* Astronomy

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RE: International Space Station

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Russians Plan 26th Space Station Spacewalk

Two Russian cosmonauts will float outside one of the International Space Stations hatchways on Monday to perform a grab bag of spacewalking tasks that outfit the Russian segment for future assembly work and support external experiments.
Fyodor Yurchikhin and Oleg Skripochka, both Expedition 25 flight engineers, will wear Orlan spacesuits and emerge from the Earth-facing Pirs docking compartment airlock around 9:25 a.m. EST for a planned 5-hour, 55-minute excursion.
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A greenhouse in space

It's small, but it's a greenhouse for space voyagers - and for you. Paolo Nespoli will take a special greenhouse with him to the International Space Station and he's inviting young science enthusiasts to conduct an experiment with him.
Growing plants in space will be crucial for the astronauts of the future. When flying to Mars or even further, it will be necessary to produce fresh food onboard and become partially self-sufficient. Setting up greenhouses on the Moon, Mars or other planetary bodies will also be an important part of future exploration missions.
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Space Station Steers Clear Of Debris From Defunct US Satellite

Thrusters on a Russian Progress resupply ship were fired for three minutes to steer the station clear of a fragment from NASA's Upper Atmospheric Research Satellite, which was launched on Discovery on Sept. 12, 1991, deployed from the shuttle's cargo bay three days later and operated in low Earth orbit for 14 years.
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International Space Station Water System Successfully Activated

NASA has announced the successful activation of new hardware that will support water production services aboard the International Space Station.
The Sabatier system can create up to 530 gallons of water per year from byproducts of the station's Oxygen Generation System and Carbon Dioxide Removal Assembly. The process is named for Paul Sabatier, a 1912 Nobel Prize winner in chemistry.
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Scientists are planning to use the space station to grow a new kind of crystal for use in solar cells by 2013.
They say the vacuum conditions in space improve the quality of thin film crystals, giving them properties that are unachievable on Earth.
The technique, called Molecular Beam Epitaxy, could improve electronics, in particular raising the efficiency of solar cells as much as 60%.
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Space station crew in third spacewalk to repair cooling

International space station astronauts are aiming to finish repairing a faulty cooling system in a third spacewalk that will begin at 1155BST on Monday.
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A second spacewalk to repair vital cooling units on the International Space Station is under way.
The ISS has been operating with half its cooling capability, crucial for keeping electronics from overheating, since a coolant pump failed in July.
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Third repairs spacewalk for ISS astronauts

Nasa will conduct a third spacewalk on Wednesday to repair vital cooling units on the International Space Station.
An earlier attempt on Saturday failed, despite two astronauts undertaking one of the longest spacewalks in history.
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Spacewalk fails to replace pump that keeps space station cooled

Faced with a rare and potentially critical maintenance crisis aboard the International Space Station, directors at Nasa's mission control are expected to wait until Wednesday before allowing two astronauts to resume efforts to replace a cooling unit that stopped working more than a week ago.
The delay leaves the station in an unusually vulnerable position with only one of its two cooling loops working. The system has to combat heat generated by the experiments on board but also the extremes of temperature that arise naturally. On the sun-facing side of the station, temperatures can reach 121 Celsius while on the dark side they can plunge to minus 157C.
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