NASA TV: Videos This Week

NASA TV posts videos each week. Here is a collection of what was posted the past week.

Inside the International Space Station Episode 4 Chapter 3 - Comet Lovejoy - Expedition 30 astronauts Dan Burbank and Don Pettit saw and photographed Comet Lovejoy but weren't sure what it was, at first.


NASA astronaut and Expedition 30 Commander Dan Burbank officially transferred the helm of the orbiting outpost to Russian cosmonaut, Oleg Kononenko who, along with NASA astronaut Don Pettit and Andre Kuipers of the European Space Agency, has now begun Expedition 31. Two days later, Burbank and his Expedition 30 crewmates, Russian cosmonauts Anton Shkaplerov and Anatoly Ivanishin, said their farewells, climbed into their Soyuz TMA-22 spacecraft and departed the station for the trip back to Earth. After a five-and-a-half month stay onboard the ISS, Burbank, Shkaplerov and Ivanishin landed safely in Kazakhstan.

Meanwhile, the other three members of Expedition 31, NASA Flight Engineer Joe Acaba, and his Russian crewmates, Soyuz Commander Gennady Padalka and Flight Engineer Sergei Revin, participated in pre-launch activities at the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center in Star City, Russia. The trio is scheduled to launch to the ISS on a Soyuz spacecraft on May 15 to join Pettit, Kuipers and Kononenko. Also, Space Shuttle Enterprise is flown to The Big Apple, the next-generation J-2X Engine is ready for more tests, Snowballs make waves in Saturn's outer ring and more!


NASA Extra Vehicular Activity (EVA), or Spacewalk Officer Glenda Brown answers questions from 8th grade students at Victory Lakes Intermediate School in League City, TX during a NASA Digital Learning Network (DLN) interactive broadcast.


NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory has mapped the debris of a supernova and discovered that the explosion may have turned the original star inside out. Peering into the heart of the inverted star, astronomers have found the atoms of life itself.


NASA commercial partner, SpaceX, is a step closer on its planned journey to the International Space Station. After its rollout to Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket was lifted into place for a static engine fire test simulating launch. The exercise ended with all nine engines firing at full power for two seconds. The successful test clears the way for Falcon 9's upcoming demonstration flight to the ISS as part of NASA's plan for private companies to take over cargo delivery to the orbiting complex. Also, Expedition 31 Soyuz Commander Gennady Padalka, NASA Flight Engineer Joe Acaba and Flight Engineer Sergei Revin participated in traditional ceremonies at the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center in Star City, Russia before departing for the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan to complete training for their launch to the International Space Station aboard a Soyuz spacecraft later this month and more!


On Saturday May 5, the 2012 U.S. Astronaut Hall of Fame ceremony was held at the Kennedy Space Center. Franklin R. Chang Díaz, Kevin P. Chilton and Charles J. Precourt joined an elite group of American space heroes as they were inducted into the U.S. Astronaut Hall of Fame at Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex. This is the eleventh group of space shuttle astronauts named to the U.S. Astronaut Hall of Fame. Earlier inductees represent the Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, Skylab and Apollo-Soyuz programs. The addition of Dr. Chang Díaz, a veteran of seven space shuttle flights who has logged more than 1,601 hours in space; Gen. Chilton, the pilot on space shuttle Endeavour's maiden voyage and the commander of STS-76; and Col. Precourt, who served as shuttle mission specialist, pilot and spacecraft commander, will bring the number of space explorers enshrined in the Hall of Fame to 82.