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Part Three of Three Parts
        In mid-January of this year, a Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle was launched from a launch facility on the eastern coast of India. The primary payload of the PSLV consisted of big Indian mapping satellite. As is often the case with commercial launches these days, dozens of tiny satellites known as CubeSats were packed in around the big mapping satellite. Planetary Resources, a Seattle-based asteroid mining company contributed a CubeSat to test prospecting tools for asteroid mining. Telesat is a Canadian company which added a communications Cubesat to the payload. Carbonite, a British company, sent a Cubesat in the launch to take high-definition video of the surface of the Earth. And many more Cubesat from other companies rode the PSLV into orbit.
       There were four Cubesats launched by the PSLV that raised some serious questions. The These Cubesats were named SpaceBee-1,2,3, and 4. The Indian Space Research Organization which operates the launch facility and launched the PSLV described the four satellites as “two-way satellite communication and data relay” devices from the United States. No organization was listed as the operators of the satellites. All the ISRO had to say about those four CubeSats beyond the brief description was that they reached orbit successfully.
        The IEEE Spectrum has identified Silicon Valley startup named Swarm Technologies founded in 2016 as the owners of the four mysterious CubeSats. Apparently the SpaceBee satellites were constructed and launched to demonstrate technology for a new space-based Internet of Things communication network.
      Swarm says that its new network based on the SpaceBee satellites could reduce the cost of satellite communications by orders of magnitude over current technology. The Swarm system should be able to provide cheap world wide tracking of ships, cars, truck and rail cars, enable new agricultural technologies, and lower the cost of connectivity for “humanitarian” efforts anywhere on Earth. The four SpaceBee satellites are intended to be the first practical demonstration of Swarm’s “prototype hardware and cutting-edge algorithms. They have the capability to exchanged data with ground stations for up to eight years.
       The reason that the launch of the SpaceBee satellites is of interest is the fact that the Federal Communications Commission had rejected Swarm’s application for its experimental satellites at the end of 2017 on the grounds of safety concerns. The FCC feared that the SpaceBee satellites would pose a serious risk of collision with other spacecraft in Earth orbit. If the SpaceBee satellites are really the experimental satellites constructed by Swarm, it will be the first case of the unauthorized launch of commercial satellites in history.
       The FCC has notified Swarm that it was going to investigate “the impact of the applicant’s apparent unauthorized launch and operation of four satellites… on its qualifications to be a Commission licensee.” Unless Swarm can convince the FCC that the launch of the SpaceBee satellites do not pose a risk to other spacecraft, the FCC may not issue the company permission for future launches. On the other hand, there are other countries such as India that will launch future Swarm satellites regardless of rulings by the FCC.
      If the SpaceBee satellites were launched illegally, that would call into question the ability and the willingness of secondary satellite “ride-share” companies and foreign launch to comply with U.S. space regulations. It is unclear exactly what would happen to the international space industry if it bifurcated into U.S. authorized and unauthorized foreign launch facilities.
SWARM Technology SpaceBEEs:

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Part Two of Three Parts
       Swarm was fully aware of the size issue and they placed a GPS device in each satellite that would broadcast its location if its location was requested. They also covered each of the four small one inch by four inches faces with special new passive radar reflective material. Swarm claims that this material will make the radar profile of the satellites ten times bigger and, therefore, easier to detect.
       The FCC was skeptical about the Swarm proposal. During last summer there was correspondence between the FCC and Swarm. In a letter sent by the FCC to Swarm, by Anthony Serafini, the chief of the FCC’s Experimental Licensing Branch. He pointed out that the radar reflector suggested by Swarm only worked in a particular narrow radar frequency band that is only a small part of the Space Surveillance Network of the U.S. He was also concerned that GPS data would only be transmitted if the satellite was functioning. So if the satellite failed because of a hardware or software malfunction, it would become just a small piece of space debris.
       He wrote, “In the absence of tracking at the same level as available for [1U] objects… the ability of operational spacecraft to reliably assess the need for and plan effective collision avoidance maneuvers will be reduced or eliminated. Accordingly, we cannot conclude that a grant of this application is in the public interest.” Needless to say, the FCC rejected the application from Swarm.
        In January, Swarm submitted a new application for launch of four new satellites with a standard 1 U CubeSat size. Swarm said in the application that they had signed agreements with two Fortune 100 companies for Swarm to conduct paid pilot programs. They said that fifteen additional companies in agriculture, shipping and other markets would be closely monitoring the experiment. The U.S. military is also considering the use of the Swarm technology for “tracking and geo-locating a large number of items on the ground and at sea.”
      The new application from Swarm said that the new bigger satellites would be launched by Rocket Lab from New Zealand in April of 2018. The FCC approved the new application from Swarm in a few weeks.
       Swarm just released details of its market trials in another FCC application. It asked for permission to install two more downlink ground stations and as many as five hundred uplink gateways around the U.S. in the next year. Swarm said that they had contacted over one hundred and twenty-five. Swarm has also received a new NSF grant to provide cheap connectivity for humanitarian organizations. They also announced a partnership with NASA’s Ames Research Center. Everything seemed to be on track for the startup.
       However, everything changed last Wednesday when Serafini sent a new letter to Swarm. In the letter, he revoked the application approval for the April Rocket Lab launch. He said that the FCC believes that Swarm went ahead and launched its original small satellites in spite of the fact that the FCC had explicitly forbidden it to do so.
Please read Part Three

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Part One of Three Parts
       Swarm Technologies is a Silicon Valley startup based in Menlo Park, CA. It was created by two young aerospace engineers. The CEO is Sara Sangelo worked at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory before moving to Google in 2016. The CFO is Benjamin Longmier who sold Aether Industries, his near-space balloon company, to Apple before becoming a teacher at the University of Michigan. He is also the co-founder of Apollo Fusion which is a company working on a new electric propulsion system for satellites.
       In order to work, the Internet of Things must be able to connect with, track and facilitate the date exchange of billions of devices linked to the Internet. However, there is only partial Internet access in rural areas and underdeveloped areas and nations. There is no Internet connectivity on the world’s oceans.            
        Swarm is working on a new fleet of satellites to help connect the Internet of Things. They would use solar powered gateways to collect information from nearby Io
T devices via Bluetooth, LoRa, Wi-Fi or other future short-range communication standards for Internet connection. The collected information would be beamed to a Swarm satellite using VHF radio. When a Swarm satellite passed over a ground station connected to the Internet, it would beam down the collected IoT to the ground station for relay to the user.
       The data that is collected and relayed by the Swarm satellites is encrypted in both upload and download. The satellites would upload and download about once a minute depending on traffic and location. While Spanglo was a grad student at the University of Michigan, she wrote papers that described algorithm and models that were designed to maximize the flow of data over a Swarm style network.
       Swarm applied for a National Science Foundation grant in 2016. The application said that Swarm integrated sensor and data relay technology was less that one thousandth of the mass and power as well as four hundred times cheaper that existing point to point satellite communication systems such as the Iridium system. Swarm has received over two hundred thousand dollars from the NSF to date.
       In April of 2017, Swarm filed its first application with the FCC to test four satellites that they called BEEs which is short for Basic Electronic Elements. Two ground stations were included in the application. Each satellite would be four inches wide, four inches deep and about one inch deep. There is a standard unit for small satellites which is referred to as a 1 Unit CubeSat. This unit is a four-inch cube. So, the Swarm satellites are considered to ¼ U CubeSats.
      Being able to launch four satellites in the space of one full CubeSat is intended to keep the price of the launches as low as possible. While it is true that small size will reduce launch costs, small size in itself is a problem once the satellite is in orbit. When objects in space are smaller than one standard CubeSat or a four-inch cube, they become very difficult to track. If an object that size impacted another satellite in orbit, the effect would be catastrophic.
Please read Part Two

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       I cover a lot of interesting new technology for use in space, but I have to admit that the device I am blogging about today looks and sounds like something out of a sci-fi comedy. Airbus and IBM are collaborating on what is being called CIMON which stands for Crew Interactive MObile CompanioN. It is a floating robot about the size of a medicine ball which is equipped with a IBM’s Watson AI system. CIMON weights about eleven pounds. It will use an air-propulsion system to move around in the microgravity of the ISS.
      Watson is a computer system that can answer questions present in natural language. It was built by IBM to apply advanced natural language processing, information retrieval, knowledge representation, automated reasoning, and machine learning technologies to the field of open domain question answering. Watson beat human champions at the TV game of Jeopardy in 2011. In 2013, IBM announced the first commercial application of Watson. This application was to help physicians at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York City, make decisions in lung cancer cases.
      Later this year, CIMON will be sent to the International Space Station to assist astronauts. CIMON will make use of its neural network artificial intelligence system in combination with face and voice recognition to assist astronauts working on the European Space Agency’s Horizons mission between June and October 2018. It is hoped that CIMON will not only improve the efficiency of astronauts but also reduce their stress. Cimon will also warn astronauts immediately of any technical problems which should help improve safety aboard the ISS.
       A full-sized display on the side of CIMON will show a robot face. Along with other features such as face and voice recognition, it is hoped that that astronauts will come to consider CIMON as another crew member. The chief IBM Watson architect said “CIMON’s digital face, voice and use of artificial intelligence will make it a ‘colleague’ to the crew members. This collegial ‘working relationship’ facilitates how astronauts work through their prescribed checklists of experiments, now entering into a genuine dialogue with their interactive assistant.”
       There have been other robots on the ISS before CIMON. In 2011, NASA sent a robot named Robonaut which was built by Dextrous Robotics Laboratory at NASA’s Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center and sent to the ISS. Robonaut is a humanoid robot that was intended to carry out simple tasks aboard the ISS. Unfortunately, technical problems have resulted in it being mostly out of action since 2015. As a matter of fact, it has been packaged up for return to Earth for repairs.
       Another robot called Kirobo was built by Toyota, Dentsu and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency. Kirobo is thirteen inches tall and weighs about two pounds. It accepted vocal commands to assist the Japanese astronaut Wakata Koichi at the ISS until 2015.
      The previous robots were not very intelligence and were intended to use tools to help the astronauts. CIMON is unique because it is using advanced artificial intelligence to assist the astronauts with information access and decision making.
CIMON:

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Part 4 of 4 Parts
       The Wide Field Infrared Survey Telescope is a NASA observatory. It was developed to carry out wide field imaging and surveys of near infrared space. NASA hopes that it will be able to answer some important questions about exoplanet detection and dark energy. The telescope will have a primary mirror that is about eight feet in diameter. It will have a Wide Field instrument to provide a wide field of view that will be one hundred times wider than the Hubble infrared instrument. It will measure the light from a billion galaxies with the intent of finding more than twenty-five hundred exoplanets. It will also have a Coronograph instrument which will provide high contrast imaging and spectroscopy of a variety of nearby exoplanets.
      The WFIRST will be launched in the mid-2020s for a six-year mission. Two billion seven hundred million dollars has been budgeted for this mission.
       The NISAR is a joint project between NASA and IRSO. The project involves the development and launch of a dual frequency synthetic aperture radar satellite. It will mark the first time that a satellite has made use of two frequencies. It is designed to provide remote sensing for complex natural processes on our planet including the collapse of ice-sheets, the disturbance of ecosystems, and natural disasters such as volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, landslides and tsunamis.
       The ISRO will provide a S-band SAR instrument, a spacecraft bus to provide support for the instrument, the launch vehicle and related services. NASA will provide a L-band SAR, a high-speed communication system, a payload data subsystem, a GPS receiver and a solid-state recorder. The satellite will weigh about fifty-seven hundred pounds and will be stabilized on three axes.
      The NISAR will be launched in the mid-2020s from India. One billion dollars has been budgeted for this mission.
      The Mars 2020 rover will be dedicated to the investigation of the geological processes that take place on the surface of Mars. It will look for the any life that may have existed in the past on Mars. It will study any biosignatures that may have been preserved in geological materials that are accessible to the rover. As it carries out its mission, it will stash samples of rocks and soils in caches on the Martian surface for the use of future missions.
       The basic design of the rover will the same as the Curiosity rover but it will carry different scientific instruments. The rover will help answer questions about any dangers that the dust on the Martian surface may hold. It will test technology designed to produce oxygen from the carbon dioxide that constitutes most of the Martian atmosphere. The instrument package on the rover will include an x-ray fluorescence spectrometer, ultraviolet Raman spectrometer, ground-penetrating radar, stereoscopic imaging system, and a solar powered helicopter drone. The rover will be powered by a thermoelectric generator containing radioisotopes.
        The Mars 2020 rover is scheduled to be launched in July of 2020. Two and a half billion dollars have been budgeted for this project.
Artist’s concept of Curiosity Rover using laser on Martian surface:

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Part 3 of 4 Parts
       The Lucy mission will explore a half dozen of the Trojan asteroids that are in the same solar orbit as Jupiter. The Psyche mission will investigate an unusual metal asteroid with the designation of 16 Psyche. They are going to study objects that formed in the early solar system. It is hoped that these missions will add to our knowledge about the formation of planets.
       The Lucy mission will study surface composition, surface geology, interior and bulk properties of six Trojan asteroids in the orbit of Jupiter. It will also determine the number, size-frequency distribution and location of dense rings.
       The Psyche mission will study a rare metal asteroid. Most asteroids are composed of rocks or ice. The 16 Psyche asteroid is composed metallic nickel and iron. The purpose of the mission is to investigate the elemental composition, remnant magnetic field, and gravity field of the asteroid.
      The Lucy mission will launch in 2021 and the Psyche mission will launch in 2023. Four hundred and fifty million dollars have been allocated for these two missions.
       The Europa Clipper spacecraft includes an obiter and a lander. The purpose of the mission is to study Europa which is a moon of Jupiter. One of the primary goals is to determine whether or not Europa could have conditions that would allow life to exist on the moon. Europa has an icy crust with a deep salty liquid water ocean beneath the ice. The Clipper will examine the distribution and chemistry of key organic chemicals as well as the formation of the icy surface. Special attention will be paid to areas where there are signs of current or recent activity. The craft will draw power from solar panels although the amount of sunlight in Jupiter’s orbit is a fraction of the amount of sunlight in Earth’s orbit. Some spacecraft are powered by a thermal battery containing plutonium, but it was decided that it was cheaper and more practical to use solar panels for the Clipper.
       The expected launch date for the Clipper mission is 2022. Two billion dollars has been allocated for this mission.
        The Cold Atom Laboratory is a special experimental instrument built for use on the International Space Station. The CAL will use the microgravity environment of the ISS to analyze quantum phenomena. The microgravity permits longer observations of atoms. Mixtures of different types of atoms can be analyzed without any gravitation influences. Supercooled atoms can be more easily confined by magnetic fields on the ISS. The mission will also help researchers monitor the gravity of the Earth and other planets. This research might be instrumental in the design of advanced navigation systems.
       The initial phase of the mission will be one year with up to five years of extensions. It was scheduled to launch in 2017. Twelve million seven hundred thousand dollars was dedicated to the CAL.
Please read Part 4

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Part 2 of 4 Parts
       The Euclid probe is intended to investigate dark energy and dark matter. It is being launched by the European Space Agency. NASA will provide sixteen state-of-the-art infrared detectors and four spare detectors for one of the two instruments on board the probe. NASA will carry out thorough testing of the detectors before they are sent to the ESA. The mission will calculate the acceleration of the universe in order to improve our understanding of dark matter and dark energy. The probe is designed to measure the redshift of galaxies at different distances from Earth. The calculation involves analyzing the exact relationship between the distance from Earth and the redshift. Five hundred and forty million dollars have been budgeted for this mission that is scheduled to launch in the fall of 2020.
       The Orbiting Carbon Observatory 3 is the third such mission for NASA. The OCO-3 will be hosted on the International Space Station. It is designed to measure the distribution of carbon dioxide on the surface of the Earth connected to changing patterns of fossil fuel use and increasing urban populations. The previous Orbiting Carbon Observatory will be dismantled, and the parts will be used to construct the OCO-3. The OCO-3 will have three high resolution grating spectrometers that will make precise measurements of atmospheric carbon dioxide. The precision and coverage of the OVO-3 instruments will make it possible to analyze the temporal and spatial variation of carbon dioxide during an annual cycle.
      It has three modes. Glint mode points the instrument toward the specular reflection of sunlight from a point onthe Earth’s surface. Nadir mode collects information about patches of ground under the ISS track. When in Target mode, the instrument will lock on to a particular ground location and keep focus on that location as the ISS
passes overhead.
       The planned length of the mission will be three years. One hundred and fifty million dollars has been budgeted for the mission. The launch date has not been decided yet.
       The Surface Water and Ocean Topography mission is a collaboration involving NASA, the Canadian
Space Agency and the French space agency. It will be the first space mission to conduct a global survey of the Earth’s surface water. The main purpose of the mission is to gather information about how bodies of water on Earth change with the passage of time. The mission will study rivers, lakes and oceans at least twice every twenty-one days over ninety percent of the surface of the Earth. The purpose of the water survey is to improve ocean circulation models and climate predictions.
        The SWOT mission will utilize a new type of radar referred to as Ka-band Radar Interferometer. This instrument detects microwave radiation in the frequency range of 26.5 to 40 gigahertz. Two radar antennae will detect the elevation of the surface of the Earth along a seventy five mile wide swath below the track of the satellite.
      The mission will carry out its measurements over a three-year period. Seven hundred and fifty-five million dollars have been budgeted for this mission which will launch in the middle of 2020.
Please read Part 3
SWOT satellite:

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       This and two future posts will be dealing with important future missions coming up for NASA.
       The Asteroid Redirect Robotic Mission is planned to travel to a near-Earth asteroid and obtain a boulder weighting tons. The boulder will be conveyed to a stable orbit around the Moon where it will be explored by astronauts who will bring samples back to Earth. The ARRM spacecraft will utilize advanced ion engines that are much more efficient than current ion engines. The engines will be powered by UltraFlex-style solar panels. One and a quarter billion dollars have been budgeted for this mission that is scheduled to launch in December of 2021.
       The ECOsystem Spaceborne Thermal Radiometer Experiment on Space Station will remotely measure how much water is lost through stomata which are tiny holes in the surface of a leaf. The mission is intended to answer three questions including how the biosphere on Earth responds to changes in the availability of water, how daily water stress of vegetation influences to global carbon cycle, and whether or not we could decrease agricultural vulnerability if we utilize advanced monitoring and improve the estimation of droughts. The mission will accurately monitor the temperature of terrestrial plants. It will use a multispectral thermal infrared radiometer to measure the surface temperature of the plants. It will be able to calculate the temperature of an individual farmer’s field. Thirty million dollars have been budgeted for this mission which is scheduled to launch in April of 2018.
       The Mid-Infrared Instrument is part of the James Webb Space Telescope. It will collect images of the emission of galaxies and stars in the infrared portion of the electromagnetic spectrum. The instrument incorporates both a camera and a spectrograph to measure wavelengths from five to twenty-eight micrometers. Silicon arrays doped with arsenic are used for infrared light capture. In order to capture these wavelengths, the instrument must be colder than the rest of the instrumentation so an extra cooling systems will be used to lower the temperature of the device to seven degrees Kelvin. This mission is scheduled to launch in October of 2018.
       The Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport mission is dedicated to sending a stationary lander to Mars in order to study the geological nature of Mars. It will investigate the thickness, size, density and overall structure of Mar’s core, mantle and crust. It will also measure the rate at which heat escapes from the interior of Mars. The InSight mission will monitor any seismic activity, use the heat escaping from the Martian interior to estimate the size of the Martian Core and determine whether the core is liquid or solid. It is estimated that these measurements will be up to ten times as accurate as any previous measurements. One hundred and fifty million dollars have been budgeted for this mission which is scheduled to launch in May of 2018.
Please read Part 2
InSight Martian Lander:

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       A geosynchronous orbit is an Earth orbit where the orbital period matches the Earth’s rotation. There is a special case of a GSO called a geostationary orbit where a circular GSO has no inclination to the Earth’s equatorial plane and is directly over the equator at an altitude of about twenty three thousand miles. A satellite placed in a GSO will remain stationary with respect to a location on Earth.
         Arthur C. Clark, a famous science fiction author, was the first to propose using this orbit for communication satellites. In honor of Clark, this is referred to as the Clark Orbit. The approximately six hundred artificial satellites in this orbit are referred to as the Clark Belt.
       When communication satellites are launched into the Clark Orbit, many of them carry enough maneuvering fuel to adjusts their orbits for about fifteen years. At the end of that time, the satellites are considered to be non-functional because they can no longer precisely control their orbits which is necessary for them to serve their purpose. They become space junk and take up valuable slots in the Clark Orbit which is rapidly filling up.
      Many of these satellites are still perfectly functional as far as their internal electronics are concerned. If some way could be found to restore orbital maneuverability, they could once again become fully functional. A company called Effective Space has been working on a way to accomplish that.
       Effective Space has designed a space-faring drone that weighs about nine hundred pounds. Once launched into geostationary orbit, the drones would seek out satellites that had run out of fuel. Even though the target satellite was not designed for docking, the drones would be able to attach to the interface rings that attached the satellite to its launch vehicle. Once the drone and the satellite are joined, the drone can use its ion thrusters to maneuver the satellite and restore it to full functionality.
      When the onboard electronics of the drone-connected satellite finally fail, the drone would steer it into what is called a “graveyard orbit.” The satellite would then spiral in and burn up as it entered the Earth’s atmosphere. This has the added benefit of freeing up one of the precious Clark Orbit slots. The drone would detach from the satellite and move on to another aging satellite. The lifespan of a typical drone would be about fifteen years. When it was nearing the end of its life, it too would descend and burn up before it ran out of fuel.
       There are other companies that are entering the drone refueling marketplace. Orbital ATK has a contract to use drones to save a couple of communication satellites. Effective Space feels that the small size of its drones will give it an edge against the competition.
        Although fiber optics are replacing communication satellites in densely populated areas on Earth, the Clark Belt will be crowded in the foreseeable future and drone maneuvering systems will be important. 

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        I have blogged in the past about the fact that space is not a friendly place. It takes a toll on human beings who spend a lot of time there. Calcium leaches out of the bones, muscles lose mass, there is damage to the visual system, and dangerous radiation is common and could lead to cancers. Today, I am going to go into more detail on the damage to astronauts’ eyes.
        Nearly half of long-term astronauts have shown some “significant vision problems upon their return.” Many astronauts find that they cannot focus their eyes correctly after they land and some need glasses for the first time in their lives. A study in 2011 showed changes to the anatomy of astronauts’ eyes.
        Another study was conducted of twenty-seven astronauts who were exposed to micro or zero gravity for an average of one hundred and eight days during space shuttle missions or stays on the International Space Station. The research showed that of astronauts who spend more than thirty days total time in space, nine of them had expansion of the cerebral spina fluid space around the optic nerve. Three had changes in the pituitary gland which produces hormones that have important functions in the human body.
        William Tarver, chief of flight medicine clinic at NASA/Johnson Space Center, says “NASA has placed this problem high on its list of human risks, has initiated a comprehensive program to study its mechanisms and implications, and will continue to closely monitor the situation.”
        Larry Kramer, professor at The University of Texas Medical School and lead researcher on the 2013 study said, “Microgravity-induced intracranial hypertension represents a hypothetical risk factor and a potential limitation to long-duration space travel.”
        Peggy Whitson, who has flown twice on the station and is currently the chief of the astronaut office says, “We’ve known about vision changes on orbit but in some cases we’ve actually found that it can be permanent. Some of it is reversible. Some people get reverses and they come back to the same level that they were at pre-flight, and some were not reversible. We don’t know enough yet to understand the mechanisms for how that happens.”
        Fifteen astronauts who spent about six months each in orbit were studied recently. The investigation found that the tissue at the back of their eyes around the heads of their optic nerves were warped and swollen for weeks after they landed from their missions.
        Some of the astronauts in the study had previous eye damage that might have been the result of previous missions. Images of the tissues around the gap where the optic nerves penetrate the back of the eye showed those tissues swelling and sinking deeper into the eye after the long-term missions ended.
         Researchers are not certain what is causing the movement and swelling of tissue in the astronauts’ eyes but they have a hypothesis. It is possible the internal pressure of the eye increases during long missions, but the eye adapts to the new pressure. If this is the case, maybe when they return to Earth, the pressure might return to normal so quickly that the tissue in the eye is irritated and deformed.
        NASA does not have a solution to this problem. And they may not have the ability to develop such a solution. However, it is an important issue that must be solved if we are going to launch deep-space manned missions.

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