Space to Ground: A Space Community: Sept. 13, 2024

Welcome to Space to Ground. I'm Jayden Jennings. His first space flight was in 2002 as a flight engineer on the sixth expedition to the International Space Station. And this week, almost 22 years and three missions later, we saw the return of NASA astronaut Don Pettit to the space station for the fourth time. And we have liftoff of Pettit, Ovchinin and Bogner. On Wednesday, Pettit and two Roscosmos cosmonauts launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. After completing a quick three-hour trajectory, the trio docked to the Rassvet module of the International Space Station before hatches were opened, and they joined the crew on space station for a six-month science and research mission. Research has been a calling card for Pettit during his previous missions on the space station, resulting in several published scientific papers and breakthroughs. But his love of science came at a very early age. What got me interested in science? I think my backyard back in Silverton, Oregon. You walk outside and you see Earth. Seeing things, you see a row of ants walking down the sidewalk. It's like, whoa, look at that. Why are they walking in a line? What happens if one of them gets lost? Where are they going? It's telling you a story, and the answers aren't in the back of the story. You have to figure things out yourself. We invite you to follow Don during his mission as he conducts what is called Science of Opportunity, which are bonus experiments that Pettit performs on his spare time aboard the orbiting laboratory. NASA and Boeing safely returned the uncrewed Starliner spacecraft following its landing at 12.01 a.m. Eastern, September 7th at White Sands Space Harbor in New Mexico. NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Sonny Williams launched on June 5th aboard Starliner for the agency's Boeing crewed flight test. After propulsion issues were observed during rendezvous with the space station and several weeks of analysis and discussion, NASA made the decision to return Starliner without its crew. Wilmore and Williams will continue their work aboard station as part of the Expedition 71 and 72 crew returning in February 2025 with the agency's SpaceX Crew-9 mission. New insights from NASA's Cold Atom Lab could benefit future space missions by using quantum technology to track water on Earth, explore the compositions of moons and other planets, or probe mysterious cosmic phenomena. Members of the science team measured subtle vibrations of the space station with one of the lab's onboard tools, the first time ultracold atoms have been employed to detect changes in the surrounding environment in space. The Cold Atom Lab science team made their measurements with a quantum tool called an atom interferometer, which can precisely measure gravity, magnetic fields, and other forces. Scientists and engineers on Earth use this tool to study the fundamental nature of gravity and advance technologies that aid aircraft and ship navigation. And finally, NASA is seeking input from American companies for the operation and use of Astrobee, the free-flying robots aboard the space station. The further development of the robotic technology could pave the way for future tasks performed by both robots off the planet and in deep space. Head over to nasa.gov to learn more. And that's Space to Ground for this week. Thank you so much for watching.