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Change of Station Command as Three Crew Members Prepare to Depart Early Wednesday

A change of command is underway aboard the International Space Station as three crew members are preparing to depart the orbiting laboratory in the early hours of Sept. 27 after spending 371 days in space.

NASA astronaut Frank Rubio is set to return home on Wednesday, Sept. 27 following a record-breaking mission on orbit. The hatch will close on the Soyuz MS-23 spacecraft at 12:20 a.m. EDT with Rubio and Roscosmos cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitri Petelin aboard. Following hatch closure, the spacecraft will undock from the Prichal module at 3:55 a.m., beginning the trio’s short ride back to Earth and starting Expedition 70 for those still aboard the station. Rubio, Prokopyev, and Petelin will take a two-hour ride aboard Soyuz MS-23 before deorbit burn at 6:24 a.m. and landing around 7:17 a.m. in Kazakhstan.

Rubio, now the record-holder for the longest single spaceflight by a U.S. astronaut, launched to the station on Sept. 21, 2022. His year-long mission was comprised of dozens of scientific investigations and technology demonstrations including testing new space gardening techniques, taking on a space-based diet packed with nutrients, 3D printing knee cartilage tissue, and more.

As three crew members are nearing the end of their mission, the other seven orbital residents stayed busy with an array of microgravity tasks. Now Expedition 70 Commander, Andreas Mogensen of ESA (European Space Agency) worked with the food processor he installed last week. Mogensen made another batch of chocolate mousse in the morning, later taste-testing it in the evening.

Two first-time station Flight Engineers Loral O’Hara and Jasmin Moghbeli of NASA worked in tandem to remove and replace the science module and heat exchanger from the Cold Atom Lab that Moghbeli prepped for repairs yesterday. Meanwhile, Flight Engineer Satoshi Furukawa of JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) conducted maintenance in the Japanese Experiment Module.

Flight Engineers Konstantin Borisov and Nikolai Chub of Roscosmos also worked in tandem on Tuesday to take documentary-style photos and videos of life aboard the station, while Flight Engineer Oleg Kononenko, also of Roscosmos, continued crew orientation tasks following his arrival to the station on Sept. 15.

Learn more about station activities by following the space station blog, @space_station and @ISS_Research on X, as well as the ISS Facebook and ISS Instagram accounts.

Get weekly video highlights at: https://roundupreads.jsc.nasa.gov/videoupdate/

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Abby Graf

Health Activities, Payload Repairs and Departure Prep Top Crew’s Monday Schedule

The ten residents living aboard the International Space Station have a jam-packed Monday as three Expedition 69 crew members are completing their final duties before departure and others complete an array of health exams and repairs to orbital payloads.

NASA astronaut Frank Rubio began his day replacing clogged pumps on the BioFabrication Facility. After lunch, he moved on to collecting biological samples for the Food Physiology investigation, which assesses if an enhanced diet helps astronauts better adapt to spaceflight. Near the end of the day, Rubio continued departure prep ahead of his journey back home to Earth.

Rubio, along with Roscosmos Commander Sergey Prokopyev and Flight Engineer Dmitri Petelin, will undock from the station’s Prichal module at 3:55 a.m. EDT on Wednesday, Sept. 27. The three long-serving crew members will take a short ride home, landing in Kazakhstan at 7:17 a.m. the same day. Following more than a year-long mission, Rubio is now the record-holder for the longest single spaceflight by a U.S. astronaut. He, along with Prokopyev and Petelin, will return after 371 days in space.

ESA (European Space Agency) astronaut Andreas Mogensen spent his morning on the station’s bicycle, CEVIS, partaking in the CARDIOBREATH investigation—a study that assesses the combined effects of cardiovascular and respiratory adaptions on blood pressure during spaceflight. In the evening, he donned virtual reality goggles to train for spacewalk emergencies in the unlikely event they would occur using SAFER, the Simplified Aid for EVA Rescue. Attached to the spacesuits, the device allows astronauts to safely return to the station if they were to become untethered. VR sessions allow astronauts to be “outside” of the orbiting laboratory while tracking movements of their hands and bodies during training.

NASA Flight Engineer Jasmin Moghbeli completed a suite of health activities today. In the morning, she took a cognition test for the ongoing Standard Measures investigation. She was later joined by NASA astronaut Loral O’Hara and JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) astronaut Satoshi Furukawa for ultrasound scans of arteries in the neck, clavicle, shoulder, and behind the knees, which helps doctors on Earth study how astronauts adapt to microcavity.

Moghbeli also took some time midafternoon to begin the uninstallation of the Cold Atom Lab science instrument in preparation for future repairs. Meanwhile, O’Hara conducted microbial research, analyzing surface and air samples that were collected last week, while Furukawa worked in the Kibo Laboratory Module continuing solid combustion research.

The other three cosmonauts aboard the orbiting laboratory split up duties as Flight Engineer Konstantin Borisov ran the Pilot-T experiment to practice piloting techniques and was later joined by Flight Engineer Oleg Kononenko to collect microbial samples around various Russian modules. Flight Engineer Nikolai Chub spent part of his day inventorying cargo then moved on to crew orientation activities.

Learn more about station activities by following the space station blog, @space_station and @ISS_Research on X, as well as the ISS Facebook and ISS Instagram accounts.

Get weekly video highlights at: https://roundupreads.jsc.nasa.gov/videoupdate/

Get the latest from NASA delivered every week. Subscribe here: www.nasa.gov/subscribe

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Abby Graf