight engineers Sergei Krikalev and Yuri Gidzenko lived aboard the station for 136 days. Fifteen years on and forty-five expeditions later the International Space Station has grown from the size of a school bus to the size of a football field.

The International Space Station program is a collaborative effort between 15 nations from all around the world. 15 certainly seems to be the magic number, so let's celebrate this milestone in human space exploration by showcasing fifteen photographs taken aboard the station to celebrate fifteen years of a continuous human presence in space.

Expedition 1 Flight Engineer Sergei Krikalev poses for a photo inside the Zvezda Service Module, with space shuttle Atlantis approaching the complex from below. credit: NASA

STS-112 crew members Piers Sellers(bottom) and Fyodor Yurchikhin(top) in the Quest Airlock of the International Space Station prior to the mission's second spacewalk. credit: NASA

Expedition 17 flight engineer Greg Chamitoff floats through the Destiny Module of the International Space Station
credit: NASA

Expedition 30 crew members Dan Burbank(left) and Anton Shkaplerov(right) are pictured near a growing collection of insignias representing crews who have worked on the International Space Station. credit: NASA

Expedition 35 Flight Engineer Tom Marshburn casts an eye upon the Earth during an emergency EVA to replace a faulty ammonia pump on the exterior of the space station in 2013. credit: NASA

Expedition 36 Commander Pavel Vinogradov waits in the Rassvet Module of the International Space Station to welcome three new crew members aboard the orbiting complex. credit: NASA

Expedition 28 crew member Ron Garan is photographed observing the Earth from the Cupola module of the ISS. The cupola is the astronaut's window on the world and provides a 360 degree panorama of the Earth below. credit: NASA

Expedition 15 crew members Clay Anderson(left) and Oleg Kotov(right) don their hard hats while working with the station's robotic arm, Canadarm2. credit: NASA

Expedition 24 Flight Engineer Tracy Caldwell Dyson viewing the Earth from inside the Cupola. credit: NASA

Expedition 37 Flight Engineer Sergey Ryazanskiy waves for the camera during a spacewalk in 2013. credit: NASA

The Expedition 32 crew take a time out of their day to pose for an intelligent looking photo inside the Japanese Experiment Module credit: NASA

Expedition 24/25 crew member Doug Wheelock, donned in his Russian Sokol launch and entry suit smiles for the camera inside the Soyuz TMA-19 spacecraft. credit: NASA

Cosmonaut Gennady Padalka poses next to a Russian Orlan space suit in the station's Pirs Airlock. Padalka is a four-time commander of the space station and holds the record for the longest time in space by a human- accumulating 879 days in low-Earth orbit. credit: NASA

Expedition 40/41 crew members Alexander Gerst(left) and Reid Wiseman(right) conduct the SPHERES-RINGS experiment in the JEM. SPHERES-RINGS seeks to demonstrate wireless power transfer between satellites at a distance for enhanced operations. credit: NASA

The crew of Expedition 45 pose inside the Destiny Lab of the International Space Station. The crew consist of(Back Row L-R) Sergei Volkov, Oleg Kononenko and Mikhail Kornienko & (Front Row L-R) Kimiya Yui(holding the Expedition 1 mission patch), Scott Kelly and Kjell Lindgren(holding the Expedition 45 patch). Both Kornienko and Kelly are currently over 200 days into a year long mission to the International Space Station, the first time a year-long mission has been conducted aboard the station. credit: NASA

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Europe's ATV Departs ISS for the Final Time

The European Space Agency's Automated Transfer Vehicle(ATV) has departed the International Space Station for the final time in the programme's history.

ESA's fifth and final Automated Transfer Vehicle(ATV-5) which is named after the Belgian cosmologist George Lemaître, undocked from the aft port of the Zvezda Service Module of the ISS at 13:42 GMT.

ATV-5 docking with ISS last year
credit: NASA

After firing it's thrusters, ATV-5 backed away from the station as the vehicle positioned itself into a lower orbital altitude, bound for a fiery re-entry into the Earth's atmosphere.

Europe's flagship cargo spacecraft was originally scheduled to enter the Earth's atmosphere at the end of February in a new, shallow dive that would allow NASA and ESA teams the opportunity to monitor the breakup of the vehicle and learn from it's reentry. 

Unfortunately however, a failure in one of the vehicle's power chains last week led to the cancellation of the shallow reentry experiment, and George Lemaître will now follow the standard reentry profile just like his predecessors, and will burn up over the Pacific Ocean on Sunday evening.

ATV-5 Mission Overview

ATV-5 launched atop an Ariane rocket from the European space port in French Guiana last year as the heaviest of the five Automated Transfer Vehicles sent into space. It carried over 6,600 kg worth of supplies and experiments to the station.

Over 186 days docked to the orbiting complex, the crew on board have been busy unpacking vital equipment and in turn, have loaded ATV with rubbish and other waste. Mission controllers in the ATV Control Center in Toulouse have been sending commands to the vehicle to pump water, air and fuel into the station's tanks.

The vehicle has also been used to fire its thrusters to facilitate a change in the station's orbit for debris-avoidance purposes, and also to support the arrival of future cargo vessels by lowering the station's orbit. This enables a larger quantity of cargo to be carried to the ISS.

What's Next?

In a testament to the success of the ATV programme, NASA and ESA announced in 2014 that the flight systems used on the ATV vehicles would be used to comprise the Service Module elements of NASA's next generation spacecraft, Orion on its missions to carry astronauts to deep space.

The first flight of the ESA Service Module will take place on Orion's first flight around the Moon in 2017.

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ISS Monthly Recap for July 2014

The six person Expedition 40 crew aboard the International Space Station have wrapped up a very busy month conducting various robotics operations, and a record amount of science and research aboard the orbiting laboratory.

Humans have been living on the ISS for over 5,000 consecutive days

The month began with astronauts in the US segment of the station carrying out maintenance on the Carbon Dioxide Removal Assembly(CDRA). CDRA is responsible for taking unwanted carbon dioxide in the station's atmosphere out of air circulation. This is important in developing systems for removing CO2 from astronauts' breathing air on missions to Mars and beyond in future spacecraft like NASA's Orion Capsule, which will make its first test flight later this year.

July 12 marked the historic milestone of 5,000 days of humans living aboard the International Space Station. Since the first launch of the Expedition 1 crew back in November 2000, over 24,000 hours of science have been conducted aboard the orbiting lab over 40 expeditions. Coincidentally, the current crew aboard the station set a record in July for the amount of science conducted during a week. The six astronauts and cosmonauts completed 82 hours worth of science and research, which will benefit people back on Earth, as well astronauts living in space.

July was a busy month also for the arrival and departures of cargo spacecraft.
On July 16, the Orbital Sciences Cygnus cargo craft arrived at the International Space Station. After launching from the Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia on July 13. Expedition 40 commander Steve Swanson and Flight Engineer Alexander Gerst supervised the rendezvous and docking procedures three days later on the 16th. Hatches between the ISS and Cygnus were opened on the following morning.

The arrival of Cygnus was followed up by the departure of the Russian Progress 55 resupply ship, which undocked from the station's Pirs Docking Compartment on July 21. 

Cygnus is captured by the station's robotic arm on July 16.

And we all know that things just wouldn't be the same at the ISS if there wasn't a Progress attached. So that's why just a couple of days later the Progress 56 resupply ship launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, arriving at station on July 24- just six hours after launch.

Finally, in the wee hours of the morning of July 30, the European Space Agency's Automated Transfer Vehicle launched from the Kourou Space Center in French Guiana on the final mission of the ATV programme. 

ATV-5, which is named after Belgian astronomer George Lemaitre, will spend the next two weeks making its way to the station before it's automated docking to the Zvezda Service Module on August 12.

In summary, July was a very eventful, busy and successful month aboard the International Space Station. With all this new cargo aboard, August has all the makings of being yet another very busy and exciting month aboard the ISS with a series of spacewalks planned for mid-August, along with the arrival of George Lemaitre to the International Space Station.

Cygnus Cargo Craft Arrives at International Space Station

The Orbital Sciences Cygnus cargo craft has arrived at the International Space Station.

On just its second official resupply mission to the orbiting outpost(Orb-2), and traveling at 5 miles a second, Cygnus was captured by Expedition 40 crew members Steve Swanson of NASA and Alexander Gerst of ESA.

Working from the robotics workstation in the Cupola, the pair slowly moved the station's 57 foot long robot arm, Canadarm2, into position before capturing and grappling Cygnus at 11:36 a.m. Irish Time.

Once Cygnus was now in the capable hands of Canadarm2, robotics teams on the ground turned their attention to berthing Cygnus to the Earth facing port of the Harmony Module. Berthing of Cygnus to Harmony occurred at 1:53 p.m.

Expedition 40 crew members running test captures ahead of Cygnus' arrival

Just some of Orbital-2's cargo include 28 Cubesats, which are small, inexpensive satellites that can be used for Earth imaging and disaster monitoring. Also on board is a satellite related investigation, and some student experiments that will be unpacked by the astronauts aboard the International Space Station, further enhancing the station's scientific and technological capabilities.

Cygnus is expected to remain docked to the station for around a month, before being unberthed and released by Canadarm2, destined for a fiery demise by burning up in the Earth's atmosphere.

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Soyuz Trio and Olympic Torch Arrive at ISS

The Soyuz TMA-11M crew has arrived at the International Space Station, just six hours after launch.

Soyuz commander Mikhail Tyurin of The Russian Federal Space Agency, Rick Mastracchio of NASA, and Koichi Wakata of JAXA, successfully docked their Soyuz spacecraft to the Rassvet Module of the International Space Station at

Hatches between the Soyuz and the station were opened and the three new  station crew members were greeted by the rest of the Expedition 37 crew, before making their way to the Zvezda Service Module in the Russian segment of the ISS to talk to friends and family.

Nine crew members aboard the ISS

This marked the first time that there have been more than six astronauts and cosmonauts aboard the orbiting complex without the presence of a space shuttle since October 2009. Three separate crews will live and work together for four days, before it's time for Fyodor Yurchikin, Karen Nyberg and Luca Parmitano to head for home, having spent the past five months living and working aboard the ISS.

Also arriving to the station aboard the Soyuz TMA-11M is the Olympic torch, which is making the longest leg of its relay leading up to the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russian. Flight Engineers Oleg Kotov and Sergey Ryazanskiy will take the Olympic torch outside the station during a symbolic spacewalk, scheduled for November 9.

ATV-4 Albert Einstein Docks to ISS

The European Space Agency's Automated Transfer Vehicle "Albert Einstein" has docked to the International Space Station ten days after launching from Europe's Spaceport in French Guiana.

The ATV docked to the station's Zvezda Service Module at 2:07 p.m. GMT while the ISS was flying 258 miles high over The Pacific Ocean. Albert Einstein is the heaviest Automated Transfer Vehicle that has ever visited the orbiting laboratory, and is loaded with 6.6 tonnes of cargo for the astronauts and operating systems aboard the orbiting complex.

ATV-4 Albert Einstein Approaches the ISS
credit: NASASpaceflight

After launch on June 5, ATV performed two rendezvous burns to refine its path to the ISS.

As ATV-4 made its way closer to the ISS, a further series of burns were performed to align the ATV with the docking port located on the Service Module. Astronauts aboard the ISS watched closely as Albert Einstein neared its way towards station, and were on hand to oversee
proceedings as the automated docking occurred.

Over the course of its time docked to Zvezda, ATV will deliver fuel, water and air to ensure the continued operation of the station. Its thruster's will also maintain the station's orbit in order to counteract the orbital decay imposed by the ATV during its time docked to the International Space Station.

Albert Einstein is expected to remain docked to the station for around six months, after which it will go through a destructive re-entry into the Earth's atmosphere filled station waste and other used cargo no longer needed.

To see what it is like inside the ATV, watch this video as Expedition 26/27 Flight Engineer Paolo Nespoli takes you on a tour of the ATV-2 Johannes Kepler back in 2011.

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ATV-4 "Albert Einstein" Launches to International Space Station

The European Space Agency's fourth Automated Transfer Vehicle, Albert Einstein, has launched on an Ariane 5 rocket bound for the International Space Station.

The Ariane 5 carrying ESA's ATV named after the German scientist Albert Einstein, launched from Europe's Spaceport in French Guiana at 10:52 p.m. GMT.

See the launch of the ATV by clicking .

Launch of ATV-4 Albert Einstein
credit: ESA

here

Ahead of its scheduled docking to the International Space Station on June 15, the spacecraft will begin ten days of health checks and orbital manoeuvres, bringing it to an automated docking with the station's Zvezda Service Module. Before ATV docks, the Russian Progress 51 resupply will undock- freeing up the docking compartment of the Zvezda Service Module. This is why it is taking Einstein ten days to arrive at the ISS instead of its usual five day launch-to-docking profile.

 Newly-launched Italian astronaut Luca Parmitano and ISS Commander Pavel Vinogradov will watch over proceedings as the ATV makes its way towards the aft end of the space station prior to its automated docking.

The objectives of this mission are to deliver 6.6 tons of cargo to the station, carrying items like water, pyjamas, toothbrushes and peanut butter for the astronauts on board, as well as other vital cargo to keep the station up and running. ATV has the largest cargo capability of all vehicles that visit the International Space Station. It is also worth noting that the Albert Einstein is the largest ATV that has ever visited the station. It is loaded with 2,380 kg of propellant in order to maintain the station's orbit over the course its time docked to the ISS. 

ATV-4 will remain docked to the station for the best part of half a year, and after about six months, it will undock from the station filled with a few tons of waste water, materials and equipment, before burning up in the Earth's atmosphere.