Free Republic

Russia's Vladimir Putin has demonstrated that he wants to wage a perpetual ideological, economic and physical war against the West. It is time for Congress to step in and sever U.S.-Russian space station cooperation...

However, have you ever wondered what it’s like to do yoga in space? Samantha Cristoforetti, a European Space Agency astronaut, has the answer as she posted a video of performing yoga at the International Space Station (ISS). Cristoforetti is seen doing yoga by following an instructor of Cosmic Kids, a platform for mindfulness for kids. Wearing elastic bands for assistance in zero gravity, she is seen doing an ‘eagle pose’ by criss-crossing her legs and trying to balance herself by bending a bit. In August, Cristoforetti had shared a video of weightlifting aboard the ISS. She shared how astronauts exercise...

(Translation) Russia will discontinue operating in the International Space Station (ISS) "after 2024", Russian agency Roscosmos head Yuri Borissov announced. "We will fulfill without doubt our obligations toward our partners" in the International Space Station, Borissov stated during a televised meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin. "But the decision has been made to leave that station after 2024," he specified. Since the invasion of Ukraine, rumors that Russia might abandon that international collaboration had been constant. It was said that, in the first days of the invasion, Dmitri Rogozin, who was [then] responsible for Roscosmos, said that the Russian rockets...

IS THAT TECHNICALLY EVEN PIZZA?We Crust Object Chicago, California, Detroit, and even Ohio all have their own regional takes on the classic pizza pie — and now the International Space Station does too, apparently. In an Instagram post made over the weekend, NASA gave a glimpse of an ISS pizza party, replete with photographic evidence of what may be the grossest-looking "pizza" ever captured on camera. And that's including Chuck E. Cheese. In the photos, the international team of space adventurers look like they're having the time of their lives chowing down on what looks to be personal, self-made...

China is gearing up to send the third crew to its new Tiangong space station, with launch set for late Saturday (June 4) U.S. Eastern time. The Shenzhou 14 spacecraft, sitting atop a Long March 2F rocket, was rolled out to its pad at Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center on Sunday (May 29), according to China’s human spaceflight agency. Launch is expected around 10:40 p.m. EDT on June 4 (0240 GMT or 10:40 a.m. local time on Sunday, June 5) according to airspace closure notices. Livestreams of the launch are expected to be made available closer to liftoff. Three Chinese astronauts...

Teams led by Axiom Space and Collins Aerospace (with ILC Dover as a major contributor) received access to a contract worth up to a total of $3.5 billion to supply spacesuits for future NASA missions through 2034... Axiom and Collins don't have guaranteed orders yet under the contract. (The Collins-ILC Dover team has decades of experience supplying spacesuits to NASA, while Axiom is a new entrant.) The spacesuit designs are still at an early stage, although the companies emphasized that their units will be somewhat modular, as lightweight and flexible as possible, and will integrate feedback from astronauts and the...

The head of Russia's space agency said the country would leave the International Space Station, per Bloomberg."The decision has been taken already, we're not obliged to talk about it publicly," said Dmitry Rogozin on state TV.Rogozin, the general director of Roscosmos, criticized Western-imposed economic sanctions against Russia.The head of Russia's space agency on Saturday said that the country would leave the International Space Station, which Moscow said is the result of economic sanctions imposed as a result of the country's conflict in Ukraine, according to Bloomberg.Two Russian state news agencies — Tass and RIA Novosti — on Saturday reported that...

I have a new noun for your vocabulary: Holoportation. It's an amalgam of "hologram" and "teleportation," and though it may seem like it, it isn't just a niche sci-fi term buried somewhere in Isaac Asimov novels and Star Trek episodes. NASA flight surgeon Dr. Josef Schmid gives a space greeting Oct. 8, 2021, as he is holoported on to the International Space Station. In October, NASA used this mind-boggling, futuristic mechanism to bring NASA flight surgeon Dr. Josef Schmid onto the International Space Station while he was safely planted on our planet. No rockets necessary. Schmid was joined on this...

Russia will no longer cooperate with Western nations on the International Space Station (ISS) until sanctions due to its invasion of Ukraine are removed, the head of its space agency announced. Roscosmos chief Dmitry Rogozin declared the move on Twitter, saying that Russia will end its partnership with NASA and the European Space Agency on the space station, which launched in 1998. The announcement came after weeks of speculation and threats on Russia's part to pull out of the cooperative space venture. At the beginning of March, retired NASA astronaut Terry Virts said that Russian President Vladimir Putin is in...

There have been a lot of people protesting the war in Russia, and in a time where such protest can get you locked up–facing a lot of punishment–that’s a brave thing to do. They’ve been protesting since the first day of the invasion. But perhaps it’s even more dangerous an effort to protest when you have a very high-profile position. It’s hard to think of people with a “higher” position than cosmonauts being sent into space, to the International Space Station.Three Russian cosmonauts arrived at the Station on Saturday, as the first Russian group sent into space since the Russian...

Russia has warned that sanctions on its aerospace industry could result in the International Space Station (ISS) falling into an “uncontrolled deorbit” and smashing into the United States or Europe, potentially with the force of a small nuclear bomb. Dmitry Rogozin, head of Roscosmos, issued the space station warning late Thursday, demanding of the United States: “Do you want to destroy our cooperation on the ISS?”

Astronauts aboard the ISS have been showing off breathtaking views from space — and set everyone back on Earth a challenge. NASA’s Mark Vande Hei posted a stunning shot over the Himalayas on Twitter, leaving aerial photographers green with envy. Hidden among it is Mount Everest, which the astronaut has asked people to try to spot.

U.S. officials say Russia destroyed a retired satellite in an anti-satellite weapon test, creating a cloud of debris that prompted the seven-member crew of the International Space Station to take shelter in their Crew Dragon and Soyuz spacecraft early Monday as a precaution. "I'm outraged by this unconscionable action," NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said in a statement.... State Department spokesman Ned Price said the Russian Federation "recklessly conducted a destructive satellite test of a direct ascent anti-satellite missile against one of its own satellites." "The test has so far generated over 1,500 pieces of trackable orbital debris and hundreds of...

Indeed, they need to resolve one outstanding item before Crew-3 can lift off — a slight redesign of Crew Dragon's toilet system. That tweak was prompted by an issue experienced on SpaceX's Inspiration4 mission, which sent four private citizens on a three-day trip to orbit last month. After that capsule, named Resilience, returned home, inspections revealed that a tube hooked up to a toilet storage tank had popped loose during flight. This "allowed urine to not go into the storage tank but, essentially, to go into the fan system," Bill Gerstenmaier, vice president of build and flight reliability at SpaceX,...

A Russian spacecraft pushed the International Space Station out of position on Friday morning, prompting astronauts to go into emergency mode. It's the second time Russian hardware has caused such an incident since July. Cosmonaut Oleg Novitsky was conducting engine tests on the Soyuz spaceship, which is docked to the ISS, on Friday morning when its thrusters fired too aggressively

NASA is trying to figure out how to dispose of the International Space Station, in the eventual — and fiery — conclusion to decades of invaluable research in microgravity... Nobody knows precisely when exactly the aging orbital outpost’s end will come. A NASA safety panel did approve a plan back in 2019, according NASASpaceflight, to have at least two Russian-made Progress spacecraft drag the 450-ton structure into the Earth’s atmosphere, where it will turn into a giant flaming ball of molten metal and other materials. NASA and its international partners have yet to fully commit to a specific plan. “NASA...

NASA...repeated during public comments about the incident that the orbiting lab tilted about 45 degrees... Zebulon Scoville, the NASA flight director leading mission control in Houston during the event, says the station tilted far more severely than just 45 degrees. According to Scoville...after Nauka incorrectly fired up, the station "spun one-and-a-half revolutions — about 540 degrees — before coming to a stop upside down. The space station then did a 180-degree forward flip to get back to its original orientation,"... Scoville took over mission control after the docking. It was actually his day off, but he was on site because...

The International Space Station consists of 16 linked habitats, strung with solar arrays, space debris shielding, and a robotic arm, all spread over an area about the size of a football field. Yesterday, the entire assembly began to tilt and tumble after a newly-arrived Russian module malfunctioned and began firing its thrusters uncontrollably. Only the rapid response of flight controllers in Moscow and Houston, and of the 10 astronauts onboard, kept the $1 billion space lab on course. “We proceeded to do headstands and cartwheels,” Zebulon Scoville, a flight director on duty in Houston during the episode, said in a...

AN eagle-eyed space-watcher has spotted at least ten small black objects hovering right below the International Space Station. The conspiracy theorist believes the NASA live feed captured the UFOs forming up in a circle above the Southern Atlantic Ocean. Footage grabbed from the Nasa live stream from the International Space Station shows the orb-like objects moving past the camera. UFO hunter "Mr MBB333" shared a screenshot taken by the space watcher captured on Saturday, July 3. He posted the shocking discovery on YouTube, saying: "This is a screen grab from the International Space Station above the South Atlantic, at around...

A piece of space junk smacked into the robotic arm on the International Space Station, but near-term operations should not be affected, according to the agencies involved. Robotic operators noticed a hole in the station's Canadarm2 provided by the Canadian Space Agency, which has been in service in orbit since 2001, during a routine inspection on May 12, the CSA officials said in a blog post Friday (May 28). Officials called the hole a "lucky strike" given the relatively small size of the arm, which is 57.7 feet (17.6 meters) long and has a diameter of just 14 inches (35...