A multiplexer-demultiplexer (MDM) data relay box aboard the International Space Station failed Saturday, and will be replaced Tuesday during a spacewalk by NASA astronauts Peggy Whitson and Jack Fischer, the space agency announced Sunday. The two-hour "contingency spacewalk" has been given the go-ahead by program managers of the ISS. The MDM data relay box is housed in the S0 truss, and is one of the two such systems, both of which are redundant -- which is to say, both boxes are independent and one can take over in the event the other fails. MDM-1, the failed data relay box, apparently malfunctioned shortly after noon Saturday. Crewmembers tried to restore power to the component multiple times, but were not successful.

NASA has revealed incredible'action cam' footage from a spacewalk on the International Space Station, giving an up-close look at what happens when astronauts step outside the orbiting craft. As the astronauts go about their tasks, it might at first be easy to forget that they are 250 miles above the surface – but, a quick change of perspective revealing the curve of Earth far below serves as a jolting reminder. During the spacewalk, the ESA's Thomas Pesquet and NASA's Shane Kimbrough prepared the Pressurized Mating Adapter-3 for a second International Docking Adapter, which will allow commercial crew vehicles to dock. In March, astronauts on the ISS began to make preparations for the installation of the second of two parking spots for space taxis, known as the International Docking Adapters. New crew spaceships, being designed by SpaceX and Boeing, will use them when they begin flying astronauts to the station in the coming years, as early as 2018.

Sitting in the Oval Office Monday, President Trump spoke with two American astronauts currently living aboard the International Space Station. Trump, flanked by astronaut Kate Rubens and daughter Ivanka Trump, did a brief Q&A with NASA's Peggy Whitson, who just broke the record for the American who has spent the most days in space, and Jack Fischer, a new arrival to the space station. 'Better you than me,' Trump told the astronauts, when they talked about some of the things they have to do to live in space, such as turning their own urine into drinking water. The president, who signed a NASA bill last month with the aim of sending people to Mars, asked the astronauts when the trip was planned. 'I think, as your bill directed, it will be in the 2030s,' Whitson said.

A supply ship bearing John Glenn's name arrived at the International Space Station on Saturday. Astronauts used the station's big robot arm to grab the capsule, as the craft flew 250 miles above Germany. NASA's commercial shipper, Orbital ATK, named the spacecraft the S.S. John Glenn in honor of the first American to orbit Earth. It rocketed from Cape Canaveral, Fla., on Tuesday with nearly 7,700 pounds of food, experiments and other goods. Glenn died in December at age 95 and was buried earlier this month at Arlington National Cemetery.

A French and an American astronaut floated outside the International Space Station Friday on a successful spacewalk to upgrade the orbiting outpost for the arrival of future space crews. Outfitted in bulky white spacesuits, helmets and gloves, France's Thomas Pesquet, 39, and American Shane Kimbrough, 49, completed their work right on schedule, after six hours and 34 minutes in the vacuum of space. "Another great example of international collaboration and the work that we can do when we get a great team like this together," said Jessica Meir, a NASA astronaut who coordinated the spacewalk from mission control in Houston. The goal for Friday's outing was to prepare for the installation of the second of two parking spots for space taxis, known as the International Docking Adapters. New crew spaceships, being designed by SpaceX and Boeing, will use them when they begin flying astronauts to the station in the coming years, as early as 2018.

Spacewalking astronauts hooked up fancy new batteries Friday on the International Space Station's sprawling power grid. NASA reported that all three lithium-ion batteries were up and running, a successful start to the space agency's long-term effort to upgrade the aging solar power system. Before venturing out, Commander Shane Kimbrough and Peggy Whitson got a hand from a robot that took care of most of the grunt work -- Dextre, a hulking machine with 11-foot arms. Peggy Whitson takes a spacewalk outside the International Space Station on Friday, Jan. 6, 2016. Whitson and Commander Shane Kimbrough went spacewalking to hook up fancy new batteries on the International Space Station's sprawling power grid.

January 6, 2017 --Two astronauts went spacewalking on Friday as they began the two- to three-year task of replacing all the batteries for the International Space Station's power grid. NASA astronauts Shane Kimbrough and Peggy Whitson, the world's oldest most experienced spacewoman, undertook a risky 6.5-hour spacewalk outside the 250-mile-high station. Their mission was to wire up three new lithium-ion batteries, each about the size of half of a refrigerator that Houston controllers had already replaced remotely, via the station's onboard, 11-foot-long-armed robot Dextre. The project to swap out the station's decade-old nickel-hydrogen batteries began on New Year's Eve, 2016. The lithium-ion replacements are much more efficient, meaning only 24 will be required to replace the 48 old ones.

The iPhone's talking pal Siri has, to date, been about as helpful as an umbrella in a hurricane. At the Worldwide Developers Conference on Monday, Apple AAPL 1.07 % CEO Tim Cook touted new features and catch-up software tweaks, from the iPhone and Mac to the Apple Watch and TV. One of the few technologies that spanned all those products was Siri, the virtual assistant that lets us talk and interact with gadgets like they know us. Siri is growing up, and moving to the center of Apple's universe. In the months ahead, Siri will arrive on Mac computers and tackle more complex tasks on the Apple TV, where it first appeared last year.

Vast information from the neurosciences may enable bottom-up understanding of human intelligence; that is, derivation of function from mechanism. This article describes such a research program: simulation and analysis of the circuits of the brain has led to derivation of a detailed set of elemental and composed operations emerging from individual and combined circuits. The specific hypothesis is forwarded that these operations constitute the "instruction set" of the brain, that is, the basic mental operations from which all complex behavioral and cognitive abilities are constructed, establishing a unified formalism for description of human faculties ranging from perception and learning to reasoning and language, and representing a novel and potentially fruitful research path for the construction of human- level intelligence.