NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley are ready to make history as they prepare to become the first two Americans to launch from U.S. soil since 2011.
Behnken and Hurley are scheduled to launch from the Kennedy Space Center at 4:32 p.m. ET on May 27 atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket in a Crew Dragon capsule in the Demo-2 mission.
“This is a new generation, a new era in human space flight,” NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine said in a teleconference Friday morning.
“When you think about Mercury, Gemini, Apollo and then space shuttle, those are really the four times in history when we have put humans on brand-new spacecraft,” he said.
“And now we’re doing it for the fifth time. And that’s just the United States. If you look globally, this will be the ninth time in history when we put humans on a brand-new spacecraft.”
The Crew Dragon sits at the launch pad 39-A at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida with the crew access arm in position ahead of 2019’s Demo-1 launch, the uncrewed precursor to the upcoming mission. (SpaceX)
First ocean landing since Apollo
Demo-2 is the first test with humans since the 1981 launch of the space shuttle Columbia. It will also mark the first time astronauts have landed in the ocean since the Apollo missions.
Following the Demo-2 launch, the first stage of the Falcon 9 rocket will return to Earth at the floating platform in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Florida. The astronauts will then spend two or three months with the three men currently on the ISS, American astronaut Chris Cassidy and Russian cosmonauts Anatoli Ivanishin and Ivan Vagner.
The pair be launching in a brand-new vehicle and wearing brand-new SpaceX spacesuits designed specifically for the Crew Dragon and up-to-date tech such as touch screens, something that the astronauts said took some getting used to.
U.S. and Canada used Russian rockets
On July 8, 2011, the space shuttle era came to a close as Endeavour soared into the sky for the final time.
With nothing to replace it, Americans — and Canadians — were left to launch atop the Russian space agency’s (Roscosmos) Soyuz rockets. The cost for a seat? Roughly $80 million US.
But in 2014, NASA awarded contracts to two commercial companies, SpaceX and Boeing, to make the next generation spacecraft that would take astronauts to the ISS.
This photo shows a life-size test dummy along with a toy that is floating in the Dragon capsule as the capsule made orbit on Saturday, March 2, 2019, in the Demo-1 launch of the Crew Dragon. (SpaceX via AP)
Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner has also suffered setbacks. The last one was in December 2019, when its uncrewed test failed to reach the ISS. An investigation following the incident found that the spacecraft actually risked destruction twice.
Boeing’s next test flight will occur sometime later this year.
If the Demo-2 test flight is successful, the official start of SpaceX astronaut launches from the U.S. to the ISS will be Crew-1. No specific date has been set.
Seasoned astronauts
Both Behnken and Hurley are seasoned astronauts. Behnken flew on two shuttle flights, STS-123 in March 2008 and STS-130 in February 2011. He also performed three spacewalks during each mission.
Hurley also flew on two shuttle flights, STS‐127 in July 2009 and the final mission, STS‐135 in 2011.
Behnken and Hurley use SpaceX’s flight simulator at Nasa’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida in mid-March. (SpaceX)
“I certainly didn’t expect to fly again,” Hurley said on Friday.
Gwynne Shotwell, SpaceX’s president and CEO, said that she’s anxious to get the astronauts launched and safely home.
“My heart is sitting right here,” she said with her hand at her throat. “And I think it’s going to stay there until we get Bob and Doug safely back from the International Space Station.”
Next Canadian astronaut watching closely
Jeremy Hansen, the next Canadian astronaut to head into space, will fly on either the SpaceX Crew Dragon or Boeing Starliner no later than 2024. He, too, will be watching the launch closely.
“I’ll be excited … a little bit nervous for my colleagues, of course, but I do have a lot of faith in it,” Hansen said of the new spacecraft. “We know what we’re doing. There are risks that are being managed, but we’re returning something that we’ve been working on for a long time, so it’s going to be rewarding to see it come to fruition.”
Jeremy Hansen, Canada’s next astronaut scheduled to launch into space, said he’s excited about the Demo-2 mission. It’s likely he will launch aboard either the SpaceX Crew Dragon or Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner. (David Donnelly/CBC)
Shotwell said this endeavour wasn’t only about building a spacecraft, but also all of SpaceX’s employees getting to know the crew on a personal level.
“I wanted to make sure that everyone at SpaceX understood and knew Bob and Doug as astronauts, as test pilots — badass — but dads and husbands. I wanted to bring some humanity to this deeply technical effort as well.”
Launching during a pandemic
The launch will be historic for another reason: unlike most launches, NASA and SpaceX are insisting that people not head down to Cape Canaveral to watch the historic event.
“The challenge that we’re up against now is that we want to keep everybody safe,” Bridenstine said.
Hurley said the current situation is disappointing, but that encouraging people to stay home is the right thing to do.
“We just want everybody to be safe and enjoy this and relish this moment in U.S. space history,” he said.
The astronauts themselves have been taking extra precautions themselves during training, Shotwell said. Only essential personnel have been around the pair, and masks and gloves have been used by those who do come in contact with them.
“It’s not only about Bob and Doug’s safety but also the safety of the crew on board the International Space Station,” said Kathy Lueders, program manager of the commercial crew program at NASA.
“It is a shame that more people are not going to be able to enjoy it in Florida. However, it is the right thing to do. Watch it from home; watch it online; watch it on TV,” Shotwell said.
“Be there for the ride with us. We’ll be together in spirit more so than in physical space.”
NASA’s Voyager 1 spacecraft is depicted in this artist’s concept traveling through interstellar space, or the space between stars, which it entered in 2012. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
For the first time since November, NASA’s Voyager 1 spacecraft is returning usable data about the health and status of its onboard engineering systems. The next step is to enable the spacecraft to begin returning science data again. The probe and its twin, Voyager 2, are the only spacecraft to ever fly in interstellar space (the space between stars).
Voyager 1 stopped sending readable science and engineering data back to Earth on Nov. 14, 2023, even though mission controllers could tell the spacecraft was still receiving their commands and otherwise operating normally. In March, the Voyager engineering team at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California confirmed that the issue was tied to one of the spacecraft’s three onboard computers, called the flight data subsystem (FDS). The FDS is responsible for packaging the science and engineering data before it’s sent to Earth.
The team discovered that a single chip responsible for storing a portion of the FDS memory—including some of the FDS computer’s software code—isn’t working. The loss of that code rendered the science and engineering data unusable. Unable to repair the chip, the team decided to place the affected code elsewhere in the FDS memory. But no single location is large enough to hold the section of code in its entirety.
So they devised a plan to divide affected the code into sections and store those sections in different places in the FDS. To make this plan work, they also needed to adjust those code sections to ensure, for example, that they all still function as a whole. Any references to the location of that code in other parts of the FDS memory needed to be updated as well.
After receiving data about the health and status of Voyager 1 for the first time in five months, members of the Voyager flight team celebrate in a conference room at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory on April 20. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
The team started by singling out the code responsible for packaging the spacecraft’s engineering data. They sent it to its new location in the FDS memory on April 18. A radio signal takes about 22.5 hours to reach Voyager 1, which is over 15 billion miles (24 billion kilometers) from Earth, and another 22.5 hours for a signal to come back to Earth. When the mission flight team heard back from the spacecraft on April 20, they saw that the modification had worked: For the first time in five months, they have been able to check the health and status of the spacecraft.
During the coming weeks, the team will relocate and adjust the other affected portions of the FDS software. These include the portions that will start returning science data.
Voyager 2 continues to operate normally. Launched over 46 years ago, the twin Voyager spacecraft are the longest-running and most distant spacecraft in history. Before the start of their interstellar exploration, both probes flew by Saturn and Jupiter, and Voyager 2 flew by Uranus and Neptune.
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Osoyoos commuters can celebrate Earth Day as the Town joins in on a national commuter challenge known as “Leg Day,” entering a chance to win sustainable transportation prizes.
The challenge, from Earth Day Canada, is to record 10 sustainable commutes taken without a car.
“Cars are one of the biggest contributors to gas emissions in Canada,” reads an Earth Day Canada statement. “That’s why, Earth Day Canada is launching the national Earth Day is Leg Day Challenge.”
So far, over 42.000 people have participated in the Leg Day challenge.
Participants could win an iGo electric bike, public transportation for a year, or a gym membership.
The Town of Osoyoos put out a message Monday promoting joining the national program.
For more information on the Leg Day challenge click here.
Verticillium wilt is a problem for a lot of crops in Manitoba, including canola, sunflowers and alfalfa.
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In potatoes, the fungus Verticillium dahlia is the main cause of potato early die complex. In a 2021 interview with the Co-operator, Mario Tenuta, University of Manitoba soil scientist and main investigator with the Canadian Potato Early Dying Network, suggested the condition can cause yield loss of five to 20 per cent. Other research from the U.S. puts that number as high as 50 per cent.
It also becomes a marketing issue when stunted spuds fall short of processor preferences.
Verticillium in potatoes can significantly reduce yield and, being soil-borne, is difficult to manage.
Preliminary research results suggest earlier planting of risk-prone fields could reduce losses, in part due to colder soil temperatures earlier in the season.
Unlike other potato fungal issues that can be addressed with foliar fungicide, verticillium hides in the soil.
“Commonly we use soil fumigation and that’s very expensive,” said Julie Pasche, plant pathologist with North Dakota State University.
There are options. In 2017, labels expanded for the fungicide Aprovia, Syngenta’s broad-spectrum answer for leaf spots or powdery mildews in various horticulture crops. In-furrow verticillium suppression for potatoes was added to the label.
There has also been interest in biofumigation. Mustard has been tagged as a potential companion crop for potatoes, thanks to its production of glucosinolate and the pathogen- and pest-inhibiting substance isothiocyanate.
Last fall, producers heard that a new, sterile mustard variety specifically designed for biofumigation had been cleared for sale in Canada, although seed supplies for 2024 are expected to be slim. AAC Guard was specifically noted for its effectiveness against verticillium wilt.
Timing is everything
Researchers at NDSU want to study the advantage of natural plant growth patterns.
“What we’d like to look at are other things we can do differently, like verticillium fertility management and water management, as well as some other areas and how they may be affected by planting date,” Pasche said.
The idea is to find a chink in the fungus’s life cycle.
Verticillium infects roots in the spring. From there, it colonizes the plant, moving through the root vascular tissue and into the stem. This is the cause of in-season vegetative wilting, Pasche noted.
As it progresses, plant cells die, leaving behind tell-tale black dots on dead tissue. Magnification of those dots reveals what look like dark bunches of grapes — tiny spheres containing melanized hyphae, a resting form of the fungus called microsclerotia.
The dark colour comes from melanin, the same pigment found in human skin. This pigmentation protects the microsclerotia from ultraviolet light.
