NASA Digest, Vol 41, Issue 10

October 25, 2016  MEDIA ADVISORY M16-126 NASA Television to Air Return of Three Space Station Crew Members Expedition 49 crew members Kate Rubins of NASA, Anatoly Ivanishin of the Russian space agency Roscosmos and Takuya Onishi of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency are concluding a 115-day mission of science and research aboard the International Space Station and are set to return to Earth Oct. 29, 2016. Credits: NASA Three crew members on the International Space Station are scheduled to depart the orbital outpost Saturday, Oct. 29, with coverage of activities beginning the day before on NASA Television and the agency's website. Expedition 49 Commander Anatoly Ivanishin of the Russian space agency Roscosmos, and Flight Engineers Kate Rubins of NASA and Takuya Onishi of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, will undock their Soyuz spacecraft from the space station at 8:37 p.m. EDT Saturday and land in Kazakhstan at 11:59 p.m. (9:59 a.m. Oct. 30, Kazakhstan time). Their return will wrap up 115 days in space for the crew since their launch in July. Together, the Expedition 49 crew members pursued hundreds of experiments in biology, biotechnology, physical science and Earth science aboard the orbiting laboratory. NASA Television will air coverage of the departure and landing activities at the following dates and times: Friday, Oct. 28: 3:30 p.m. – Change of command ceremony in which Ivanishin hands over station command to NASA's Shane Kimbrough Saturday, Oct. 29: 4:45 p.m. – Farewell and hatch closure coverage (hatch closure scheduled at 5:15 p.m.) 8:15 p.m. – Undocking coverage (undocking scheduled at 8:37 p.m.) 10:45 p.m. – Deorbit burn and landing coverage (deorbit burn scheduled at 11:06 p.m., with landing at 11:59 p.m.) Sunday, Oct. 30: 2 a.m. – Video File of hatch closure, undocking and landing activities 1 p.m. – Video File of landing and post-landing activities and post-landing interview with Rubins and Onishi in Kazakhstan At the time of undocking, Expedition 50 will begin aboard the station under the command of NASA astronaut Shane Kimbrough. Along with his crewmates Sergey Ryzhikov and Andrey Borisenko of Roscosmos, the three-person crew will operate the station for three weeks until the arrival of three new crew members. Peggy Whitson of NASA, Thomas Pesquet of ESA (European Space Agency) and Oleg Novitsky of Roscosmos are scheduled to launch in November from Baikonur, Kazakhstan. Check out the full NASA TV schedule and video streaming information at: http://www.nasa.gov/nasatv Keep up with the International Space Station, and its research and crews, at: http://www.nasa.gov/station Get breaking news, images and features from the station on Instagram and Twitter: http://instagram.com/iss and http://www.twitter.com/Space_Station

October 25, 2016  CONTRACT RELEASE C16-026 NASA Awards Contract for Sustainable Land Imaging Spacecraft NASA has awarded a delivery order under the Rapid Spacecraft Acquisition III (Rapid III) contract to Orbital Sciences Corporation of Dulles, Virginia, known publicly as Orbital ATK, for the Landsat 9 spacecraft. This contract is a 5-year, firm fixed-price delivery order for the purchase of the Landsat 9 spacecraft in the amount of $129.9 million. Orbital will design and fabricate the spacecraft, integrate the mission's two government-furnished instruments, and conduct satellite-level testing, in-orbit satellite checkout, and mission operations support. The work will be performed at the contractor's facilities and at the launch site at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. The spacecraft will extend the Landsat program's record of land images to half a century. Landsat has provided accurate, 98-foot (30-meter) resolution, multi-spectral, global measurements of Earth's land cover since 1972, building a freely available archive of more than six million satellite images. With data from Landsat satellites, ecologists have tracked deforestation in South America, water managers have monitored irrigation of farmland in the American West, and researchers have watched the growth of cities worldwide. Landsat 9 is a cornerstone of our nation's multi-satellite, multi-decadal, Sustainable Land Imaging (SLI) program. SLI is a NASA-U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) partnership to develop, launch, and operate a spaceborne system that will provide researchers and other users with high-quality, global, continuous land-imaging measurements. These data are compatible with the 44-year Landsat record and will evolve through introduction of new sensor and system technologies. NASA will build, launch, and perform the initial check-out and commissioning of the satellite. USGS will operate Landsat 9 and process, archive, and freely distribute the mission's data. The Rapid III contract provides a rapid and flexible means to procure spacecraft in support of the scientific and technology development goals of NASA and other federal government agencies. For information on NASA and agency programs, visit: https://www.nasa.gov