ATLANTIC SKIES:
Renewed interest in space station
My space-obsessed granddaughter, Scarlet, was quite intrigued when, a week ago, I showed her the video replay of the Nov. 15 launch of the Spacex rocket (on its first fully operational crewed mission) from the Kennedy Space Centre in Florida.
The flight took four astronauts (three American, one Japanese) to the International Space Station (ISS); the first launch to the ISS from American soil since the end of NASA’S Space Shuttle program in 2011.
The launch brought the onboard complement of astronauts to seven.
Of course, the curiosity bell rang, and she just had to know everything about the station, so off we went to comb through my astronomy books and surf the internet for any information we could find about the ISS.
Initially based on the 1980s United States’ Space Station Freedom concept (during its post-second World War, Cold War with Russia), the ISS was created to counter the Russian Salyut and Mir space station programs. When the Cold War ended in the early 1990s, the space station concept was revived, this time as a joint, international endeavour by the United States, Russia, Canada, Japan and Europe. The concept called for the physical joining of NASA’S Space Station Freedom module, Russia’s Mir-2 station, and European Space Agency’s Columbus space lab.
The actual first step occurred in November 1998 with the launch into lowEarth orbit (altitude of 2,000 kilometress or less) of the first module component atop a Russian proton rocket. Subsequent launches lifted additional components into orbit, where they were joined to one another, with the last module being added in 2016.
The station’s first crew (named Expedition 1, consisting of one American and two Russian astronauts) docked on Nov. 1, 2000. The station has a comfortable capacity for six astronauts (as of the Nov. 15 launch, there are now seven on-board), though in 2009, it had as many as 16 astronauts on board at one time.
The ISS is 728 metres in length, 108.5 metres in width, and approximately 20 metres in height, and consists of 32 components, which, on Earth, would weigh a little more than 420,000 kilograms. It orbits the Earth every 92.68 minutes, completing nearly 16 (15.54 to be precise) orbits per day (the on-board astronauts see 16 sunrises and sunsets each day) at an average speed of 27,600 kilometres per hour.
Although it technically
loses about two kilometres of altitude per month due to gravity (called orbital decay), thrusters aboard the station, fired at regular intervals, keep it orbiting at the required altitude (between 370-460 km).
Regular resupply missions to the ISS carry needed water, air and food supplies, scientific equipment, and, when required, new crew members. While on the ISS, the crew members experience weightlessness, which over extended periods of time, can result in biological changes to the astronauts’ bodies; that is why the majority of astronauts only spend four to five months or less on the station, before returning to Earth. The longest continuous habitation of the ISS record by a female astronaut is held by NASA astronaut Christina Koch, who spent 328 consecutive days aboard the station before returning to Earth on Feb. 6. The longest record by a male astronaut is that of NASA astronaut Scott Kelly,
with 340 consecutive days on the ISS during 2015-2016.
Though I have, no doubt, already posted this information in another weekly article, if you would like to watch the ISS pass over your location, go to spotthestation.nasa.gov and follow the instructions to receive an email listing the date, time, direction, altitude, and duration of the ISS as it flies over your location.
THIS WEEK’S SKY
Mercury remains too close to the sun to be seen. Venus (magnitude -3.97) puts in a brief appearance in the predawn, eastern sky, rising shortly after 5 a.m., reaching a height of 17 degrees above the southeast horizon, and then fading from view around 7:15 a.m.
Mars (magnitude -1.14) becomes visible 27 degrees above the eastern horizon about 4:50 p.m., reaching its highest altitude of 50 degrees above the eastern horizon by
8:35 p.m., remaining visible until around 2:20 a.m. when it drops below seven degrees above the western horizon.
Jupiter (magnitude -2.04) is visible in the southern sky around 4:50 p.m., 19 degrees above the horizon, before setting around 7:50 p.m.
Saturn (magnitude +0.64) is visible a short while after Jupiter, 19 degrees above the southwest horizon, before it, too, sets shortly after 8 p.m.
EVENTS
Looks like we’ll have one more comet to look at in 2020. Comet S3 Erasmus (currently at magnitude +9) was discovered on Sept. 14, and will reach perihelion on Dec. 13. More about this comet in next week’s column.
Until then, clear skies.
Glenn K. Roberts lives in Stratford, P.E.I., and has been an avid amateur astronomer since he was a small child. His column, Atlantic Skies, appears every two weeks.