SpaceX Dragon Approaches the International Space Station (NASA, 05/25/12) by NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center on Flickr.
Via Flickr:
The SpaceX Dragon commercial cargo craft approaches the International Space Station on May 25, 2012 for grapple and berthing. Expedition 31 Flight Engineers Don Pettit and Andre Kuipers grappled Dragon at 9:56 a.m. (EDT) with the Canadarm2 robotic arm and used the robotic arm to berth Dragon to the Earth-facing side of the station’s Harmony node at 12:02 p.m. May 25, 2012. Dragon became the first commercially developed space vehicle to be launched to the station to join Russian, European and Japanese resupply craft that service the complex while restoring a U.S. capability to deliver cargo to the orbital laboratory. Dragon is scheduled to spend about a week docked with the station before returning to Earth on May 31 for retrieval.
Image credit: NASA/JSC
SpaceX Dragon Berths at the International Space Station (NASA, 05/25/12) by NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center on Flickr.
Via Flickr:
With darkness, Earth’s horizon and thin line of atmosphere forming a backdrop, the SpaceX Dragon commercial cargo craft is grappled by the Canadarm2 robotic arm at the International Space Station. Expedition 31 Flight Engineers Don Pettit and Andre Kuipers grappled Dragon at 9:56 a.m. (EDT) and used the robotic arm to berth Dragon to the Earth-facing side of the station’s Harmony node at 12:02 p.m. May 25, 2012. Dragon became the first commercially developed space vehicle to be launched to the station to join Russian, European and Japanese resupply craft that service the complex while restoring a U.S. capability to deliver cargo to the orbital laboratory. Dragon is scheduled to spend about a week docked with the station before returning to Earth on May 31 for retrieval.
Image credit: NASA/JSC
SpaceX Dragon Berths at the International Space Station (NASA, 05/25/12) by NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center on Flickr.
Via Flickr:
With rays of sunshine and the thin blue atmosphere of Earth serving as a backdrop, the SpaceX Dragon commercial cargo craft is berthed to the Earth-facing side of the International Space Station’s Harmony node. Expedition 31 Flight Engineers Don Pettit and Andre Kuipers grappled Dragon at 9:56 a.m. (EDT) with the Canadarm2 robotic arm and used it to berth Dragon to the at 12:02 p.m. May 25, 2012. Dragon became the first commercially developed space vehicle to be launched to the station to join Russian, European and Japanese resupply craft that service the complex while restoring a U.S. capability to deliver cargo to the orbital laboratory. Dragon is scheduled to spend about a week docked with the station before returning to Earth on May 31 for retrieval
Image credit: NASA/JSC
Stunning Lyrids Over Earth at Night With Star Field (NASA, International Space Station, 04/21-22/12) by NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center on Flickr.
Via Flickr:
On the night of April 21, the 2012 Lyrid meteor shower peaked in the skies over Earth. While NASA allsky cameras were looking up at the night skies, astronaut Don Pettit aboard the International Space Station trained his video camera on Earth below. Footage from that night is now revealing breathtaking images of Earth at night with meteors ablating — or burning up — in the atmosphere.
The downlinked image to the right shows a very probable Lyrid in a six-second exposure, taken on April 22, 2012 at 5:34:22 UT. The International Space Station position was over 88.5 W, 19.9 N at an altitude of 392 km. NASA astronomer Bill Cooke mapped the meteor to the star field — seen in this annotated image — and confirmed that the meteor originated from the Lyrid radiant.
The image is rotated so that the north celestial pole (NCP) is roughly in the up direction. The lights of Florida are clearly visible to the right of the meteor. Cuba, the Florida Keys and the eastern Gulf Coast shoreline are also visible. Some brilliant flashes of lightning are also prevalent in the image.
Image credit: NASA/JSC/Don Pettit
Etosha Pan, Namibia (NASA, International Space Station, 12/30/11) by NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center on Flickr.
Via Flickr:
The Etosha Pan in Namibia is featured in this image photographed by an Expedition 30 crew member on the International Space Station. This photograph shows the white, salt-covered floor of the northwest corner of the great dry lake in northern Namibia known as the Etosha Pan (left margin). Two rivers, the Ekuma and Oshigambo, transport water from the north down to the Etosha Pan proper. In a relatively rare event, water from recent rains has flowed down the larger Ekuma River—in which it appears as a thin blue line within the generally light grey-green floodplain—and fills a lobe of the lake with light green water (lower right quarter of image). Water has also flowed into a small offshoot dry lake where it appears a brighter green (upper right quarter of image). Other smaller lakes at center and top center show red and brown water colors. The different colors of lake water are determined by the interplay of water depth and resident organisms such as algae; the algae color varies depending on water temperature and salinity. A similar process is observed in pink and red floodwaters ponded in Lake Eyre, a usually dry lake in Australia’s arid center. In this case it is known that the coloration is indeed due to algae growth. Typically, little river water or sediment reaches the floor of the Etosha dry lake because water seeps into the riverbeds along their courses. The floor of the pan itself is seldom seen with even a thin sheet of water. In this image, there was enough surface flow to reach the pan, but too little to flow beyond the inlet bay. A prior flood event, when water entered the pan via the Oshigambo River, was documented in astronaut imagery in 2006. The straight line that crosses the image from top center to bottom is the northern fence line of Namibia’s Etosha National Park. This straight, three-meter-high fence keeps wildlife from crossing into the numerous small farms of the relatively densely populated Owambo region of Namibia, north of the pan. The large Etosha dry lakebed (120 kilometers or 75 miles long) is the center of Namibia’s largest wildlife park, a major tourist attraction.
Image credit: NASA
Star Trails in Space (NASA, International Space Station, 03/16/12) by NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center on Flickr.
Via Flickr:
This is a composite of a series of images photographed from a mounted camera on the Earth-orbiting International Space Station, from approximately 240 miles above Earth. Expedition 31 Flight Engineer Don Pettit relayed some information about photographic techniques used to achieve the images: “My star trail images are made by taking a time exposure of about 10 to 15 minutes. However, with modern digital cameras, 30 seconds is about the longest exposure possible, due to electronic detector noise effectively snowing out the image. To achieve the longer exposures I do what many amateur astronomers do. I take multiple 30-second exposures, then ‘stack’ them using imaging software, thus producing the longer exposure.” A total of 18 images photographed by the astronaut-monitored stationary camera were combined to create this composite.
Image credit: NASA
Star Trails in Space (NASA, International Space Station, 03/17/12) by NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center on Flickr.
Via Flickr:
This is a composite of a series of images photographed from a mounted camera on the Earth-orbiting International Space Station, from approximately 240 miles above Earth. Space station hardware in the foreground includes the Mini-Research Module (MRM1, center) and a Russian Progress vehicle docked to the Pirs Docking Compartment (right). Expedition 31 Flight Engineer Don Pettit relayed some information about photographic techniques used to achieve the images: “My star trail images are made by taking a time exposure of about 10 to 15 minutes. However, with modern digital cameras, 30 seconds is about the longest exposure possible, due to electronic detector noise effectively snowing out the image. To achieve the longer exposures I do what many amateur astronomers do. I take multiple 30-second exposures, then ‘stack’ them using imaging software, thus producing the longer exposure.” A total of 47 images photographed by the astronaut-monitored stationary camera were combined to create this composite.
Image credit: NASA
