14 DAY TRIAL // Astronauts with the Expedition 38 crew aboard the International Space Station (ISS) have released two new tiny satellites from the orbital facility on Wednesday, February 13. The NanoRacks CubeSats duo was supposed to be accompanied by other spacecraft as well, but a series of glitches prevented the latter from launching.
The image above shows the Small Satellite Orbital Deployer (SSOD) facility on the exterior of the Japanese-built Kibo laboratory module as it releases the two satellites. The small vehicles contain Earth-observing equipment and a suite of electronics technology demonstrators.
Yesterday, “there were some glitches preventing the deployment of other CubeSats. Japanese flight controllers and U.S. payload controllers are looking at the issue,” NASA said in a press release. “No decision has been made for rescheduling those deployments.”
This image is backdropped by the curvature and the horizon of our planet, and by the solar arrays that supply power to the space station. The blackness of space is evocative of the amount of light Earth reflects back into space, making even the brightest stars invisible from this particular angle.