Under morgonen kom det sista vykortet från utmaningen Space Stations. Det åttonde i ordningen!

Nowadays, there is little talk about launch infrastructure when it comes to space travel and a lot more about getting to the Moon or even Mars. The work jointly conducted aboard the International Space Station by America, Russia, and the 10+ other nations is pivotal in achieving such lofty goals. But more than that, the instruments pointed down to Earth are vital and will become more so for the preservation of our only home in the universe. 

From systems that detect drought and predict wildfires, to programs that develop new drugs and technologies that can offer us a better life, the ISS offers the world valuable tools for a better life on Earth. Experiments regarding human and plant life in space might offer us a good life on some other planet. 

Since its first crewed mission in 2000, the ISS has welcomed more than 70 others, with astronauts from all over the world. There is an echo to the Space Race era and the Red Scare, however. Legislation put in place by the US practically bans China from participating in the ISS. The International Space Station shared Earth’s orbit for a brief period of time with Mir, but for 20 years, no other permanently occupied spacecraft orbited Earth. In 2021, the Chinese Manned Space Agency sent Tiangong (which translates as “Heavenly Palace”) into space and began a permanent presence in space. 

If this is a sign of yet another space rivalry or the beginning of an orbit full of space stations conducting research and sharing data for the betterment of all living on Earth, it remains to be seen. 

ISS’s operational life ends in 2030, and plans for its controlled deorbiting are already in place. Mir overstayed in orbit by 10 years, and Voyager probes are still hurtling through space, so I foster a secret hope that the International Space Station might remain in space a while longer. 

For now, however, the International Space Station still orbits the Earth around 16 times a day, every day. Due to its size, it can be spotted with the naked eye, and NASA has a few tips on how to do it, which I’ll leave with you here. While you look up and your eyes narrow on the little light crossing the skies of your nation, try to remember that you are looking at the result of decades of space rivalry and cooperation. The ISS symbolises the tremendous achievements gained from international collaboration and goodwill. Since we had eyes to see, we trained them on the stars and longed to touch them. This will probably remain true in the future, so while you follow the ISS, try keeping in mind that it is not only the past you’re looking at, but also the very beginning of our future in space. 

Senare på morgonkvisten, ganska exakt kl. 09:28, så passerade även jag mållinjen i Space Stations!

Därmed var Gabriel och jag båda klara med våra tre utmaningar i serien Space Race!

Idag gick Gabriel i mål i vår tredje utmaning i the Conqueror Events utmaning Space Race. Denna sista utmaning ”Space Stations” var på 120,4 km, vilka Gabriel klarade av på 16-dagar, vilket ger honom ett snitt av ca: 7,5 km/dag. Själv ligger jag ca: 2-dagar efter just nu!

Idag kom även min medalj för vår förra utmaning ”To the Moon”.

Idag fick jag beskedet att vi passerat 80% av den totala sträckan i utmaningen ”Space Stations”.

Gabriel ligger dock en bit före mig!

Ett nytt träd planterades också!

I natt kom det sjunde vykortet från Gabriels och min utmaning Space Stations. Gabriel gick om mig och ligger ca: 2km före just nu!

On 20th of November 1998, the US-funded and Russian-built module named Zarya launches from Kazakhstan. This component is the first building block of the International Space Station, and its name, meaning “sunrise”, is chosen to symbolise a new dawn in collaborative space exploration.

Zarya is joined in December of the same year by the Unity Module, carried into orbit by Space Shuttle Endeavour. The now connected Russian and American modules form the core of the ISS, and although they are less important for the station’s functioning now, they remain part of it today.

On 2nd of November 2000, the ISS is finally ready to welcome its first human inhabitants. Space veterans Bill Shepherd, Yuri Gidzenko and Sergei Krikalev become the first astronauts to visit it and to initiate the uninterrupted human occupation of the station. The three men spend 136 days aboard the station and activate various systems, unload equipment and experiments from uncrewed Russian spacecraft and host two visiting Shuttle missions.

Over the years, the International Space Station has welcomed 6 more Russian modules and 8 American ones. What makes the station truly international, however, is the hardware contribution from space agencies from Europe, Japan and Canada and the access to astronauts from over 20 nations. As the habitable area grows, so do the scientific capabilities of the station, making it a unique and invaluable space for conducting research in a variety of fields.

Until the present day, over 3000 experiments are conducted aboard the ISS, some of them expand our understanding of subjects researched since the first space station, such as the effects of microgravity on the human body, the growth of plants in space and Earth monitoring. Experiments regarding muscle and bone loss not only improve the health of astronauts, but are now used to understand and combat the effects of osteoporosis in people back on Earth. Since the puny harvests of Super-Dwarf wheat on Mir, scientists have managed to grow a variety of plants onboard ISS, such as three types of lettuce, red Russian kale, zinnia flowers and chilli peppers.

Samtidigt kom det besked om att vi passerat 60% av den totala sträckan och att ännu ett träd blivit planterat!

Mission STS-71 is the third launch in the Shuttle-Mir programme, but the first to dock with the space station. On 29th of June 1995, Shuttle Atlantis docks with Mir, forming the biggest spacecraft in orbit at that time (approx. 225 tons). Atlantis carries a crew of eight, which, over the course of five days, run joint experiments with the Russian cosmonauts already on board. This mission also marks the first in-orbit changeout of a Shuttle crew.

Until 1998, a total of 9 dockings between a Shuttle and Mir takes place; the program sees a number of crew swaps and hundreds of experiments in areas such as human adaptation to long-duration spaceflight, Earth observation, fundamental biology, and materials science. All throughout, the primary mission of this program remains to prepare for a future international space station, so every failure and accident is treated as a learning experience to take their knowledge forward. For example, a fire on 23 February 1997 leads to changes in astronauts’ fire training as well as in the design of the solid-fuel oxygen canister that started the blaze.

On 2nd of June 1998, Space Shuttle Discovery docks with Mir. For the next few days, the crew loads the last US experiments into the Shuttle and performs the last transfer of equipment and supplies to the space station. When the airlock closes behind the shuttle on 8th of June, it marks the end of the Shuttle-Mir programme, the end of Phase One of the International Space Station, and the end of 907 days of continuous occupation of the space station by American astronauts.

Once in orbit, a space station requires a considerable amount of time, attention and funds to be kept there; without constant boosts, repairs, maintenance and adjustments, anything that is in orbit eventually comes back to Earth. The dissolution of the USSR, coupled with the fact that resources and energy have to be redirected to the building and launching of the International Space Station, brings on a difficult decision: Mir has to be deorbited.

In August 1999, the last cosmonauts undock from Mir and close the hatch behind them, putting an end to almost 10 years of Russian presence on the station. During Mir’s lifespan, over 15,000 scientific and technical experiments are conducted by 28 long-term crews, 86,331 Earth orbits are completed, and 31 spacecraft (9 of which are Shuttles) and 64 cargo vessels dock.

On 23rd of March 2001, Mir goes through a controlled re-entry into Earth’s atmosphere and burns up, its debris falling over the Pacific Ocean.

The first module of the International Space Station launches in 1998, while the Mir deorbiting takes place in 2001, which means that, for a few years, the ISS is up in space with the strange, oddly-shaped, accident-prone, and damaged spacecraft that guaranteed its success.

Jag gissar att det var i och med gårdagens lopp i kalkbrottet, som jag lyckades passera 40% gränsen i utmaningen Space Stations. Detta med 49,84 avverkade km.

Gabriel har just nu hamnat lite efter och ligger på 34% och 41,72 avverkade km.

Jag tror dock att han kanske kan komma ifatt mig under söndagen!

Ännu ett träd har dock planterats!

Denna morgon vaknade man upp med två vykort i brevlådan, från Gabriel och min utmaning ”Space Stations”. Detta efter totalt 80 km avverkade.

Mir is described in various ways by visitors and onlookers, from “a 100-ton Tinker Toy” to “a dragonfly with its wings outstretched” and “a hedgehog whose spines could pierce a spacewalker’s suit.” Mir doesn’t always look like that. Its chimeric appearance starts building up on 30 March 1987, when Kvant-1 (meaning “quantum”) is added to the Core Module, expanding the living space and the scientific capabilities of the station. Until 1996, five more modules, as well as a number of solar arrays and masts, are added to the space station. For a more detailed explanation of each module and its purpose, please see the “Mir Space Station Modules” spot you unlock alongside this Postcard.

Mir faces more serious problems than its aesthetics. Although the living and working space increases as modules are added, the station is plagued by clutter, lacking adequate storage space. Astronauts complain that rubbish is sometimes seen floating around the station or behind scientific instruments, as not enough room is available on returning missions to Earth to take all of it out.

The Soviet space station is, however, a scientific innovation, and the success of all the space stations to come is in no small measure linked to its existence. A record-setting 39 manned missions visit Mir between 1986 and 2000, carrying 125 people from 12 countries. The most notable missions are part of the Shuttle-Mir program, which sees nine American Shuttles dock with the Soviet Space Station.

A great number of experiments and observations are carried out on board Mir on subjects such as fluid physics, materials science, biotechnology, space debris, and the effects of long space missions on astronauts.

Some of the most successful and important experiments focus on plant growth in space. If we think about the future, to a time when humans travel to other planets and even colonise them, one of the first concerns is food. A mission can pack enough food for a relatively short stay in space, but for a long voyage with no prospect of re-stocking or for an extraplanetary colony, the crew needs to start producing its own sustenance. Star Trek-style replicators are a long way off, so humans first need to figure out how to grow things in space.

Plants are sensitive to gravity—so much so that young stems tilted only a few degrees will quickly begin righting themselves. To test whether plants can grow from seed to seed (a seed maturing in a seed-bearing plant) in microgravity, scientists devise a series of tests for the astronauts aboard Mir. Growth experiments begin almost immediately, with the cultivation of cabbages and radishes, which yield a fraction of the growth achieved by the control batch on Earth. Aside from microgravity, the astronauts deal with other problems such as the difficulty of monitoring all possible growth factors (humidity, light, drainage, etc.), lack of adequate technology, and failure of existing equipment.

As part of the Shuttle-Mir program, the US and the Russian Federation create the “Fundamental Biology” program, intended for experiments in disciplines such as avian development biology, plant biology, circadian rhythm research, and radiation monitoring. From June 1995 to December 1996, astronauts on board conduct the “Greenhouse 2” mission, which has as one of its objectives growing a complete cycle of Super-Dwarf wheat, monitor and document factors that impact its growth, collect samples and pictures, and improve its growth as much as possible.

The experiment is a success in the sense that the plants are kept alive, and a copious amount of data is collected on the whole process and the environmental factors surrounding the plants. Although the experiment does not produce any food, it offers astronauts something just as critical at the time: given the right conditions, plants can grow in space.

Dubbed a “handshake in space”, one of Apollo-Soyuz Test Project’s goals is the construction and testing of an androgynous docking system that can service both American and Soviet spacecraft. But perhaps more importantly, it is a symbolic meeting which signals the end of space competition and the beginning of an era of cooperation in the name of science and humanity.

Major technological and political advances are needed for this historic feat. The idea of a joint space mission is first mentioned by President John F. Kennedy as early as 1963, but the matter is taken up only seven years later through a series of letters and informal talks between NASA Administrator Thomas O. Paine and Soviet Academy of Sciences President, Mstislav V. Keldysh. Finally, the US proposes a joint mission in 1971, which is accepted by the Soviets.

Treaties and agreements also lay the basis of the cooperation between the US and the USSR. Namely, the “Outer Space Treaty”, the “Rescue Agreement” and the beautifully named “Agreement Concerning Cooperation in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space for Peaceful Purposes”. Together, they stipulate the signing parties’ responsibility of aiding any ”personnel of a spacecraft” that might be in danger in outer space, limit space exploration to peaceful motives, ban the use of nuclear weapons in space and prohibit the claiming of any celestial bodies as belonging to one nation. The last agreement also states the areas in which America and the USSR shall cooperate (exploration, environmental space medicine, etc) and the conditions under which such cooperation can take place.

Compared to the political issues, it seems that the technical problems are much smaller. However, one should not underestimate the effort and ingenuity that goes into the project. Although both the Americans and the Soviets have spacecraft are to dock, they lack a compatible docking system. The scientists start working on the problem, and upon consecutive and mutual visits to Johnson Space Centre and Moscow, the Androgynous Peripheral Attach System is designed and constructed.

The Soyuz and Apollo spacecraft never meet while on Earth; they don’t even share a hemisphere, so the millions of people watching live on television must be doing so with bated breath as the astronauts start counting the meters until “capture” (secure connection between the spacecraft). Built approximately 5936.2 miles (9553.4 km) apart, Apollo and Soyuz match perfectly and at 3.17 p.m. EDT, the hatch opens, allowing the commanders Leonov and Stafford to shake hands. The two crafts remain docked for under 50 hours, time in which the astronauts conduct joint scientific experiments.

There is something else the crew does up in orbit, and that is exchanging gifts. The crew exchange US and USSR flags, a UN flag flown up by Soyuz and returned by Apollo, commemorative plaques, and a lead-gold alloy created while in orbit, which represents “the unusual environment of space that acts as a catalyst through which both men and materials may combine to yield useful applications for the benefit of all.” However, my favourite gifts are those of tree seeds. Although not much can be confirmed about what happens to them after leaving space, I like to imagine the American astronauts bringing the seeds back to Earth and planting them, while their Soviet counterparts do the same, creating two little forests that grow still and stretch towards their symbolic birthplace: space.

I leave you now with two videos. One is the recorded docking of Apollo and Soyuz, and the other is “Privet Rados”, a Russian rendition of “Hello Darlin’” sung by Conway Twitty and played by the American astronauts to the Soviet cosmonauts while in orbit.

Då har vi tagit oss 27 km på vår resa och vykort nr.3 kom från Space Stations.

Skylab 3 – not the 3rd space station, but the second manned mission to Skylab – launches on the 28th of July 1973, and its crew begins their first task: deploying a more permanent sunshade to protect the Orbital Workshop. They accomplish this during a 6-hour and 29-minute spacewalk (a record for an extravehicular mission in orbit at that time). Once the sunshade is in place, the temperature drops into a more comfortable range, allowing the astronauts to turn their minds to their planned experiments and observations.

Alongside Alan L. Bean, Owen K. Garriott and Jack R. Lousma, the mission involves 2 minnows, 50 minnow eggs, 6 pocket mice, 720 fruit fly pupae and 2 spiders named Arabella and Anita. The animals are used in experiments concerning their behaviour in space, such as web-spinning abilities.

Aside from the deep space, astronauts turn their eyes and minds towards Earth. The Earth Resources Experiment Package, located in the Multiple Docking Adapter, permits them to observe our planet in visible, infrared and microwave spectra. The naked eye proves to be a powerful detection tool as well, as the crew can observe the forming of Hurricane Ellen over the Atlantic. The astronauts recognise that the data only they can gather benefits meteorologists back on Earth, so they take stereo photographs of the event, which provide scientists with invaluable insight into cloud formation.

The 3 men safely get back to Earth after 59 days, 858 orbits around the Earth, and after achieving all of their mission goals. Moreover, because they are given a more intense exercise programme as well as a more calorie-dense diet than the previous missions, they return in better physical shape than previous astronauts.

On the 16th of November 1973, Gerald P. Carr, Dr. Edward G. Gibson and Lt. Col. William Pogue form the crew of Skylab 4, which is to be the last manned mission to Skylab. Keeping in tradition with the other missions, they start their space sojourn by fixing something, namely the coolant systems in the Airlock Module.

Aside from running experiments and observations, the 3 astronauts are also tasked with monitoring comet Kohoutek as their mission overlaps nicely with the period of time the comet comes closer to Earth. Kohoutek excites all space enthusiasts down on Earth as it is expected to be very bright. The nickname “Comet of the Century” quickly changes to “The Disappointment of the Century” as the space object turns out to be barely visible to the naked eye. However, armed with better tools and a great view of Kohoutek, the astronauts are able to monitor its passing very closely and gather exquisite data.

The mission is initially planned for 54 days, but it is subject to extension on a week-by-week basis up to 84 days. The longer the astronauts spend in space, the more dangerous microgravity and radiation become for their bodies, so they are instructed to exercise for even longer periods of time. Every minute in space is valuable and expensive, so the scientists back home cram as much work into the astronauts’ timetable as they possibly can. The work is exhausting, but the men are tough and know what they signed up for. There is an urban legend that, having had enough, one day, the astronauts simply shut off all communications and take an unplanned day off. The crew’s issues are real, but their demands are solved by a frank conversation, and they manage to wrangle 1 day completely off every 10 days and less work done immediately before and after sleep. But we can take a moment and imagine the astronauts floating in space, with no critical mission at hand, nothing to fix, report or observe. We can imagine them looking around the thin cylinder separating them from the void of the universe, the cylinder that keeps them alive for weeks and seeing it not just as a workplace or a lab, but as a home. We can imagine them gazing out of the windows and yearning for the verdant home, waiting for their return.

Skylab 4 marks an interesting first. Between December 18th and 26th, cosmonauts Pyotr Klimuk and Valentin Lebedev conduct some experiments as part of the Soyuz 13 mission. Although the American and Soviet astronauts never met in space, this is the first time the two nations’ crews orbit Earth at the same time. A glimpse of things to come.

All good things must come to an end.. One of the most important tasks for the ground crew is to keep the space station at the correct altitude. This becomes increasingly difficult because higher-than-expected solar activity causes the Earth’s orbit to expand, thus increasing the drag on Skylab and causing it to come to an altitude of 250 miles. Various rescue missions that involve booster rockets are discussed, but in the end, a controlled deorbiting is scheduled for the space station.

On 11th of July 1979, Skylab re-enters Earth’s atmosphere, where most of it burns up, while some parts fall over the ocean and uninhabited parts of Australia. After 171 occupied days, 3 crewed missions, almost 300 technical and scientific experiments, and countless hours of observations, Skylab’s luminous 6 years in space end in a blaze of glory.

A more practical reason for building Skylab was also the repurposing of equipment left over from the Apollo and Saturn rocket missions. Thus, Orbital Workshop, Skylab’s largest and most important section, designed for research and crew habitation, was constructed using a “dry” third stage of the Saturn V rocket. The “dry” description refers to the fact that the lab was already set up before launch and ready to be used once in orbit. The other three main components were the Airlock Module (used for extravehicular walks), the Multiple Docking Adapter (which holds the Earth Resources Experiment Package and allows crews to dock with the station) and the Apollo Telescope Mount (primarily used for solar observations).

Right after the launch, the spacecraft suffers an early deployment of its micrometeoroid shield, which results in the component becoming detached. This shield is designed to protect the spacecraft against two things that Earth’s atmosphere takes care of for us: space debris and the sun’s heat radiation. Moreover, one of the solar arrays, which was designed to generate energy for the station, is missing, while the other is only partially deployed, as the micrometeoroid shield wreckage is blocking it. All this means that the Orbital Workshop is in danger of becoming too hot for any crew to come onboard, and delicate equipment is at risk of getting damaged. The loss of the solar array means that the Skylab was underpowered. This presents ground control with a problem: the station has to be aligned just so to receive maximum solar exposure on the remaining solar array to maintain an appropriate amount of power, but at the same time, the exposed segment which was supposed to be protected from the sun, has to be shielded as much as possible to prevent overheating. A mad rush ensues for the creation of a lightweight but durable cover that the first manned mission to Skylab could carry and deploy.

On the 25th of May 1973, Commander Charles “Pete” Conrad, Pilot Paul J. Weitz, and Science Pilot Joseph P. Kerwin successfully take off, beginning the (confusingly named) Skylab 2 mission. The crew completes a fly-around of the space station and finally offers visual confirmation of the damage. After a failed attempt at freeing the trapped solar array, the crew docks with Skylab. The next day, the astronauts enter the Orbital Workshop, which was now registering 130°F (54°C) and proceed to deploy a parasol that would cling to the station’s exterior and bring the internal temperature down. With that in place, the crew directs their attention to the trapped solar array. After 3 hours and 25 minutes (the longest spacewalk in Earth orbit up to that point), the astronauts manage to free it, and their mission can fully begin.

The Skylab 2 crew completes 404 orbits around the Earth, amassing 28 days, more than double the US record at that time. Although much of their allotted time for research was taken up by the urgent repairs, the 3 astronauts successfully completed 81% of the planned solar experiments, 88% of the planned Earth observations and 90% of the planned medical experiments. 

Dessutom fick vi beskedet att vi passerat 20% av den totala sträckan och därmed planterat ännu ett träd.

Efter gårdagens steginsamling, kom det första vykortet i resan till Space Stations.

Detta efter 5 km avverkat.

A space station named Zarya (“sunrise” in Russian) was to be launched from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, but, in a manner of speaking, Zarya never left the pad. Just days before the launch, a decision was taken to rename the space station Salyut (“salute” or “firework” in Russian). With a new name came also a new launch date, as technical hiccups pushed it to the 19th of April. This was no longer exactly ten years after Gagarin’s space journey, but it is still before an American space station and is an extraordinary technological and scientific feat.

Still having “Zarya” painted on the side, Salyut lifted off from the same pad that sent the first man into space. The 20 metric ton structure was sent into lower orbit by a Proton-K rocket, and within 9 minutes, the space station was orbiting Earth. 

Salyut was designed to be capable of docking with a Soyuz spacecraft carrying crew and supplies, so only four days after entering the lower orbit, the space station was visited by the first manned mission, aboard Soyuz 10. The three astronauts (Vladimir A. Shatalov, Aleksei S. Yeliseyev and Nikolai N. Rukavishnikov), however, had to turn back before ever stepping on the station, as the docking failed and they could not enter the module. On 6th of June 1971, Georgy Dobrovolsky, Vladislav Volkov, and Viktor Patsayev reached Salyut aboard Soyuz 11 and successfully docked the next day, thus starting the record-setting 24-day mission. 

Being the first space station in orbit offered Salyut many other “firsts”, such as being the location of the first birthday in space (Patsayev turned 38 while onboard). Unfortunately, it is also linked to the first deaths in outer space; although nobody died aboard, the Soyuz 11 crew never reached Earth alive, as their capsule depressurised and lost its oxygen after undocking from the Salyut. 

After six months and more than 2,900 orbits around Earth, Salyut was put into a controlled destructive reentry into the atmosphere and disintegrated over the Pacific Ocean. 

Although short-lived, the Salyut 1 brought many advancements that paved the way for all the space stations to come. Soyuz 11’s crew conducted experiments involving growing plants in 0 gravity (such as flax, onions and cabbage) and were test subjects for space living. The cosmonauts gathered valuable data regarding the effects of long space journeys on the human body, especially on the muscles and the cardiovascular system, later inspiring scientists to create specialised equipment such as the “Penguin” Prophylactic Body-loading Suit, which simulates gravity, thus ameliorating the effects of prolonged microgravity on the human body. The Soyuz 11 tragedy was itself a learning point. Because the crew could’ve been saved if they had worn pressurised suits, this became standard procedure on all future space missions, including NASA’s.