Obama makes call to space station

15 July 2011 Last updated at 18:19 GMT By Jonathan Amos Science correspondent, BBC News ISS and Atlantis crews take a call from the US President Barack Obama US President Barack Obama joked with astronauts in a call to the International Space Station (ISS).

When he came on the line, the American leader said: "This is President Obama, who am I talking to?"

After the crew introduced themselves, he quipped: "Well, that's funny because I was just dialling out for pizza; I didn't expect to end up in space."

Mr Obama called the ISS to pay tribute to the crew of space shuttle Atlantis on its final visit to the station.

When Atlantis returns to Earth next Thursday, the ship will join the US space agency's (Nasa) other shuttles in retirement.

"There have been thousands who have poured their hearts and souls into America's space shuttle programme over the last three decades that are following this mission with special interest," the president observed. "To them and all the men and women of Nasa, I want to say thank you. You helped our country lead the space age and you continue to inspire us."

Mr Obama has set Nasa on a path to commercialising low-Earth orbit space transportation. He wants the next generation of American vehicles that taxi astronauts to and from the space station to be developed and operated by private companies.

The first of these ships could fly in the next three to four years. As an incentive, the Atlantis crew will be leaving on station a special flag flown by the maiden shuttle mission back in 1981. The first commercial crew to arrive at the ISS will be able to claim it as a prize in what Mr Obama described as a "capture the flag moment for commercial spaceflight".

Obama: "I was just dialling out for pizza"

"We sure hope to see some of our commercial partners climbing onboard really soon," said Atlantis shuttle commander Chris Ferguson. "I know there is a lot of competition out there, a lot of people are fervently working towards this goal to be the first to send a commercial astronaut into orbit; and we look forward to seeing them here soon."

Within minutes of the Obama call to the ISS, one of the leading companies bidding to provide commercial crew transportation, SpaceX of California, had posted on its Twitter stream: "SpaceX commencing flag capturing sequence…"

The Atlantis crew are in the midst of a very busy few days at the ISS. They brought up more than 3.5 tonnes of supplies, including over a tonne of food. All of it has to be transferred to permanent storage positions on the station, and then 2.5 tonnes of rubbish must be put inside the shuttle for the return to Earth.

Nasa has extended the mission by one day. Atlantis is due to land at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida early on 21 July local time.

"It's going to be sad to retire the shuttle," commander Ferguson said in an earlier call with the American media. "That said, it's had a very long and storied career. It's done tremendous things.

"If it weren't for the space shuttle, the station wouldn't be here and it certainly wouldn't be as large as it is." he added.

The Southern Lights seen from the ISS. In the foreground (left to right) are a station solar wing, a robotic boom and the docked Atlantis Jonathan.Amos-INTERNET@bbc.co.uk

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Near miss for space station crew

28 June 2011 Last updated at 20:24 GMT By Jonathan Amos Science correspondent, BBC News A fragile beauty - the International Space Station could be endangered by even a small piece of passing junk A piece of debris has narrowly missed the International Space Station (ISS), forcing its six crew members to go to their escape capsules and prepare for an emergency evacuation back to Earth.

Officials said the debris came within 335m (1,100ft) of the platform.

The crew were given the all clear to return to work minutes after the object passed by at 1208 GMT.

The junk was of unknown size but experts say even a small object could do considerable damage to the ISS.

The US space agency's (Nasa) Associate Administrator for Space Operations, Bill Gerstenmaier, said it was the closest a debris object had ever come to the station. An analysis was now under way to try to understand its origin, he added.

"We don't know what it was. It doesn't have an ID; it's just listed in our tables as 'unknown'," he told reporters.

The Russian space agency had earlier explained: "A situation arose linked to unidentified 'space trash' passing very close to the space station. The crew was told to take their places aboard the Soyuz spacecraft."

Soyuz capsules are used to ferry crew to and from the orbiting platform, and enough vehicles are always present so that they can be used as "lifeboats" if an emergency arises.

Before getting into the capsules, the crew closed all the hatches on the ISS.

The station is currently manned by three Russians, two Americans and a Japanese astronaut.

Dangerous fragments

A Russian official said that only 10% of all objects in Earth's orbit are satellites, while the rest is rubbish: spent rocket stages, defunct satellites, acceleration blocks and other debris.

Scientists estimate that there are hundreds of thousands of junk fragments in space of up to 10cm (four inches) in size, but there are many millions more pieces that are smaller.

Even fragments a few centimetres in width are a hazard because they travel at many thousands of kilometres per hour.

Normally, the station can use thrusters to move out of the way of a piece of junk, but this alert was raised too late for such a manoeuvre.

"We're working with our Russians partners to see if we can shorten the timeline to do manoeuvres," Mr Gerstenmaier said.

"Today, it takes us a couple of days to actually get the manoeuvre timeline loaded in station and to try to do the manoeuvre to avoid debris. We're working with Russians to make some software changes where we can do that in a much more expedient manner, so if we get late notification of another object - we'll have the ability to move."

Three crew members were forced briefly to follow the same proceedure in an incident in 2009.

The ISS is currently flying at over 380km altitude. It was pushed to this height recently to take it clear of residual air molecules at the top of the atmosphere that tend to drag it downwards over time. Station managers would not wish to push it much higher because that would take it closer to known debris fields and more of the space radiation that can be harmful to the health of astronauts.

The station is a $100bn project that has been under construction about 220m (350km) above the Earth since 1998. Five partners are involved - the US, Russia, Japan, Canada and Europe (10 nations coordinated through the European Space Agency).

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Endeavour docks at space station

18 May 2011 Last updated at 15:21 GMT Endeavour performed a backflip before docking with the ISS

The US space shuttle Endeavour has arrived at the International Space Station (ISS).

The orbiter, which is making its last foray above the planet, will spend just under two weeks at the platform.

It is delivering a $2bn particle physics experiment and a tray of critical spare parts.

On its return to Earth on 1 June, Endeavour will be prepared for public display at the California Science Center in Los Angeles.

The ship completed the now traditional flip manoeuvre just prior to docking, to allow astronauts on the ISS to photograph all of the shuttle's surfaces.

This imagery will be sent to Earth to be assessed by engineers, who will check to see the orbiter has sustained no damage during its launch on Monday or during the two-journey to get to the ISS.

Beyond Endeavour, the US space agency (Nasa) plans one further shuttle mission to the station in July.

America will then use Russian Soyuz capsules to fly its astronauts to the ISS, before a number of US national commercial carriers enter service and take up the role sometime in the middle of the decade.

Endeavour's crew was led through the hatch into the ISS by their commander Mark Kelly.

The veteran of three previous shuttle flights is the husband of Arizona congresswoman Gabby Giffords, who was shot in the head by a gunman at one of her constituency meetings in January.

She has made remarkable steps in her recovery since the attack, enabling Kelly to leave Earth for 16 days to take part in the mission.

Shuttle commander Mark Kelly is greeted by the ISS crew as he climbs aboard

The Endeavour crew's key ahead will be to fit the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS) to the top of the ISS.

The machine, which has taken 17 years to prepare, will undertake a comprehensive survey of cosmic rays.

These are the high-energy particles that are accelerated in Earth's direction from all corners of the cosmos.

Scientists hope that in characterising these particles they can learn more about how the Universe came into being and how is it constructed.

The astronauts will use the robotic arms of both Endeavour and the ISS to put the detector in place on Thursday.

Shuttle Atlantis is currently being prepared for a final mission sometime in July

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Huge detector bolted to station

19 May 2011 Last updated at 11:18 GMT By Jonathan Amos Science correspondent, BBC News AMS was put in place in hand-over manoeuvre by the robotic arms of the shuttle and station A giant particle detector has been slotted into position on the back of the International Space Station (ISS).

The 7-tonne Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS) will sift cosmic rays over the next decade, looking for clues to the origin and make-up of the Universe.

With an estimated development cost of $2bn, the detector is the single most expensive experiment at the ISS.

AMS was brought up to the station by the US shuttle Endeavour, which is on its final mission before retirement.

Astronauts Roberto Vittori and Andrew Feustel used the orbiter's robotic arm to lift AMS out of its payload bay, before handing off the machine to the station arm operated by Greg Johnson and Greg Chamitoff. The latter pair then swung the device on to an attach point on the platform's starboard truss, or backbone.

Confirmation that all latches were secure came at 0946 GMT as the ISS was travelling over the border between Pakistan and India.

The machine should be streaming data down to a temporary operations centre in Houston, Texas, within hours.

AMS's perch is slightly tilted to give it a view of the sky that is unobstructed by the station's big solar wings.

No-one is expecting dramatic announcements immediately, but the scientists working on the detector project say it could eventually make profound discoveries.

The device will undertake a comprehensive survey of cosmic rays - the blizzard of high-energy particles (mostly protons and helium nuclei) that are accelerated in Earth's direction from exploded stars, black holes and who knows what other exotic corners of the cosmos. AMS will:

look for clues to the nature of "dark matter", the material that shapes galaxies and makes up most of the mass of the Universehunt for complex antimatter, which might hint at the existence of stars and planets made from material that is a mirror of the matter in normal stars and planetstry to catch strangelets, or strange matter, which is built from a slightly different mix of sub-atomic particles to that of normal mattercharacterise the space radiation environment so that the dangers for astronauts and satellites of being in space is fully comprehended

Endeavour arrived at the station on Wednesday after a two-day journey from Earth.

The ship is commanded by Mark Kelly, who just a few months ago looked like he might not even make the trip because of a gun assault on his wife, the Arizona congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords. Doctors say she is making good progress as she recovers from a bullet injury to the brain - sufficient progress to allow Kelly to fulfil his astronaut duties.

Ms Giffords underwent surgery on Wednesday to put a piece of plastic over a hole in her skull.

"Obviously this has been a long road for us since January 8th," Commander Kelly said from orbit just after AMS installation. "Her having surgery yesterday was not planned all along, but she was ready and the doctors wanted to do it then; and it didn't make sense to wait a couple of weeks until I got back. I've been thinking a little bit about that, but it's pretty common surgery and it went very well."

The US Navy captain was the first through the hatch after Wednesday's docking. After the customary greetings from the station's residents, which included the ringing of a ship's bell to welcome aboard the visitors, the Endeavour shuttle crew then immediately set about their tasks.

The key one for the day was the transfer of a tray of critical spare parts for the platform. These spares comprised gas tanks, electrical units, and computer and communications equipment.

Endeavour's crew will do four spacewalks during their stay to carry out routine maintenance on the exterior of the ISS - the last spacewalks ever to be conducted by a shuttle crew.

The ship is due back on Earth on 1 June. Completion of its mission will leave only Atlantis still to fly before the US space agency (Nasa) stands down its orbiter programme for good. Atlantis should launch its cargo delivery mission to the station sometime in July.

Nasa engineers are assessing some damage to heat-resistant tiles on Endeavour's belly, but the defects are not thought to be serious.

"We've seen this kind of damage before, and it's not too much of a concern for us," said Commander Kelly.

Continue reading the main story

Transition Radiation Detector determines highest-energy particle velocities

Silicon Trackers follow particle paths; how they bend reveals their charge

Permanent Magnet is core component of AMS and makes particles curve

Time-of-flight Counters determine lowest-energy particle velocities

Star Trackers scan star fields to establish AMS's orientation in space

Cerenkov Detector makes accurate velocity measurements of fast particles

Electromagnetic Calorimeter measures energy of impacting particles

Anti-coincidence Counter filters signal from unwanted side particles

Jonathan.Amos-INTERNET@bbc.co.uk

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Biomass station raises protests

16 May 2011 Last updated at 16:07 GMT The protesters locked themselves to scaffolding tripods Seven people have been arrested in a protest against a proposed biomass power station at Grangemouth docks.

Twenty protesters from Action Against Agrofuels blocked both the access roads to the port, but police said they had now been reopened.

The group claimed the wood-burning power station would threaten forests and worsen climate change.

Forth Energy said the plant would use sustainably sourced fuel and produce low carbon electricity and heat.

The partnership with Forth Ports and Scottish and Southern Energy wants to create four plants in Scotland, at Dundee, Rosyth, Grangemouth and Leith.

Central Scotland Police said four activists had been arrested for causing an obstruction at South Shore Road. Three were arrested for the same offence at the Central Dock Road protest.

Road blocks

All seven are in custody and are expected to appear at Falkirk Sheriff Court on Tuesday.

Supt Robbie McGregor, Falkirk Area Commander, said: "Every effort was made to resolve this peacefully.

"The protesters were given every opportunity to end their demonstration and having failed to do so were arrested for causing an obstruction.

"We sought to minimize the impact of the protesters' activity for business in and around Grangemouth, and in particular the port, with a view to restoring normality as soon as possible."

Some of the demonstrators locked themselves to scaffolding tripods in the road to block the entrances to the port.

'Minimal impact'

Protester Johnny Agnew, from Glasgow, said: "Vast renewable energy subsidies, paid through all our fuel bills, are being offered for big biomass, which causes more climate change, more deforestation and more pollution. We are effectively subsidising ecocide."

The group said there was "nothing sustainable" about creating new demand for wood and that the plant would lead to health problems because of air pollution.

Calum Wilson, managing director of Forth Energy, said the action "clearly consisted" of people from outside the local area.

He added: "Whilst the impact on shipping operations in the port itself was minimised, their actions today disrupted the local community and the livelihoods of members of the haulage industry across Scotland.

"They sought to bypass the proper planning consultation process and could have compromised safety had there been an emergency at the port."

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