Human Spaceflight

🔴 #LiveNow: media briefing following the 345th ESA Council meeting. 📺 watch.esa.int/Two/

Engineers are targeting 8 pm ET on Thursday, March 19, for rollout of Artemis II. NASA’s crawler-transporter 2 will carry the 11-million-pound stack at about 1 mph along the four-mile route from the Vehicle Assembly Building at @NASAKennedy to the launch pad.

@Soph_astro @astro_hathaway @Astro_Jessica .@Astro_Jessica and @Astro_ChrisW are back inside after a 7‑hour‑and‑2‑minute spacewalk! @Soph_astro and @astro_hathaway are now helping them doff their spacesuits.

@Soph_astro @astro_hathaway @Astro_Jessica About 6 hours into the spacewalk, ESA astronaut @Soph_astro and NASA astronaut @astro_hathaway are working into moving the Canadarm 2 robotic arm back into its nominal configuration.

The 278th spacewalk dedicated to the Station’s assembly, maintenance and upgrades is taking place today. ESA astronaut @Soph_astro and NASA astronaut @astro_hathaway supported this morning’s preparations, assisting the spacewalkers as they donned their spacesuits.

Since their arrival aboard the @Space_Station on 14 February, ESA astronaut @Soph_astro and NASA astronaut @astro_hathaway have already carried out two sessions of #EchoFinder, an experiment developed by the French space agency @CNES for the #εpsilon mission. 🔗 esa.int/Science_Explor…

Day 032, orbit 0498 – Here is the very first picture I took from the Cupola… just like when you’re flying on a plane, clouds ⚪  are at times the only thing as far as the eye can see – the biggest difference being that we’re about 390 km higher than a commercial jetliner! The blue 🔵  tone of the image comes from the atmosphere, which scatters the shorter wavelengths of light, such as blue and violet. You see the same effect from a plane, though more faintly. Near the top of the picture, along the curve of the Earth, you can clearly see how thin the atmosphere is, fading from a pale to a deeper blue before disappearing into the black of space ⚫… Second pic is my very first picture from Dragon, with heart-shaped clouds, which I took as a message to spread good vibes. More pictures soon! 🌍 📷 Credit: NASA/ESA – S. Adenot (1), NASA/ESA/SpaceX (2) #εpsilon

🧲 Magnetic Monday 🧲 Sometime around nowish, the North and South magnetic dip poles are in alignment on the same line of longitude! The North and South magnetic dip poles are where Earth's magnetic field lines point vertically down or up, respectively. At this point, a normal compass becomes pretty useless for navigation. At the exact magnetic North pole, the needle will point straight into the ground. The magnetic dip poles are not directly opposite each other, and are in fact constantly wandering. The North magnetic dip pole has been charging towards Siberia in recent years. But around about now they should both be on the same line of longitude at ~136 degrees. Anyway... enjoy this rare occurrence, and if niche geomagnetic facts are your thing, tell your friends!

@ESA_ExoMars @EuropeanSpaceA1 @esascience @NASAMars @NASAPersevere @esaoperations @esa Bonus: comet watcher ☄️ Last October, the European orbiter turned its camera on an interstellar visitor, 3I/ATLAS, as it swept past the Red Planet. TGO’s observations helped @esa improve the comet’s trajectory through our Solar System by a factor of 10.

@ESA_ExoMars @EuropeanSpaceA1 @esascience @NASAMars @NASAPersevere @esaoperations Communication hub 🛰️ 📡 TGO plays a critical role relaying information from rovers and landers on the martian surface back to Earth. It supports @NASAMars's current surface missions and will do the same for @esa's Rosalind Franklin rover, targeted for launch in 2028.

🚀 10 years ago, our largest and most sophisticated martian explorer left Earth behind. To mark the launch anniversary, here are 5 remarkable things @esa's Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO) was made for 🧵👇

☢️ Ion beams for astronaut safety and cancer therapy. ⚛️ For the first time in Europe, researchers are accelerating charged atoms up to around 90% the speed of light to recreate the full spectrum of cosmic radiation. ⚡ Meet one of the most powerful particle accelerators in the world at GSI, Germany: esa.int/ESA_Multimedia…

#Artemis II update 🚀 ⏰ April launch opportunities in Central European Summer Time (CEST) 🗓️ 2 Apr — 00:24 🗓️ 3 Apr — 01:22 🗓️ 4 Apr — 02:00 🗓️ 5 Apr — 02:53 🗓️ 6 Apr — 03:40 🗓️ 7 Apr — 04:36 Set those alarms Europe ☕ Night owls 🦉 and very early birds 🐦, this one's for you 🌕

🧗‍♀️ She also ventured deep underground during our @ESA_CAVES training in 2019. blogs.esa.int/caves/2019/09/…

We were very happy to welcome @Astro_Jeanette to @esa's technology centre in the Netherlands last month 👩🏾‍🚀 Jeanette has supported many European experiments during her time on the International @Space_Station, from 3d printing metal on orbit 🔩 to operating robots 🤖 and capturing lightning ⚡ 🔗 esa.int/ESA_Multimedia…