Space is an ever-growing adventure with so much going on within it. I will begin a new weekly series to present some of these exciting events. Let me start this week with astronauts Drew Feustel and Ricky Arnold, along with Cosmonaut Oleg Artemyev trip to the ISS on Friday, 23 March. This brings the International Space Station crew back to six.
After a linkup with the Poisk module, onboard astronauts open the hatch where they meet their new teammates which will stay for five months. What's amazing these days is that this is a common event. Sadly, however, is that we still can't launch our own astronauts to space since the Space Shuttle terminated in 2011.
The Soyuz is not the only vessel that's heading to the ISS however. Space X is scheduled to launch a resupply vessel on 2 Apr to provide needed supplies and a new Earth observatory which will allow astronauts to study severe thunderstorms. New projects include bone marrow research to benefit both future space travel and medical issues on Earth.
A study will also be conducted on high-performance products made from metal powder in 3-D processes. 3-D printing is growing, and research obtained from this study will benefit manufacturing. Engineers at Marshall Space Flight Center have already developed a new 3-D printing technique used for rocket nozzle manufacturing. This new technique has the potential of reducing such manufacturing of these products from several months to several weeks. If this procedure proves successful, the commercial industry stands to benefit from this research.
I hope you have enjoyed this week's update. Imagine if you had the ability to send a research project to space. What would you send? What would you like to learn? The potential is there just waiting for the opportunity. I look forward to providing future events each week with increased coverage of what's happening. Until next week, have a great weekend.
