Space.com
• Robert Z. Pearlman
Jessica Meir and Anil Menon spent 6.5 hours outside the International Space Station on Aug. 6 installing mounting hardware for new rollout solar arrays. The upgrade is intended to provide additional power for the station, according to NASA.
Human Spaceflight & Space Stations
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Jessica Meir and Anil Menon spent 6.5 hours outside the International Space Station on Aug. 6 installing mounting hardware for new rollout solar arrays. The upgrade is intended to provide additional power for the station, according to NASA.
NASA and Roscosmos will continue exchanging astronaut seats between Russian Soyuz and U.S. Crew Dragon spacecraft. The agreement does not yet include Boeing’s Starliner, leaving the crew-transport arrangement limited to the two currently participating vehicles.
Voyager Technologies remains optimistic about Starlab’s prospects but is seeking changes to NASA’s commercial space station request for proposals. The company wants certain requirements relaxed, highlighting the tension between NASA’s program objectives and industry’s ability to deliver commercially viable orbital infrastructure.
SpaceX says its Crew Dragon fleet has a “significant” amount of life remaining, but the company has not committed to how long the spacecraft will stay in service. The uncertainty puts the future of a central platform in commercial human spaceflight under renewed scrutiny.
High activity
ESA astronaut Sophie Adenot has completed a third evaluation of the EuroSuit intravehicular activity spacesuit prototype aboard the International Space Station. The repeated on-orbit testing advances Europe’s assessment of a domestically developed suit for crew operations and helps validate its design in the space-station environment.
Hisdesat selected Airbus and Thales Alenia Space to build SpainSat NG-III, while Eutelsat and Poland advanced cooperation on Europe’s IRIS² secure communications program. Separately, SES agreed to support Starlab’s commercial space station and provide multi-orbit connectivity across LATAM Airlines’ Airbus and Embraer fleet.
Outlier Space has completed a $7.35 million pre-seed financing round to develop a commercial capsule for microgravity research and payload return. The funding supports the company’s effort to build infrastructure for conducting experiments in space and bringing them back to Earth.
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