This Month's All-Female Spacewalk is Scheduled

After the dismantling of the first female spacewalk in March, NASA is now planning another attempt on 21 October with astronauts Christina Koch and Jessica Meir.

Photo by CNN

The announcement was made on Friday during a briefing by the organization, which anticipates ten spacewalks on the International Space Station by astronauts.
Koch was to be partnered with astronaut Anne McClain who has since returned to Earth for the scheduled spacewalk in March. In March, NASA cited the availability of the spacecraft as the reason for the scrapping. McClain took the decision herself, and the teams accepted it, Koch said.
"We are making every effort to predict the space suit sizes the astronaut wants, based on the spacesuit size of the training and astronaut training in multiple sizes in some cases (including those of Anne McClain)," Brandi Dean told the CNN in March. "Moreover, the size of individuals may vary if they are on orbit, in response to changes in microgravity in the body. Besides, no one training environment can fully simulate the quality of a spacewalk in microgravity, and a person may discover that their size preferences change in the vacuum."

Once asked this time about the availability of space trays, Koch said that two medium space trays are currently on deck. Following the modification of the first all-female program, Koch designed her second spacecraft with what was available onboard.

For the past six years, She and Meir have both been working in medium-sized suits.

In October, Koch will be performing three spacewalks with NASA's astronaut Andrew Morgan on October 6, Morgan, on October 11, and Meir on October 21.
On March 14, Koch arrived on her first spaceflight mission at the International Space Station. She remains on the station until February 2020, making a woman's longest single space flight on the planet.

The mission of Koch will be beyond Peggy Whitson, who has spent 288 consecutive days in space and ends up just short of NASA's longest single space flight: 340 days, calculated by Scott Kelly.
Over the next 3 months, there should be 10 spacecraft, "a frequency that has not been seen since the launch of the space station in 2011," according to a NASA tweet. The tweet also showed a pairing photo for the next routes.

LIVE NOW: Experts provide updates about a series of complex spacewalks by @NASA_Astronauts during the next three months, a cadence that has not been experienced since the assembly of the @Space_Station was completed in 2011. Tune in: https://t.co/mzKW5uDsTi. Ask ?s using #AskNASA pic.twitter.com/ny9TYLFN1N

— NASA (@NASA) October 4, 2019

This week Meir arrived at the space station for her first flight. Following her first spacewalk with Koch, she also performs a spacewalk with astronaut Luca Parmitano from the European Space Agency.
Upon arriving at the station, Meir shared an image of her embracing Koch.

This is how it feels when in addition to your childhood dream being fulfilled by arriving to @Space_Station, you're greeted by your Astro-brothers and sisters on the other side of the hatch. pic.twitter.com/mexDxMdWhd 

— Jessica Meir (@Astro_Jessica) September 29, 2019

For the last six years, she and Koch have studied together because they are part of the same astronaut school. Meir is on the platform for more than six months.
The next spacewalks would help replace and upgrade the solar array batteries to lithium-ion batteries as well as renovate the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer, a research instrument' that explores the fundamental nature of the universe,' according to NASA.

Source: https://edition.cnn.com/2019/10/04/world/nasa-koch-meir-first-all-female-spacewalk-scn-trnd/index.html

Disney+ might not be on Fire TV due to an ad disagreement

Once Disney revealed all the Disney+ channels, the omission was remarkable: the Amazon Fire TV ecosystem. This seems that businesses are fighting with terms not only for Disney+, but also for applications like ESPN+ and Disney Channel.

Amazon would like a large proportion of ad space on Disney's applications, which the media giant resisted. All sides might resolve the problem, but otherwise, Disney's apps would vanish from Fire TV, the Wall Street Journal says.

The report suggests that Amazon had a market share of only less than one third (41%) of streaming boxes in the USA as of the second quarter. Unless Disney and Amazon do not agree and the features of the latter vanish from Fire TV, Disney will lose a major distribution network. Most people will find it harder to access Disney+ when it launches on 12 November.

Disney+ will have no advertisements, but negotiations about Fire TV delivery seem to have opened up Amazon to think about terms for the other Disney devices. Initially, Amazon is said to claim roughly 40% of ad space from television and streaming services, which often drop to between 20 and 30% during negotiations. Disney would have provided Amazon with 10 percent of the stock, so that there can still be a large gap between what is happy with on either side.

Disney does, of course, have Disney+ (and its other apps) as widely as possible. If they're trying to watch Disney, Star Wars, Pixar and Marvel and films, Amazon would definitely want them to use a Fire TV unit. So the companies will probably hope to find common ground very quickly. Disney+ will have Roku, iOS, Apple TV, Facebook, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One devices as things stand.

Such conflicts over software quality are not rare. YouTube was not on Fire TV nor was it available to Amazon Prime Video through Chromecast until the agreement reached between Amazon and Google.

In the meantime, Disney and Amazon partnered together on other distribution fronts. Amazon just introduced to Prime Video in Latin America a bunch of Disney content. Until next September some of the movies, Disney flicks, the live version of The Lion King and television shows such as Gray's Anatomy and The Walking Dead will be shown. Disney+ will not enter the area until the start of 2021.