Current Events Bell Ringer for Grades 6–8: A cargo ship’s two-day trip to the space station
A free current events bell ringer for grades 6–8. Put the prompt on the board as students walk in, give them three to five minutes, then go over it together. The answer and teacher notes are in the box below the prompt.
The prompt
On Tuesday, October 13, 2026, a SpaceX Dragon cargo ship launched at 6:33 a.m. Eastern time carrying more than 6,300 pounds of supplies and experiments to the International Space Station. It is scheduled to dock at about 11:00 a.m. Eastern on Thursday, October 15. (a) How long is the trip, in hours and minutes? (b) One experiment sends tiny lab-grown models of the human brain to the station for five weeks, while identical models stay on Earth. Why keep a matching set on the ground?
Answer and teacher notes
(a) Tuesday 6:33 a.m. to Thursday 6:33 a.m. is 48 hours. From 6:33 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. is 4 hours 27 minutes. Total: 52 hours 27 minutes. Check: 52 h 27 min = 3,147 minutes, and 48 × 60 + 267 = 3,147.
(b) The models on Earth are the control group. Comparing the two sets lets scientists tell which changes were caused by microgravity and not by something else, like the age of the cells. Extension: the ship is also carrying the station's final pair of roll-out solar arrays, which astronauts plan to install on spacewalks later this fall. Why would a space station need more electricity as it gets older?
Sources: Spaceflight Now: NASA, SpaceX to launch new solar arrays, 6,300 pounds of cargo; NASA: SpaceX Dragon Counts Down to Launch for Station Resupply Mission; NASA Science: CRS-35 Mission to Launch Health Research
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