Another day, another successful liftoff from Earth’s busiest spaceport. On September 14, NASA successfully launched the NG-23 resupply mission from SLC-41 on the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. After two days of flight, the spacecraft successfully docked with the International Space Station (ISS) on September 17.
Inside the cargo bay of the Falcon 9 rocket was a Cygnus XL spacecraft, developed by Northrop Grumman. This is the first ever launch of the upgraded XL variant, which is 1.6 meters (5.2 ft) longer than the original Cygnus. That is over 10 additional cubic meters of volume.
Carried onboard are 5,000 kilograms (11,000 pounds.) of food, equipment, and scientific experiments for the astronauts on the ISS. Included among them is a project from Voyager Technologies known as LEOCloud, a technology demonstration for in-space data processing.
“Right now, we see a lot of companies that are interested in the idea of furthering edge computing, AI, data analysis in space,” said Patrick O’Niel, the Public Affairs and Outreach Lead for the ISS National Laboratory in an interview.
“If, down the road, we have multiple commercial destinations in low Earth orbit, perhaps all of them have the ability to leverage this same connective experience,” he said.
As NASA plans to transition away from a single major space station to multiple, smaller commercial stations, improving communication bandwidth is crucial.
Data processing is becoming more important in all types of research. Therefore, the ability to do that processing locally in space rather than having to transfer the data down to a computer on Earth will have major advantages for the potential to iterate ongoing research.
Another key piece of technology NASA is looking to research is storing fuel in space for long-term missions.
For physics reasons, many of the most efficient fuels for spaceflight, such as liquid hydrogen or oxygen, must be kept at extremely low temperatures, which can lead to problems for engineers.
These fuels, known as cryogenics, have a tendency to evaporate through the walls of their container when left for long periods of time. This phenomenon is known as “boil-off.”
NASA is looking to develop “fuel depots in space,” said Steven Siceloff, a Public Affairs Officer at NASA. “It’s something that’s been conceptualized for a very long time, but we’ve never tried it before.”