Tag Archives: International Space Station

NASA Wants You… to Design Their Robot

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No one loves a good competition more than Hackaday. We run enough to keep anyone busy. But if you have a little spare time after designing your one inch PCB, you might check out the competition to develop a robotic arm for NASA’s Astrobee robot.

Some of the challenges are already closed, but there are quite a few still open for a few more months (despite the published closing date of and these look like great projects for a hacker. In particular, the software architecture and command, data, and power system are yet to start.

But don’t let the $25,000 …read more

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NASA Announces the First Astronauts Who Will Fly in the SpaceX Dragon

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On Friday, NASA debuted the teams that will pilot America’s two commercial spacecraft: Boeing’s Starliner and SpaceX’s Crew Dragon. Continue reading NASA Announces the First Astronauts Who Will Fly in the SpaceX Dragon→

The ‘Telemetron’ Is a Post-Earth Musical Instrument Designed for Zero Gravity

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The Telemetron generates musical compositions using gyroscopic “chimes.” Continue reading The ‘Telemetron’ Is a Post-Earth Musical Instrument Designed for Zero Gravity→

NASA’s Atomic Fridge Will Make the ISS the Coldest Known Place in the Universe

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Putting NASA’s Cold Atom Lab in space will allow quantum states to last for far longer than on Earth, offering researchers unprecedented insight into the quantum realm. Continue reading NASA’s Atomic Fridge Will Make the ISS the Coldest Known Place in the Universe→

Lost In Space: How Materials Degrade In Space

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Hackaday readers are well aware of the problems caused by materials left exposed to the environment over time, whether that be oxidized contact pads on circuit boards or plastics made brittle from long exposure to the sun’s UV rays.

Now consider the perils faced by materials on the International Space Station (ISS), launched beginning in 1998 and planned to be used until 2028. That’s a total of 30 years in an environment of unfiltered sunlight, extreme temperatures, micrometeoroids, and even problems caused by oxygen. What about the exposure faced by the newly launched Tesla Roadster, an entirely non-space hardened vehicle …read more

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Bigelow’s New Company Wants to Build a Space Station to Compete with China

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The billionaire hotelier announced the formation of a new space company today, and why he thinks NASA and China are the biggest threats to LEO commercial space stations. Continue reading Bigelow’s New Company Wants to Build a Space Station to Compete with China→

Salyut: How We Learned To Make Space Stations

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When you think about space stations, which ones come to mind first? You might think Skylab, the International Space Station (ISS), or maybe Russia’s Mir. But before any of those took to the heavens, there was Salyut.

Russia’s Salyut 1 was humankind’s first space station. The ensuing Salyut program lasted fifteen years, from 1971 to 1986, and the lessons learned from this remarkable series of experiments are still in use today in the International Space Station (ISS). The program was so successful at a time when the US manned space program was dormant that one could say that the Russians …read more

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