Astronauts slice into cosmic ray detector

‘Repair work like a heart bypass surgery’

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla, Nov 23, (Agencies): Spacewalking astronauts ventured out Friday for the second week in a row to repair a cosmic ray detector, this time actually cutting into the $2 billion instrument.

The International Space Station’s Luca Parmitano sliced through eight stainless steel tubes, using hardware store-type bolt cutters. That set the stage to install new coolant pumps during the third spacewalk on Dec 2.

Parmitano had to sever the tubes in a specific order and notified Mission Control each time before cutting. His spacewalking partner, Andrew Morgan, backstopped everything.

NASA likened the repair work to heart bypass surgery. At least four spacewalks are needed to fix the spectrometer, on the hunt for elusive dark matter and antimatter for 8½ years. Without a new cooling system, the experiment – led by a Nobel laureate – would end.

NASA considers these the most complicated spacewalks since the Hubble Space Telescope repair missions a few decades ago. The spectrometer was not designed to be operated on in orbit.

A zip tie got away from Parmitano – floating harmlessly into space – as he struggled to free power cables buried in the spectrometer. Mission Control told him not to worry about it. It was the only snag in the 6-1/2-hour spacewalk.

“To all of you up there, thanks again for another incredible spacewalk”, Mission Control radioed.

Parmitano, an Italian, and Morgan, an American, began the repair work last week. They spent years training for the operation before launching in July.

The 7½-ton (6,800-kilogram) spectrometer rode to the space station during shuttle Endeavour’s final mission

which indicate sexual maturity and help them grab on to females, she said.

Extracting semen from toads that measure up to 4.5 inches (11 centimeters) long is normally easy: they release it in their urine, and they usually pee whenever they’re picked up, Barber said. But for those toads that did not pee, another tactic was used. “It’s kind of weird, but if you hold them in your hand and look at them and bark at them like a dog, they will pee,” she said.

The team, which included scientists in 2011. If successful, the repairs will keep the device working throughout the life of the station, or another five to 10 years.

CAIRO:

Also:

Egypt was to launch its first communication satellite into orbit on Friday, a move it says will improve its communications infrastructure and internet services and attract investment.

Tiba-1 is due to launch at 2108 GMT on one of Europe’s Arianespace rockets from a space centre in French Guiana, officials said.

It is named after Thebes or Tiba in Arabic, an ancient Egyptian capital the ruins of which lie within the modern southern city of Luxor.

The 5.6-tonne satellite made by Airbus and Thales Alenia Space (TAS) will remain in orbit for at least 15 years to provide “every inch” of Egypt with call and internet services, state officials said.

“The Satellite will provide Egypt with a parallel communications network alongside the current land network and a strong telecommunications infrastructure,” Mohamed Elkoosy, executive director of the Egyptian Space Agency, told Reuters.

“The growth of the economy depends on a strong communication network,” he added.

The Egyptian Space Agency will run the satellite from a control centre in Cairo.

Egyptian communications minister Amr Talaat said in a statement the satellite “represents a significant qualitative leap in the field of communications and information technology (ICT)”.

Tiba-1’s coverage area includes some neighbouring Arab and African countries and Egypt may sell them satellite services in future.

WASHINGTON:

Boeing’s multi-billion dollar contract to build US astronaut capsules received an “unnecessary” extension from NASA, a watchdog report said, the latest management blunders in the agency’s program to restart domestic human spaceflight.

NASA agreed to pay Boeing Co (BA.N) a $287 million premium for “additional flexibilities” to accelerate production of the company’s Starliner crew vehicle and avoid an 18-month gap in flights to the International Space Station. NASA’s inspector general called it an “unreasonable” boost to Boeing’s fixed-priced $4.2 billion dollar contract.

Instead, the inspector general said the space agency could have saved $144 million by making “simple changes” to Starliner’s planned launch schedule, including buying additional seats from Russia’s space agency, which the United States has been reliant on since the 2011 retirement of its space shuttle program.

Boeing and Elon Musk’s SpaceX have received nearly $7 billion combined since 2014 from NASA to develop separate capsule systems designed to end US reliance on Russia’s Soyuz rocket for astronaut flights to the International Space Station. The program has been set back years by testing mishaps at both providers.

NASA justified the additional funds to avoid a gap in space station operations. But SpaceX, the other provider, “was not provided an opportunity to propose a solution, even though the company previously offered shorter production lead times than Boeing,” the report said.

NASA also justified the additional expense to ensure Boeing “continued as a second commercial crew provider,” the report said. Boeing was not immediately available for comment.

with the US Fish and Wildlife Service and Puerto Rico’s Department of Natural Resources, among others, preserved the semen in liquid nitrogen as they transported it to the Fort Worth Zoo, where a couple of female toads injected with hormones awaited.

Efforts to save the Puerto Rican crested toad date back a couple of decades, but this is the first time in vitro fertilization was used, according to Armando Otero, interim secretary of the island’s Department of Natural Resources. (AP)