Apr 11 2017

From The Space Library

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Current revision

MEDIA ADVISORY M17-041 NASA Astronaut to Star in First Ultra-High-Definition Live Stream from Space

NASA astronaut and Expedition 51 commander Peggy Whitson will take viewers 250 miles off the Earth to the International Space Station in the highest resolution video ever broadcast live from space at 1:30 p.m. EDT on Wednesday, April 26.

During this event, Whitson will speak with Sam Blackman, chief executive officer and co-founder of AWS Elemental, via an ultra-high-definition (UHD) broadcast transmitted in 4K from the 2017 National Association of Broadcasters Show in Las Vegas. Watch Amazon Web Services’ live stream of the event at: [1]

The conversation with Whitson will take place as part of a panel called “Reaching for the Stars: Connecting to the Future with NASA and Hollywood.” The panel will explore how advanced imaging and cloud technologies are taking scientific research and filmmaking to the next level, and will be moderated by Carolyn Giardina, technology editor for the Hollywood Reporter.

Additional panelists are:

• NASA astronaut Tracy Caldwell Dyson
• Rodney Grubbs, NASA Imagery Experts program manager
• Bernadette McDaid, head of development, virtual reality and augmented reality at Bau Entertainment
• Khawaja Shams, vice president of engineering for AWS Elemental
• Dave McQueeney, senior principal investigator for the IBM Watson Group

To experience the full effect online, devices capable of viewing 4K UHD content will be required, however, lower resolution streams of the live broadcast will be available on NASA Television, NASA’s Facebook page and the agency’s website.

NanoRacks, a provider of commercial access to the International Space Station through its status as a U.S. National Laboratory, helped certify for launch a UHD-capable video encoder from AWS Elemental. The encoder and a RED Epic Dragon Digital Cinema camera were delivered to the station aboard a Japanese cargo craft in December 2016.

MEDIA ADVISORY M17-028 NASA TV to Air Orbital ATK Resupply Mission Launch, Briefings

NASA commercial cargo provider Orbital ATK is targeting its seventh commercial resupply services mission to the International Space Station for 11:11 a.m. EDT Tuesday, April 18. Coverage of the launch begins at 10 a.m. on NASA Television and the agency’s website.

Two prelaunch briefings will air the day prior to launch. At 10:30 a.m., mission managers will provide an overview and status of launch operations and at 1 p.m., scientists and researchers will discuss some of the investigations to be delivered to the station.

Dubbed S.S. John Glenn, the Cygnus spacecraft name is a tribute to the former astronaut and U.S. Senator from Ohio. It will launch on a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket from Space Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. Coverage of the spacecraft’s solar array deployment will begin at 12:40 p.m. April 18, and will be followed by a 2 p.m. press conference with mission managers.

Under NASA’s Commercial Resupply Services contract, Cygnus will carry more than 7,600 pounds of science research, crew supplies and hardware to the orbiting laboratory in support of the Expedition 50 and 51 crew members.

The new experiments will include an antibody investigation that could increase the effectiveness of chemotherapy drugs for cancer treatment and an advanced plant habitat for studying plant physiology and growth of fresh food in space. Another new investigation bound for the U.S. National Laboratory will look at using magnetized cells and tools to make it easier to handle cells and cultures, and improve the reproducibility of experiments. Cygnus also is carrying 38 CubeSats, including many built by university students from around the world as part of the QB50 program. The CubeSats are scheduled to deploy from either the spacecraft or space station in the coming months.

When it arrives to the space station, Expedition 51 Commander Peggy Whitson of NASA and Flight Engineer Thomas Pesquet of ESA (European Space Agency) will grapple Cygnus. Whitson will use the space station’s robotic arm, Canadarm2, to take hold of the spacecraft. After Canadarm2 captures Cygnus, ground commands will be sent for the station’s arm to rotate and install it on the bottom of the station’s Unity module.

Cygnus will remain on the station until July, when it will depart with several tons of trash for a fiery reentry into Earth’s atmosphere. Prior to re-entry, a third experiment will be conducted to study how fire burns in space.

This is Orbital ATK’s third launch from Cape Canaveral. Missions from NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia are scheduled to resume for the eighth and subsequent contracted flights.