Blue Origin, the rocket and space tourism company founded by Jeff Bezos, is proposing a massive new commercial space station called "Orbital Reef" that could be used to host science experiments, vacation getaways, and potentially even in-space manufacturing. CNN reports: The company plans to work alongside startup Sierra Space to bring the space station to fruition, and Boeing plans to design a research module on the station, though there are no guarantees the companies can make it happen. Such projects are still exorbitantly expensive and risky, likely costing in the tens of billions of dollars and requiring multiple safe launches before a human ever even floats aboard. Blue Origin and Sierra Space plan to co-finance the space station, though executives declined to give an all-in cost estimate during a press conference Monday. They did add that they are expecting to sign on NASA as an anchor tenant, though it's not exactly clear how such a partnership could take shape.

Blue Origin hopes Orbital Reef could be operational in the late 2020s, though it will have to get quite a bit done to make that happen. The company has only managed a few crewed suborbital flights so far, much like NASA first achieved back in the early 1960s, and it has yet to put a spacecraft in orbit, let alone a person. A space station would take a major leap. New Glenn, the Blue Origin-built rocket that is expected to be powerful and large enough to haul the biggest portions of the space station to orbit, is not yet operational, and its maiden flight was recently delayed to at least late 2022. The orbital reef will be able to host up to 10 people and will have roughly the same internal volume as the ISS.

Nanoracks, Voyager Space and Lockheed Martin announced today (Oct. 21) that they plan to get a free-flying private space station up and running in low Earth orbit (LEO) by 2027. Space.com reports: The outpost, called Starlab, is envisioned to be a tourist destination as well as a research and manufacturing hub that helps foster the growth of an off-Earth economy. "To meet U.S. government, international space agency and commercial needs in space, these industry leaders will develop Starlab specifically to enable the growing space economy and meet pent-up customer demand for space services such as materials research, plant growth and astronaut activity," the three companies said in a press release.

The four-person Starlab station will be lofted in a single launch, which is expected to take place in 2027. The outpost will feature a habitat module with 12,000 cubic feet (340 cubic meters) of internal volume, a power and propulsion element, a laboratory setup and a large external robotic arm to service payloads and cargo, according to Nanoracks' Starlab page. For comparison, the International Space Station (ISS) has 32,333 cubic feet (916 cubic meters) of internal volume, which is equivalent to that of a Boeing 747 jet.

"Unplanned thruster firings by a Russian spacecraft briefly knocked the International Space Station off-kilter Friday, the second such incident in less than three months," reports Space.com: The spacecraft involved today was the Soyuz MS-18, which is scheduled to bring cosmonaut Oleg Novitskiy, film director Klim Shipenko and actor Yulia Peresild back to Earth early Sunday morning (Oct. 17)... "Within 30 minutes, flight controllers regained attitude control of the space station, which is now in a stable configuration," NASA officials wrote in an update this afternoon. "The crew was awake at the time of the event and was not in any danger."

The orbiting lab briefly tilted from its normal orientation this morning by 57 degrees, according to the Russian news agency Interfax, which cited communications between Novitskiy and Vladimir Solovyov, the flight director of the station's Russian segment.

Space station managers don't yet know what caused the anomalously long firing... It's also unclear why the MS-18's thrusters stopped firing, though the station's handlers have some ideas. "We think — and we haven't got confirmation — we think the thrusters stopped firing because they reached their prop[ellant] limit," NASA flight director Timothy Creamer told agency astronauts shortly after the thrusters shut down, according to The New York Times. "Moscow is checking into it and doing their data analysis."

"Transient luminous event" sounds like a euphemism for a ghost, but it's actually a beautiful phenomenon that can sometimes be seen from the International Space Station. European Space Agency astronaut and current ISS resident Thomas Pesquet shared a view of an ethereal blue glow emerging over Europe. CNET reports: Transient luminous events are caused by upper-atmospheric lightning. This one happened in early September and Pesquet tweeted about it this week, calling it "a very rare occurrence." "What is fascinating about this lightning is that just a few decades ago they had been observed anecdotally by pilots and scientists were not convinced they actually existed," Pesquet said on Flickr. "Fast forward a few years and we can confirm elves, and sprites are very real and could be influencing our climate too!" Pesquet's image represents a single frame from a time-lapse taken from the station. The image would be a beauty just for the way it shows the curve of Earth and the twinkling lights of Europe below. The transient luminous event captured at its finest moment takes it to the next level.

The first dog in space. The first man and woman. Now Russia has clinched another spaceflight first before the United States: Beating Hollywood to orbit. From a report: A Russian actress, Yulia Sherepild, a director, Klim Shipenko, and their veteran Russian astronaut guide, Anton Shkaplerov, launched on a Russian rocket toward the International Space Station on Tuesday. Their mission is to shoot scenes for the first feature-length film in space. While cinematic sequences in space have long been portrayed on big screens using sound stages and advanced computer graphics, never before has a full-length movie been shot and directed in space.

Whether the film they shoot in orbit is remembered as a cinematic triumph, the mission highlights the busy efforts of governments as well as private entrepreneurs to expand access to space. Earth's orbit and beyond were once visited only by astronauts handpicked by government space agencies. But a growing number of visitors in the near future will be more like Ms. Sherepild and Mr. Shipenko, and less like the highly trained Mr. Shkaplerov and his fellow space explorers. A Soyuz rocket, the workhorse of Russia's space program, lifted off on time at 4:55 a.m. Eastern time from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Before the launch on Tuesday, the MS-19 crew posed for photos and waved to family and fans in Baikonur. Mr. Shipenko, the director of the film which is named "The Challenge," held up a script as he waved to cameras.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration plans to retire the International Space Station by the end of this decade, so the U.S. space agency is turning to private companies to build new space stations in orbit -- and expects to save more than $1 billion annually as a result. CNBC reports: NASA earlier this year unveiled the Commercial LEO Destinations project, with plans to award up to $400 million in total contracts to as many as four companies to begin development on private space stations. In response to NASA's request, director of commercial spaceflight Phil McAlister told CNBC that the agency "received roughly about a dozen proposals" from a variety of companies for contracts under the project. "We got an incredibly strong response from industry to our announcement for proposals for commercial, free fliers that go directly to orbit," McAlister said. "I can't remember the last time we got that many proposals [in response] to a [human spaceflight] contract announcement."

The ISS is more than 20 years old and costs NASA about $4 billion a year to operate. The space station is approved to operate through the end of 2024, with a likely lifespan extension to the end of 2028. But, moving forward, McAlister says that NASA wants "to be just one of many users instead of the primary sponsor and infrastructure supporter" for stations in low Earth orbit. "This strong industry response shows that our plan to retire the International Space Station in the latter part of this decade and transition to commercial space destinations is a viable, strong plan," McAlister said. "We are making tangible progress on developing commercial space destinations where people can work, play, and live," McAlister added. NASA is now evaluating the proposals, and McAlister said the agency hopes to announce the contract winners "before the end of the year," although he is "pushing for earlier." NASA "will not need anything near as big and as capable" as the ISS moving forward, said McAlister. He said the private space stations "could be very large, but NASA will only be paying for the part that we need."

Watch the video here!

"SpaceX safely returned its Crew Dragon spacecraft from orbit on Saturday, with the capsule carrying the four members of the Inspiration4 mission back to Earth after three days in space..." reports CNBC: "Thanks so much SpaceX, that was a heck of a ride for us and we're just getting started!" Inspiration4 commander Jared Isaacman said from the capsule after touching down.

Elon Musk tweeted his congratulations to the crew shortly after splashdown.

The historic private mission — which includes Isaacman, pilot Sian Proctor, medical officer Hayley Arceneaux and mission specialist Chris Sembroski — orbited the Earth at an altitude as high as 590 kilometers, which is above the International Space Station and the furthest humans have traveled above the surface in years. A free-flying spaceflight, the capsule did not dock with the ISS but instead circled the Earth independently at a rate of 15 orbits per day.

Inspiration4 shared photos from the crew's time in orbit, giving a look at the expansive views from the spacecraft's "cupola" window.

This is the third time SpaceX has returned astronauts from space, and the second time for this capsule — which previously flew the Crew-1 mission for NASA on a trip that returned in May.

Mr.Fork shares a report from Live Science: Russian cosmonauts discovered cracks on the Zarya module of the International Space Station (ISS) and are concerned that the fissures could spread over time, a senior space official reported on Monday. "Superficial fissures have been found in some places on the Zarya module," Vladimir Solovyov, chief engineer of rocket and space corporation Energia, told RIA news agency, according to Reuters. "This is bad and suggests that the fissures will begin to spread over time." The Zarya module, also called the Functional Cargo Block, was the first component of the ISS ever launched, having blasted into orbit on Nov. 20, 1998, according to NASA. Solovyov recently stated that the ISS is beginning to show its age and warned that there could potentially be an "avalanche" of broken equipment after 2025, according to Reuters.

NASA hopes that commercial space stations will orbit Earth once the International Space Station eventually retires, NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said today at the 36th Space Symposium. Space.com reports: The space station, which was completed in 2011, could retire as soon as 2024. However, today, Nelson revealed that he expects the orbiting lab to last to 2030 and that NASA hopes it will be replaced by commercial labs in orbit. "We expect to expand the space station as a government project all the way to 2030. And we hope it will be followed by commercial stations," Nelson said during a "Heads of Agency" panel alongside other space leaders from around the world.

Now, while NASA hopes for commercial space stations to take over as the International Space Station nears the end of its tenure, China has already begun building its own space station. And, as NASA is prohibited from engaging in bilateral activities with China, this move by China is more competitive than collaborative. "Unfortunately, I believe we're in a space race with China," Nelson said during the panel. "I'm speaking on behalf of the United States, for China to be a partner. I'd like China to do with us as a military adversary, like Russia has done ... I would like to try to do that. But China is very secretive, and part of the civilian space program is that you've got to be transparent." Nelson pointed to Russia's longstanding history as a collaborator alongside NASA in space, despite ongoing political divides back on Earth.

Nasa is delaying a spacewalk at the International Space Station because of a medical issue involving one of its astronauts. From a report: Officials announced the postponement on Monday, less than 24 hours before Mark Vande Hei was supposed to float outside. Vande Hei was dealing with "a minor medical issue," officials said. It was not an emergency, they noted, but did not provide any further details. Vande Hei, 54, a retired army colonel, has been at the space station since April and is expected to remain there until next spring for a one-year mission. This is his second station stay.

Remember that small leak on the International Space Station discovered in 2018 that was traced to a Russian module and apparently made by a drill bit? (Implicating the technicans that built the module on earth, Ars Technica wrote "There is evidence that a technician saw the drilling mistake and covered the hole with glue, which prevented the problem from being detected...")

It's being revisited in the aftermath of a more recent incident involving Russia's Nauka science module to the International Space Station. (A software glitch after launch had required two course corrections for its rocket, and then while docking in space the module mistakenly fired its thrusters, causing the space station to briefly loss control, as well as communication with earth for 11 minutes.) Russia "is furious at what it says is unfair criticism of its space program," notes Futurism.com.

In response, Russia's state-owned news agency TASS has presented an anonymous interview with someone said to be a "high ranking" official at their space agency suggesting that the 2018 drill hole could've been caused by an emotionally unstable NASA flight engineer onboard the space station. The state-owned agency's story claims this flight engineer had discovered a blood clot in their jugular vein, and could've decided their return to earth for medical treatment might be expedited by sabotaging Russia's module. The problem with this story? Space.com reports: NASA officials knew the precise locations of the U.S. astronauts before the leak occurred and at the moment it began, thanks to space station surveillance. The video footage indicated that none of the U.S. astronauts on the station were near the Russian segment where the Soyuz vehicle was docked.
So Russia's state-owned news agency TASS now suggests that NASA could've tampered with that video to cover-up sabotage by NASA's astronauts — and points out that they weren't allowed to administer lie-detecting polygraph tests to those astronauts.

Asked to comment on the "unstable astronaut" theory, NASA's human spaceflight chief said they "did not find this accusation credible."

Ars Technica calls Russia's claims "extraordinarily defamatory."

Boeing's Starliner astronaut capsule won't be launching to the International Space Station until it's gone through "deeper-level troubleshooting" to fix an issue with stuck propulsion system valves, according to a press release from the company. That troubleshooting means removing the capsule from the Atlas V rocket it's been coupled to and bringing it back to Boeing's facility. The Verge reports: The spacecraft's initial launch attempt late last month was scrubbed hours before liftoff after engineers noticed a group of fuel valves in the Starliner's propulsion section weren't positioned as programmed. That valve issue, whose cause remains a mystery, is the latest engineering predicament to curse Starliner nearly two years after the capsule failed its first attempt to reach the space station in 2019. With a clear fix to the valve issue still elusive, having to take Starliner back to the hangar will push Boeing's plans to launch this month off the table, and a logjam of other scheduled flights could extend the delay by several months.

According to Boeing VP John Vollmer, the company will "continue to work the issue from the Starliner factory and have decided to stand down for this launch window to make way for other national priority missions." The new launch date will have to be jointly decided by NASA, Boeing, and the United Launch Alliance after the issue with the valves has been found and fixed. Boeing has said software isn't to blame for Starliner's new valve problem, and indicated in past statements that it's a more complex hardware issue.

destinyland shares a report from CNN: An unusual and potentially dangerous situation unfolded Thursday at the International Space Station, as the newly-docked Russian Nauka module inadvertently fired its thrusters causing a "tug of war" with the space station and briefly pushing it out of position, according to NASA flight controllers. Nauka -- a long-delayed laboratory module that Russian space agency Roscosmos' launched to the International Space Station last week -- inadvertently fired its thrusters after docking with the International Space Station Thursday morning.

NASA officials declared it a "spacecraft emergency" as the space station experienced a loss of attitude (the angle at which the ISS is supposed to remain oriented) control for nearly one hour, and ground controllers lost communications with the seven astronauts currently aboard the ISS for 11 minutes during the ordeal. A joint investigation between NASA and the Russian space agency Roscosmos is now ongoing. "The incident also delayed the launch of the Boeing Starliner uncrewed test flight to the station, which had been set to launch on Friday," adds CNN.

"NASA says the move allows the 'International Space Station team time to continue working checkouts of the newly arrived Roscosmos' Nauka module and to ensure the station will be ready for Starliner's arrival.'"

On Monday, astronauts said goodbye to a cornerstone of the International Space Station and captured stunning images of the compartment burning up in Earth's atmosphere. Space.com reports: A Russian Progress cargo vehicle towed the module, called Pirs, away from the space station and down through Earth's atmosphere to ensure the module burned up completely and reduce the odds of any large chunks making it to Earth's surface. Russia had launched its Pirs module in 2001; since then, the module, which served as a port to the space station, hosted more than 70 different capsules and supported Russian cosmonauts conducting extravehicular activities, or spacewalks. To make room for Russia's new science module, dubbed Nauka, which launched on July 21 and will arrive at the station on Thursday (July 29), Pirs had to go. Yesterday's fiery retirement ceremony marks the first time a major component of the International Space Station has been discarded. The attached Progress vehicle, which had arrived at the space station in February, controlled Pirs' re-entry to ensure that the module was destroyed as thoroughly as possible. European Space Agency astronaut Thomas Pesquet shared the photographs on Flickr.

Jupiter's unusual icy moon Europa may be one of the best spots in the solar system to check for signs of alien life. But first we have to get there. NASA's Europa Clipper spacecraft will get a boost in the right direction from a SpaceX Falcon Heavy, one of the most powerful rockets ever built. From a report: NASA announced Friday that it has selected SpaceX to provide the launch services for the Jupiter moon mission. The launch is scheduled for October 2024 from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The contract is worth about $178 million. Europa Clipper will try to determine if the moon could possibly host life. "Key mission objectives are to produce high-resolution images of Europa's surface, determine its composition, look for signs of recent or ongoing geological activity, measure the thickness of the moon's icy shell, search for subsurface lakes, and determine the depth and salinity of Europa's ocean," said NASA. SpaceX has been working with NASA on many fronts, including carrying astronauts to and from the International Space Station, delivering cargo to the ISS and developing a human landing system to return astronauts to the moon through the Artemis program.

First Slashdot reader Thelasko quotes the BBC's report Wednesday: A Russian rocket has departed the Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan, to deliver a new science module to the International space station (ISS). The 13m-long, 20-tonne [44,000-pound] Nauka laboratory will go on the rear of the orbiting platform, connected to the other major Russian segments, Zvezda and Zarya. The new module carries with it a large robotic arm supplied by the European Space Agency (Esa).

Nauka is much delayed. It was originally supposed to launch in 2007. But it suffered repeated slips in schedule, in part because of budget difficulties but also because engineers encountered a raft of technical problems during development.

The module will result in a significant boost in habitable volume for the ISS, raising it by 70 cubic metres.
It's expected to dock this Thursday (July29), according to CBS News, after which "It will take up to 11 Russian spacewalks over about seven months to electrically connect and outfit the new lab module, providing a new airlock, research space, living quarters, a European Space Agency robot arm and other systems."

But Friday Gizmodo reported the attempt to deliver the module to the Space Station "is still having problems." The first glitch in Nauka's journey happened yesterday, when the spacecraft didn't complete its first orbit-raising burn. This meant that the uncrewed Nauka wasn't on track to actually intercept the ISS, which it's scheduled to dock with on Thursday, July 29. The problem was attributed to a software issue in a computer aboard Nauka, which prevented the spacecraft's main engines from firing. Nauka's team was able to manage a remote course correction, but a second bout of course corrections were deemed necessary, and scheduled for Friday...

Nauka's also been having issues with one antenna and its docking target, and its uncertain how those issues will affect docking attempts, SpaceNews reported. "Apparently there is still an issue with the Kurs rendezvous system, and that is pretty critical for docking," said Jonathan McDowell, an astrophysicist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, adding that the spacecraft's TORU system — which allows the astronauts aboard the ISS assist with the docking — is working normally. For now, the Pirs docking compartment is currently sitting in Nauka's assigned dock on the ISS. Pirs' scheduled undocking to make way for the new module was postponed from Friday to Sunday, .

India's CNN-News18 reports: [P]revious research has found that how cells pick a particular repair strategy can be influenced by the microgravity conditions in space. Scientists are concerned that DNA repairs influenced by microgravity conditions may not be adequate, and can lead to harmful consequences. To study the DNA repair process in space, scientists have developed a new technique that uses CRISPR/Cas9 — a gene-editing technology — to recreate precise damages so that cells can be observed repairing them. The team of researchers led by Sarah Stahl-Rommel has successfully demonstrated the technique and its viability aboard the International Space Station.
"CRISPR gene editing is no longer confined to Earth," reports Engadget: The new approach clears the way for other research around DNA repair in space. With enough work, the scientists hope they can replicate the genetic damage from ionizing radiation, not to mention other effects from long-term spaceflight. That, in turn, could help NASA and other agencies develop technology that shields astronauts and makes deep space exploration practical. There's a chance CRISPR might play an important role in getting humans to Mars and beyond.

For the next three months, three Chinese astronauts will live on a cylinder-shaped module measuring 16.6 metres by 4.2 metres (54 feet by 13.7 feet) while carrying out further construction work for China's orbiting space station.

It's the first time in five years China has sent humans into space, reports NBC News. : Shenzhou-12, or "Divine Vessel," is one of 11 planned missions to complete construction of China's 70-ton Tiangong or Harmony of the Heavens space station that is set to be up and running by next year... China has long been frozen out of the International Space Station, or ISS, a project launched 20 years ago that has served as the ultimate expression of post-Cold War reconciliation between Russia and the United States. American concerns over the Chinese space program's secrecy and connections to its military were largely responsible for that. But the aging ISS that hosted astronauts from the U.S., Russia and a number of other countries is set to be decommissioned after 2024. As broader U.S.-Russia relations deteriorate, Moscow has hinted that it may withdraw from ISS cooperation in 2025, meaning China could be the only country with a functioning space station.

Roscosmos, the Russian space agency, also signed an agreement in March with the Chinese National Space Administration to build a base on or around the Moon, which they will call the International Scientific Lunar Station.

"All the firsts that the U.S. and the USSR did in the Cold War, China is just ticking them off," said Jonathan McDowell, an astrophysicist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. "Now they're at the point where they're starting to think, 'OK, we're not just copying the West anymore, we're going to start doing our own thing'. And that's going to be very interesting to watch."

In the longest biological experiment on the International Space Station yet, freeze-dried mouse sperm remained viable after nearly six years in space. Exposure to space radiation didn't seem to harm the sperm's DNA or the cells' ability to produce healthy "space pups," researchers report in Science Advances. Science News reports: That may be good news for future spacefarers. Scientists have worried that chronic exposure to space radiation might not only put astronauts at risk for cancer and other diseases, but also create mutations in their DNA that could be passed down to future generations. The new results hint that deep-space travelers could safely bear children. Studying how space radiation affects reproduction is tricky. Instruments on Earth can't perfectly mimic space radiation, and the ISS lacks freezers for long-term cell storage. So biologist Teruhiko Wakayama of the University of Yamanashi in Kofu, Japan and colleagues freeze-dried sperm, allowing it to be stored at room temperature. The team then sent sperm from 12 mice to the space station, while keeping other sperm from the same mice on the ground.

After returning the sperm cells to Earth, rehydrating them and injecting them into fresh mouse eggs, the team transferred those embryos to female mice. About 240 healthy space pups were born from sperm kept on the ISS for nearly three years; about 170 others were born from sperm kept on the space station for nearly six years. Genetic analyses revealed no differences between these space pups and mice born from sperm stored on the ground. Space pups that mated as adults had healthy children and grandchildren.

A user shares a report from ScienceAlert: The inevitable has occurred. A piece of space debris too small to be tracked has hit and damaged part of the International Space Station -- namely, the Canadarm2 robotic arm. The instrument is still operational, but the object punctured the thermal blanket and damaged the boom beneath. It's a sobering reminder that the low-Earth orbit's space junk problem is a ticking time bomb. Canadarm2 -- formally known as the Space Station Remote Manipulator System (SSRMS), designed by the Canadian Space Agency -- has been a fixture on the space station for 20 years. It's a multi-jointed titanium robotic arm that can assist with maneuvering objects outside the ISS, including cargo shuttles, and performing station maintenance.

It's unclear exactly when the impact occurred. The damage was first noticed on 12 May, during a routine inspection. NASA and the CSA worked together to take detailed images of and assess the damage. "Despite the impact, results of the ongoing analysis indicate that the arm's performance remains unaffected," the CSA wrote in a blog post. "The damage is limited to a small section of the arm boom and thermal blanket. Canadarm2 is continuing to conduct its planned operations." Robotics operations on the ISS using the Canadarm2 will continue as planned for the near future, the CSA said. But both space agencies will continue to gather data in order to perform an analysis of the event, both to understand how it occurred, and to assess future risk.