The first crewed launch of Boeing's Starliner has been delayed again, this time being pushed back to April 2023 from an earlier planned launch date of February. The Register reports: The change came with little announcement from NASA, which tweeted out the new date as a scheduling update without any additional details. In an accompanying blog post, NASA said the change was being made to eliminate conflicts between "visiting spacecraft traffic at the space station," but the agency didn't elaborate much beyond that.

Starliner has been a drag on Boeing since the company unveiled the capsule in 2010. According to Boeing's Q3 2022 filing, Starliner has lost the company $883 million since 2019. That was the year Starliner made its first attempt at an uncrewed launch and docking with the International Space Station, which failed due to a pair of software errors that left it unable to dock and saw it returned to Earth early under less-than-ideal circumstances. Attempts at a second launch in 2021 also failed when 13 of the Calamity Capsule's propulsion system valves failed pre-flight checks. Starliner only made it to the ISS for the first time this past May, but even that launch wasn't without issues as two of the craft's 12 thrusters failed once in orbit.

"NASA's Earth Surface Mineral Dust Source Investigation (EMIT) mission is mapping the prevalence of key minerals in the planet's dust-producing deserts — information that will advance our understanding of airborne dust's effects on climate," NASA announced this week.

"But EMIT has demonstrated another crucial capability: detecting the presence of methane, a potent greenhouse gas." In the data EMIT has collected since being installed on the International Space Station in July, the science team has identified more than 50 "super-emitters" in Central Asia, the Middle East, and the Southwestern United States. Super-emitters are facilities, equipment, and other infrastructure, typically in the fossil-fuel, waste, or agriculture sectors, that emit methane at high rates. "Reining in methane emissions is key to limiting global warming. This exciting new development will not only help researchers better pinpoint where methane leaks are coming from, but also provide insight on how they can be addressed — quickly," said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson.

"The International Space Station and NASA's more than two dozen satellites and instruments in space have long been invaluable in determining changes to the Earth's climate. EMIT is proving to be a critical tool in our toolbox to measure this potent greenhouse gas — and stop it at the source...."

"These results are exceptional, and they demonstrate the value of pairing global-scale perspective with the resolution required to identify methane point sources, down to the facility scale," said David Thompson, EMIT's instrument scientist and a senior research scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, which manages the mission. "It's a unique capability that will raise the bar on efforts to attribute methane sources and mitigate emissions from human activities."

Relative to carbon dioxide, methane makes up a fraction of human-caused greenhouse-gas emissions, but it's estimated to be 80 times more effective, ton for ton, at trapping heat in the atmosphere in the 20 years after release. Moreover, where carbon dioxide lingers for centuries, methane persists for about a decade, meaning that if emissions are reduced, the atmosphere will respond in a similar timeframe, leading to slower near-term warming.... "Some of the plumes EMIT detected are among the largest ever seen — unlike anything that has ever been observed from space," said Andrew Thorpe, a research technologist at JPL leading the EMIT methane effort. "What we've found in a just a short time already exceeds our expectations."

For example, the instrument detected a plume about 2 miles (3.3 kilometers) long southeast of Carlsbad, New Mexico, in the Permian Basin. One of the largest oilfields in the world, the Permian spans parts of southeastern New Mexico and western Texas. In Turkmenistan, EMIT identified 12 plumes from oil and gas infrastructure east of the Caspian Sea port city of Hazar. Blowing to the west, some plumes stretch more than 20 miles (32 kilometers).... With wide, repeated coverage from its vantage point on the space station, EMIT will potentially find hundreds of super-emitters — some of them previously spotted through air-, space-, or ground-based measurement, and others that were unknown.

"As it continues to survey the planet, EMIT will observe places in which no one thought to look for greenhouse-gas emitters before, and it will find plumes that no one expects," said Robert Green, EMIT's principal investigator at JPL.

SpaceX returned its fourth operational crew mission from the International Space Station on Friday, with the quartet of astronauts splashing down in the company's capsule off the coast of Florida. CNBC reports: The company's Crew Dragon spacecraft "Freedom" undocked from the ISS at around noon ET to begin the trip back to Earth, with splashdown happening around 5 p.m. ET. "Welcome home -- thanks for flying SpaceX," the company's mission control told the crew shortly after landing. "Thank you for an incredible ride to orbit, and an incredible ride home," Crew-4 commander Kjell Lindgren said in response.

Crew-4 includes NASA astronauts Lindgren, Bob Hines, and Jessica Watkins, as well as European Space Agency astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti. The mission launched in April for a six-month stay on the orbiting research laboratory. Elon Musk's company launched the Crew-5 mission last week, bringing four other astronauts to the ISS. SpaceX has now flown 30 people to orbit since its first crewed launch in May 2020, with six government missions and two private ones.

Blue light from artificial sources is on the rise, which may have negative consequences for human health and the wider environment, according to a study. From a report: Academics at the University of Exeter have identified a shift in the kind of lighting technologies European countries are using at night to brighten streets and buildings. Using images produced by the International Space Station (ISS), they have found that the orange-coloured emissions from older sodium lights are rapidly being replaced by white-coloured emissions produced by LEDs. While LED lighting is more energy-efficient and costs less to run, the researchers say the increased blue light radiation associated with it is causing "substantial biological impacts" across the continent. The study also claims that previous research into the effects of light pollution have underestimated the impacts of blue light radiation.

Chief among the health consequences of blue light is its ability to suppress the production of melatonin, the hormone that regulates sleep patterns in humans and other organisms. Numerous scientific studies have warned that increased exposure to artificial blue light can worsen people's sleeping habits, which in turn can lead to a variety of chronic health conditions over time. The increase in blue light radiation in Europe has also reduced the visibility of stars in the night sky, which the study says "may have impacts on people's sense of nature." Blue light can also alter the behavioural patterns of animals including bats and moths, as it can change their movements towards or away from light sources.

The Russian space agency has unveiled a physical model of what a planned Russian-built space station will look like, suggesting Moscow is serious about abandoning the International Space Station (ISS) and going it alone. The Guardian reports: Russia wants to reduce its dependency on western countries and forge ahead on its own, or cooperate with countries such as China and Iran, after sanctions were imposed by the west as a result of the invasion of Ukraine. Roscosmos presented a model of the space station, nicknamed "Ross" by Russian state media, on Monday at a military-industrial exhibition outside Moscow.

Roscosmos said its space station would be launched in two phases, without giving dates. For the first phase a four-module space station would start operating. That would be followed by two more modules and a service platform, it said. That would be enough, when completed, to accommodate up to four cosmonauts and scientific equipment. Roscosmos has said the station would afford Russian cosmonauts a much wider view by which to monitor Earth than their current segment. Although designs for some of the station exist, design work is still under way on other segments.

Russian state media have suggested the launch of the first stage is planned for 2025-26 and no later than 2030. Launch of the second and final stage is planned for 2030-35, they have reported. The space station, as currently conceived, would not have a permanent human presence but would be staffed twice a year for extended periods. Dmitry Rogozin, the previous head of Roscosmos and a hardliner known for his tough statements against the west, has suggested the new space station could fulfil a military purpose if necessary.

Russian space officials have informed U.S. counterparts that Moscow would like to keep flying its cosmonauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS) until their own orbital outpost is built and operational, a senior NASA official told Reuters on Wednesday. Reuters reports: Taken together with remarks from a senior Russian space official published on Wednesday, the latest indications are that Russia is still at least six years away from ending an orbital collaboration with the United States that dates back more than two decades.

A schism in the ISS program seemed to be closer at hand on Tuesday, when Yuri Borisov, the newly appointed director-general of Russia's space agency Roscosmos, surprised NASA by announcing that Moscow intended to withdraw from the space station partnership "after 2024." Kathy Lueders, NASA's space operations chief, said in an interview that Russian officials later on Tuesday told the U.S. space agency that Roscosmos wished to remain in the partnership as Russia works to get its planned orbital outpost, named ROSS, up and running. "We're not getting any indication at any working level that anything's changed," Lueders told Reuters on Wednesday, adding that NASA's relations with Roscosmos remain "business as usual."

Russia has announced that it will officially end its international collaboration with NASA around operation of the International Space Station (ISS) as of 2024, according to the AP. From a report: Roscosmos, the Russian space agency, also announced plans to construct its own orbital station, which build and operate independently of the U.S. The ISS was originally intended to be decommissioned sometime around 2024, but NASSA shifted its official retirement date to 2030. Roscosmos and NASA set an agreement earlier in July to still continue to exchange rides for American astronauts and Russian cosmonauts aboard each other's respective launch vehicles -- Russia's Soyuz and SpaceX's Crew Dragon -- on four upcoming missions to rotate the station's crew.

"NASA astronauts will go back to riding Russian rockets under an agreement announced Friday," reports the Associated Press, "and Russian cosmonauts will catch lifts to the International Space Station with SpaceX beginning this fall." The agreement ensures that the space station will always have at least one American and Russian on board to keep both sides of the orbiting outpost running smoothly, according to NASA and Russian officials. The swap had long been in the works and was finalized despite tensions over Moscow's war in Ukraine, a sign of continuing Russia-U.S. cooperation in space....

No money will exchange hands under the agreement, according to NASA....

Friday's news came just hours after the blustery chief of the Russian space agency, Dmitry Rogozin, was replaced by President Vladimir Putin, although the move did not appear to have any connection to the crew swap. Rogozin was expected to be given a new post.
CBS News explains the NASA-Roscosmos agreement: "The station was designed to be interdependent and relies on contributions from each space agency to function," the NASA statement said. "No one agency has the capability to function independent of the others..."

Russia provides the propellant and thrusters, either on the station or visiting Progress cargo ships, to change the station's orbit and offset the effects of atmospheric drag. NASA provides the bulk of the lab's electrical power, the massive gyroscopes that help maintain the station's orientation and a station-wide computer and communications network.

Russian cosmonauts are not trained to operate U.S. systems and vice versa, meaning at least one astronaut and one cosmonaut must be aboard at all times. If either side pulled out, the other likely would have to depart as well, or quickly come up with alternative systems.
"NASA wants to operate the space station through 2030," adds CBS, "but Russian cooperation is required. And it's not yet known whether Russia will go along."

Dmitry Rogozin, the blustering head of Russia's state space corporation, Roscosmos, is out of the position following a big shake-up in the Russian government. From a report: He is being replaced by Yury Borisov, Russian deputy prime minister of space and defense, bringing an end to Rogozin's dynamic reign as general director of the country's space program. Rogozin has been in charge of Roscosmos since his appointment as director general in 2018, though prior to that, he was deputy prime minister since 2011, overseeing space and defense. He's been a controversial figure for most of that tenure, resulting in strained relations with NASA -- Russia's largest partner in space. Rogozin was sanctioned by the United States in 2014 and barred from entering the country due to his time as a deputy prime minister during Russia's annexation of Crimea.

As the head of Roscosmos, Rogozin became known for making wildly outlandish statements and threats, many of which put NASA in rather uncomfortable positions. His bombast got renewed focus when Russia began its invasion of Ukraine this year, prompting Rogozin to go into overdrive and make ludicrous claims that many interpreted as threats against NASA and the US / Russian space partnership. For instance, at the start of the war, Rogozin seemed to hint that Roscosmos might pull out of the International Space Station partnership and cause the ISS to come crashing down to Earth. And, after declaring that Russia would no longer supply rocket engines to the United States, Rogozin said NASA astronauts could use "broomsticks" to get to orbit.

The European Space Agency has officially terminated cooperation with Russia on a mission to put a rover on Mars, with Russia's space chief furiously responding by banning cosmonauts on the ISS from using a Europe-made robotic arm. France 24 reports: The ESA had previously suspended ties on the joint ExoMars mission, which had planned to use Russian rockets to put Europe's Rosalind Franklin rover on the red planet to drill for signs of life, due to Russia's invasion of Ukraine. ESA Director-General Josef Aschbacher tweeted on Tuesday that because the war and resulting sanctions "continue to prevail," the agency would "officially terminate" ties with Russia on ExoMars and its landing platform.

The firebrand head of Russian space agency Roscosmos Dmitry Rogozin issued an angry response. "Has the head of the European Space Agency thought about the work of thousands of scientists and engineers in Europe and Russia which has been ended by this decision? Is he prepared to answer for sabotaging a joint Mars mission?" Rogozin said on Telegram. "I, in turn, order our crew on the ISS to stop working with the European manipulator ERA," he added.

NASA said this week that it plans to purchase five additional Crew Dragon missions from SpaceX to carry astronauts to the International Space Station. Ars Technica reports: Although the space agency's news release does not specifically say so, these may be the final flights NASA needs to keep the space station fully occupied into the year 2030. As of now, there is no signed international agreement to keep the station flying until then, but this new procurement sends a strong signal that the space agency expects the orbital outpost to keep flying that long.

The announcement also suggests that SpaceX will fly more than twice as many crews to the space station than the other partner in NASA's commercial crew program, Boeing. Under the new agreement, SpaceX would fly 14 crewed missions to the station on Crew Dragon, and Boeing would fly six during the lifetime of the station.

Boeing's Orbital Flight Test 2 (OFT-2) "is officially a success," reports Space.com: That's the verdict that leaders at NASA and Boeing gave during a press briefing on Wednesday night (May 25), a few hours after the aerospace giant's Starliner capsule returned to Earth to wrap up OFT-2, a crucial uncrewed demonstration mission to the International Space Station.

Starliner touched down in the White Sands Missile Range, a U.S. Army facility in New Mexico, at 6:49 p.m EDT (2249 GMT) on Wednesday, hitting the desert dirt just 0.3 miles (0.5 kilometers) from its target landing point. Steve Stich, manager of NASA's Commercial Crew Program, described the landing as "picture perfect" during Wednesday night's briefing, saying that the test flight accomplished all of its mission objectives....

OFT-2 went smoothly from start to finish, though it did have a few minor hiccups. For example, two thrusters on Starliner's service module failed during the orbital insertion burn, which occurred about 30 minutes after launch. And as Starliner approached the space station on Friday (May 20), an additional two thrusters needed to be shut down, this time in the capsule's reaction control system. In both cases, backups for each system worked as they were designed to do, and neither issue substantially affected the mission. But Starliner's thrusters will be a focus of several post-flight checks and tests in the near future.
The Washington Post writes that on-the-ground engineers "won't be able to examine the two main thrusters that cut out since they are housed in the spacecraft's service module, which was jettisoned during the return." (And during the flight, their article adds, "the spacecraft's thermal control system, used to keep the spacecraft at the right temperature, also failed.") But NASA's Steve Stich tells Space.com that "Putting the vehicle through its paces on this flight is really the only way to prepare us for the crewed flight test.

"Once we work through all the data, we'll be ready to fly crew on this vehicle."

Boeing's Starliner successfully docked to the International Space Station Friday night for the first time.

And right now, Boeing is beginning the official hatch-opening ceremon, in which the space station astronauts already on the ISS "open the hatch to the vehicle and retrieve some cargo that's packed inside," explains the Verge: NASA tasked Boeing with conducting an uncrewed flight demonstration of Starliner to show that the capsule can hit all of the major milestones it'll need to hit when it is carrying passengers... This mission is called OFT-2 since it's technically a do-over of a mission that Boeing attempted back in 2019, called OFT. During that flight, Starliner launched to space as planned, but a software glitch prevented the capsule from getting in the right orbit it needed to reach to rendezvous with the ISS. Boeing had to bring the vehicle home early, and the company never demonstrated Starliner's ability to dock with the ISS....

Using a series of sensors, the capsule autonomously guided itself onto an open docking port on the space station.... Docking occurred a little over an hour behind schedule, due to some issues with Starliner's graphics and docking ring, which were resolved ahead of the docking....

[Thursday] At 6:54PM ET, Starliner successfully launched to space on top of an Atlas V rocket, built and operated by the United Launch Alliance. Once Starliner separated from the Atlas V, it had to fire its own thrusters to insert itself into the proper orbit for reaching the space station. However, after that maneuver took place, Boeing and NASA revealed that two of the 12 thrusters Starliner uses for the procedure failed and cut off too early. The capsule's flight control system was able to kick in and rerouted to a working thruster, which helped get Starliner into a stable orbit.... Today, Boeing revealed that a drop in chamber pressure had caused the early cutoff of the thruster, but that system behaved normally during follow-up burns of the thrusters. And with redundancies on the spacecraft, the issue "does not pose a risk to the rest of the flight test," according to Boeing.

Boeing also noted today that the Starliner team is investigating some weird behavior of a "thermal cooling loop" but said that temperatures are stable on the spacecraft.
From the space station, NASA astronaut Bob Hines said the achievement "marks a great milestone towards providing additional commercial access to low Earth orbit, sustaining the ISS and enabling NASA's goal of returning humans to the Moon and eventually to Mars.

"Great accomplishments in human spaceflight are long remembered by history. Today will be no different."

Long-time Slashdot reader mmell shares this schedule (EST): 5/20, 3:30 pm — Starliner docking with ISS.
5/21, 11:30 am — Safety checks completed. Hatches opened.
5/24, 12:00 pm — Starliner loading completed. Hatched closed.
5/25, 2:00 pm — Starliner undocking from ISS.
5/25, 5:45 pm — Coverage of Starliner landing begins.

Again, the streams will be broadcast at NASA Television. I don't know about any of you, but I know what I'm doing this weekend.

After startup Axiom Space brokered the first visit to the Space Station by an all-private crew, the AX-1 mission turned into a "longer-than-expected" stay, reports CNN. It launched on April 8 and "was originally billed as a 10-day mission," CNN notes, "but delays have extended the mission by about a week." The four crew members — Michael López-Alegría, a former NASA astronaut-turned-Axiom employee who is commanding the mission; Israeli businessman Eytan Stibbe; Canadian investor Mark Pathy; and Ohio-based real estate magnate Larry Connor — are slated to leave the space station aboard their SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule on Sunday at 8:55 pm ET. That's another 24-hour delay from what NASA and Axiom were targeting on Saturday. They now plan to spend a day free flying through orbit before plummeting back into the atmosphere and parachuting to a splashdown landing off the coast of Florida at about 1 pm ET Monday, according to a tweet from Kathy Lueders, the head of NASA's human spaceflight program...

During their first 12 days on the space station, the group stuck to a regimented schedule, which included about 14 hours per day of activities, including scientific research that was designed by various research hospitals, universities, tech companies and more. They also spent time doing outreach events by video conferencing with children and students. The weather delays then afforded to them "a bit more time to absorb the remarkable views of the blue planet and review the vast amount of work that was successfully completed during the mission," according to Axiom....

It's not the first time paying customers or otherwise non-astronauts have visited the ISS, as Russia has sold seats on its Soyuz spacecraft to various wealthy thrill seekers in years past. But AX-1 is the first mission with a crew entirely comprised of private citizens with no active members of a government astronaut corps accompanying them in the capsule during the trip to and from the ISS. It's also the first time private citizens have traveled to the ISS on a US-made spacecraft.

In 2021, a team of hologram doctors was "holoported" to space to visit astronauts living aboard the International Space Station, NASA has revealed in a new post. Space.com reports: The hologram teams, led by NASA flight surgeon Dr. Josef Schmid and Fernando De La Pena Llaca, CEO of software provider Aexa Aerospace, were the first humans to ever be "holoported" from Earth to space. "This is completely new manner of human communication across vast distances," Schmid said in the statement. "Furthermore, it is a brand-new way of human exploration, where our human entity is able to travel off the planet. Our physical body is not there, but our human entity absolutely is there."

"It doesn't matter that the space station is traveling 17,500 mph [28,000 kilometers per hour] and in constant motion in orbit 250 miles [400 km] above Earth, the astronaut can come back three minutes or three weeks later and with the system running, we will be there in that spot, live on the space station," Schmid added. The medical teams holoported to the station on Oct. 8. Using the Microsoft Hololens Kinect camera and a personal computer with custom Aexa software, European Space Agency astronaut Thomas Pesquet, who was on board the station at that time, had a holo-conversation with Schmid and De La Pena's teams. The holograms of the doctors were visible live in the middle of the space station.

So how did it work? The "holoportation" technology that enabled this event works using specialized image capture technology that reconstructs, compresses and transmits live 3D models of people. This technology couples with the HoloLens, a self-described "mixed reality headset" that combines sensors, optics and holographic processing tech to allow the wearer to see the hologram images or even enter a "virtual world." With the two systems combined, users in orbit can not only see hologram participants, but can also hear and interact with them. The technology is not new, but has never been used in an environment this challenging with users so far apart.

A SpaceX Crew Dragon safely delivered four private astronauts to the International Space Station this past Saturday. Gizmodo reports: SpaceX capsule Endeavor reached the ISS at 8:20 a.m. EDT on Saturday, April 9, following a nearly 21-hour journey. The crew of the Ax-1 mission -- Michael Lopez-Alegria, Larry Connor, Eytan Stibbe, and Mark Pathy -- launched atop a Falcon 9 rocket on Thursday from Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The ISS is currently orbiting at a height of 260 miles (418 km) above Earth. The docking would've happened 45 minutes earlier, had it not been for a problem having to do with ISS crew members not being able to receive video from the Crew Dragon's center line camera. Ground controllers remedied the problem by routing video from a SpaceX ground station, according to NASA.

The four crew members will stay on the orbital outpost for eight days, where they will perform some 25 experiments having to do with science, education, and commercial activities. Axiom Space is aiming to build the world's first fully commercial space station, the construction of which is slated to begin at the ISS in late 2024. The Ax-1 mission represents an important milestone in the ongoing commercialization of low Earth orbit. [...] Axiom said the first day was mostly about preparing equipment for what will be a very busy week. The team has just 100 hours to complete their respective tasks.

Loren Grush writes via The Verge: Tomorrow morning, SpaceX is set to launch yet another crew of four to the International Space Station from Florida -- but unlike most of the company's passenger flights, this new crop of flyers won't include any current NASA astronauts. All four members of the crew are civilians, flying with a commercial aerospace company called Axiom Space. Their flight will mark the first time a completely private crew has visited the ISS. It's a new type of human spaceflight mission and one that comes with a hefty price tag for its participants. Three of the four flyers have each paid a reported $55 million for their seats on SpaceX's crew capsule, called the Crew Dragon. The trio of novice spacefarers includes Canadian investor Mark Pathy, American real estate investor Larry Connor, and former Israeli Air Force pilot Eytan Stibbe. The commander of the trip is a spaceflight veteran: Michael Lopez-Alegria, a former NASA astronaut who has flown four missions to space and now serves as a vice president of Axiom.

Their mission, called Ax-1, is the latest in an emerging trend of completely private astronaut flights to orbit. [...] Axiom -- which strives to create a fleet of commercial space stations -- has arranged for three additional private crew missions to the ISS, just like Ax-1, to gear up for the creation of its first station. The company's goal is to "make space more accessible to everyone." "This really does represent the first step where a bunch of individuals who want to do something meaningful in low Earth orbit -- that aren't members of a government -- are able to take this opportunity," Mike Suffredini, Axiom's CEO and the former program manager of the ISS at NASA, said during a press conference. Though, until costs come down, such individuals will need a fat wallet.

Slashdot reader alaskana98 writes: In what has become a stubborn sibling to the 'Face on Mars' phenomenon, the legend of the Dark Knight alien satellite has persisted for years and is the fascinating story of a seemingly mundane NASA photo tied together with reports of seemingly mysterious radio waves captured in the early days of radio, all combining to make the ultimate space conspiracy theory.

It goes something like this — an ancient alien space probe, dubbed the 'Dark Knight, has been long orbiting Earth and covertly monitoring its blissfully unaware inhabitants for mysterious purposes for roughly 10,000 years. Flash forward to the 1899, where technological pioneer Nikola Tesla, while experimenting with radio technology in his Colorado laboratory supposedly captured mysterious emanations from an unearthly object. Later in the 1920's, Norwegian engineer Jørgen Hals found that radio signals he transmitted were being echoed back to him a few seconds later, something called 'long delayed echoes' — still unexplained to this day. It has been proposed that these echoes were signals being relayed back to earth by something called a 'Bracewell Probe', a hypothetical automated spacecraft sent out with the goal of making contact with other intelligent species.

Flash forward to 1998, an unassuming photo from the STS-88 mission in 1998 to attach the U.S. module to the Russian portion of the ISS captured a tantalizing glimpse of an unnaturally geometric shape menacingly loitering toward the bottom of the frame. To true believers, this was evidence of an ancient probe keeping tabs on the earthly locals. Combined, these disparate events swirl together to create the stuff of dreams for the ardent conspiracy theorist and even the causal sci-fi buff. Ultimately, the object in the STS photo was most likely a thermal cover. The radio waves Tesla heard? Likely natural radio emisions of a natural or terestial source.

Space.com took a deep dive into this myth and explored how it — and the - dark knight myth has taken a hold on the imaginations of those who find themselves peering out into the inky blackness of the night and wonder to themselves "are we being watched from above"?

"Russia's Roscosmos will stop working with NASA and other western space agencies on the International Space Station," reports Engadget: On early Saturday morning, Roscosmos director Dmitry Rogozin slammed international sanctions against Russia and said normal cooperation between the space agency and its western counterparts would only be possible after they were lifted.... Rogozin said Roscosmos would submit proposals on ending its work with NASA and other international space agencies to Russian authorities.

It's unclear how the decision would affect the space station. The ISS is not owned by any single country. The US, European Union, Russia, Canada and Japan operate the station through a cooperative agreement between the countries. Roscosmos, however, is critical to the ISS. The Russian Orbital Segment handles guidance control for the entire station....

The ISS isn't the first joint space program to see its future thrown into uncertainty due to rising tensions between the West and Russia. In March, Roscosmos said it would not ferry OneWeb's internet satellites to space until the UK government sold its stake in the company. That same month, the European Space Agency announced it was suspending its joint ExoMars mission with Roscosmos.
But in the middle of all this, "There are currently seven astronauts onboard the ISS — three Russian cosmonauts, three NASA astronauts and one German-born ESA astronaut, Matthias Maurer..." reports UPI: The three Russian cosmonauts are Sergey Korsakov, Oleg Artemyev and Denis Matveev. It was not immediately clear how the suspension of cooperation would impact the cosmonauts at the ISS.

Artemyev has expressed support for Russia and its decision to invade Ukraine in a statement made last month after he boarded the space station in a yellow and blue uniform, the colors of the Ukrainian flag. "There is no need to look for secret signs and symbols in our uniform. Color is just color," he said. "Despite the fact that we are in space, we are together with our president and people!"

Despite the United States and Russia's deteriorating relationship here on Earth, Russia is still considering extending its participation on the International Space Station through 2030, according to NASA. However, it could be a few months before there is a solid update on Russia's official stance. From a report: NASA and Russia's state space corporation, Roscosmos, have been the two largest partners on the International Space Station for the last three decades. The two organizations have agreed to work together on the ISS through 2024, but at the end of last year, the Biden administration announced its intentions to extend the space station program through 2030. Russia has not formally agreed to the extension yet.

Roscosmos's participation in the extension started to seem unlikely after Russia invaded Ukraine in February. In response to the war, the United States sanctioned Russia's major industries, which triggered outrage from the head of Roscosmos, Dmitry Rogozin. On Twitter, Rogozin made wild threats about the future of the ISS, insinuating that the station could come crashing down on the United States if Russia withdrew prematurely from the program. He has also hinted at revisiting the partnership with the US in light of the sanctions.