India’s first experiment aboard the International Space Station will examine how microgravity and space radiation affect the growth of small edible algae — a potential food source for future long-duration space missions.
Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore returned to planet Earth Tuesday evening ending an unplanned protracted stay on the International Space Station.
Williams and Wilmore, who arrived at the ISS as part of an experimental spacecraft mission, had initially been scheduled for a brief eight-day stay.
The US President Joe Biden and Prime Minister Narendra Modi set a course to reach new frontiers across all sectors of space cooperation.
The Crew-4 mission launched at 3:52 a.m. EDT on April 27 on a Falcon 9 rocket from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Less than 16 hours later, Dragon docked to the Harmony module's space-facing port.
The Trojan asteroids are trapped in orbits around the Sun at the same distance as Jupiter, either far ahead of or behind the giant planet.
NASA takes the threat of orbital debris seriously as these objects can endanger spacecraft, jeopardize access to space, and impede the development of a low-Earth orbit economy, including commercial participation.
NASA had said it lost control of the station's positioning minutes later, but it was repositioned back to normal.
Vice President Mike Pence, who attended the launch with his wife Karen, called it a "new era in human space exploration in America."
Koch's medical data will be especially valuable to NASA scientists as the agency draws up plans for a long-duration manned mission to Mars.
