WATCH LIVE NOW: BEAM Inflatable Room Deployment on Space Station [bestandroiddoubledinheadunit950.blogspot.com]

WATCH LIVE NOW: BEAM Inflatable Room Deployment on Space Station [bestandroiddoubledinheadunit950.blogspot.com]

There’s a lot of spaceflight action on Thursday (May 26). Early in the morning, astronauts aboard the International Space Station will deploy the experimental Bigelow Expandable Activity Module (BEAM), and, in the evening, SpaceX will launch a communications satellite — and attempt to land its Falcon 9 rocket on a ship at sea.

Coverage of the BEAM inflation begins at 5:30 a.m. EDT (0930 GMT) Thursday. You can watch it live in the window below, courtesy of NASA TV:

From NASA: “NASA astronaut Jeff Williams will lead Thursday’s operations to expand the module. Designers need daylight and video communication to closely monitor the process starting at 6:10 a.m. Thursday.

“Space station astronauts will first enter the habitat Thursday, June 2, through the station’s Tranquility module, and re-enter the module several times a year throughout the two-year test period to retrieve sensor data and assess conditions inside the module.

“Expandable habitats are designed to take up less room on a spacecraft, but provide greater volume for living and working in space once expanded. This first test of an expandable module will allow investigators to gauge how well the habitat performs and specifically, how well it protects against solar radiation, space debris and the temperature extremes of space.”

SpaceX Rocket Launch and Landing Try

SpaceX’s two-stage Falcon 9 rocket is scheduled to launch the Thaicom-8 communications satellite at 5:40 p.m. EDT (2140 GMT) from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. The booster’s first stage will then return to Earth and attempt to land on a robotic ship in the Atlantic Ocean. You’ll be able to watch it live here, courtesy of SpaceX.

SpaceX has pulled off two such ocean landings in the last two months. These touchdowns are part of the company’s effort to develop completely reusable rockets, which company founder and CEO Elon Musk has said could slash the cost of spaceflight by a factor of 100.

Let’s block ads! (Why?)

http://www.space.com/17933-nasa-television-webcasts-live-space-tv.html WATCH LIVE NOW: BEAM Inflatable Room Deployment on Space Station

[bestandroiddoubledinheadunit950.blogspot.com]WATCH LIVE NOW: BEAM Inflatable Room Deployment on Space Station