Magnolia Preparatory Academy

READY FOR LIFT OFF:  Friday morning, three humans will be leaving Earth behind for awhile. The astronauts and cosmonaut will be lifting off rom the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on July 28. Live launch coverage will begin at 7:45 a.m. EDT on NASA Television and the agency’s website, with the launch set for 8:41 a.m.

Expedition 52/53 crew members are NASA astronaut Randy Bresnik, Sergey Ryazanskiy of Roscosmos and Paolo Nespoli of the European Space Agency. 

Post launch, the trio will make a six hour trip in a Soyuz MS-05 spacecraft to the International Space Station. Docking is expected to happen at 3 p.m. Pacific time. NASA coverage will commence at 2:15 p.m. The hatches between the Soyuz and the station are set to open about 4:40 p.m.

The new crew will be joining Fyodor Yurchikhin of Roscosmos and Flight Engineers Peggy Whitson and Jack Fischer of NASA on board the ISS. Coverage of hatch opening and welcoming ceremonies will begin at 4 p.m., Pacific time. 

For more about all of the amazing things going on on board the ISS, visit: https://www.nasa.gov/station

Tonight, we were thrilled to have a chance to see the ISS fly overhead. We happened to be in a Safeway parking lot when it happened, and a young family parked next to us heard us geeking out and they were super excited about seeing the space station. They'd never seen it fly over before, and didn't even know one could, so it was fun to share that info with them. Yay for NASA outreach!

ON THE HORIZON: For a couple of years now, we have been tracking an enormous solar event - the total eclipse of the sun set for Aug. 21 across a good swath of North America. 

In an email today from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, we learned about how high altitude balloons will be used to help broadcast and study the upcoming event. 

Led by Angela Des Jardins of Montana State University, NASA's Eclipse Balloon Project is sending more than 50 high-altitude balloons launched by student teams across the U.S. to livestream aerial footage of the Aug. 21 total solar eclipse from the edge of space to NASA's website. Per the JPL press release, "Total solar eclipses are rare and awe-inspiring events. Nobody has ever live-streamed aerial video footage of a total solar eclipse before," said Angela Des Jardins. "By live-streaming it on the Internet, we are providing people across the world an opportunity to experience the eclipse in a unique way, even if they are not able to see the eclipse directly." Jim Green, director of planetary science at NASA Headquarters in Washington, said, "The August solar eclipse gives us a rare opportunity to study the stratosphere when it's even more Mars-like than usual. With student teams flying balloon payloads from dozens of points along the path of totality, we'll study effects on microorganisms that are coming along for the ride." NASA will provide each team with two small metal cards, each the size of a dog tag. The cards have harmless, yet environmentally resilient bacteria dried onto their surface. One card will fly up with the balloon while the other remains on the ground. A comparison of the two will show the consequences of the exposure to Mars-like conditions, such as bacterial survival and any genetic changes. The results of the experiment will improve NASA's understanding of environmental limits for terrestrial life, in order to inform our search for life on other worlds. Mars' atmosphere at the surface is about 100 times thinner than Earth's, with cooler temperatures and more radiation. Under normal conditions, the upper portion of our stratosphere is similar to these Martian conditions, with its cold, thin atmosphere and exposure to radiation, due to its location above most of Earth's protective ozone layer. Temperatures where the balloons fly can reach minus 35 degrees Fahrenheit (about minus 37 Celsius) or colder, with pressures about a hundredth of that at sea level. During the eclipse, the similarities to Mars only increase. The Moon will buffer the full blast of radiation and heat from the Sun, blocking certain ultraviolet rays that are less abundant in the Martian atmosphere and bringing the temperature down even further. ... Beyond the opportunity for NASA to conduct science, this joint project provides the opportunity for students as young as 10 years old to be exposed to the scientific method and astrobiology -- research about life beyond Earth. Since ballooning is such an accessible and low-cost technique, the project has attracted student teams from Puerto Rico to Alaska. The data collected by the teams will be analyzed by NASA scientists at Ames and NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California; collaborators at Cornell University, Ithaca, New York; scientists funded by the National Science Foundation and National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration; faculty members and students at the teams' institutions, as well as the public. "This project will not only provide insight into how bacterial life responds to Mars-like conditions, we are engaging and inspiring the next generation of scientists," said Green. "Through this exciting 'piggyback' mission, NASA is collaborating with scientists of the future to take a small step in the search for life beyond our planet."