Apollo Astronaut Walter Cunningham Dies at 90
Former astronaut Walter Cunningham, who flew into space on Apollo 7, the first flight with crew in NASA’s Apollo Program, died early Tuesday morning in Houston. He was 90 years old.
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Station Crew Wraps Up a Busy Year as Soyuz Review Continues
Station Crew Wraps Up a Busy Year as Soyuz Review Continues
Research and maintenance activities aboard the International Space Station continue into the new year while engineers and managers discuss Soyuz capabilities and potential next steps in response to the Soyuz MS-22’s external cooling loop leak.
The Expedition 68 crew remains in good condition, performing a variety of maintenance and research activities and looks forward to some time off on New Year’s Day. NASA astronauts Frank Rubio, Josh Cassada, and Nicole Mann continued work to service the spacesuits used by Rubio and Cassada to install a new International Space Station Roll-out Solar Array.
On Dec. 29, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) astronaut Koichi Wakata monitored the deployment of eight Cubesats from JAXA’s Kibo module. Cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev, Dmitri Petelin and Anna Kikina worked on a variety of maintenance and research tasks.
With integrated crews on each other’s spacecraft, NASA and Roscosmos work jointly on any decisions related to crew safety including crew transportation. NASA and Roscosmos are continuing to conduct a variety of engineering reviews and are consulting with other international partners about methods for safely bringing the Soyuz crew home for both normal and contingency scenarios. A final decision on the path forward is expected in January.
As a part of the analysis, NASA also reached out to SpaceX about its capability to return additional crew members aboard Dragon if needed in an emergency, although the primary focus is on understanding the post-leak capabilities of the Soyuz MS-22 spacecraft.
Station teams also are preparing for the undocking and departure of the SpaceX CRS-26 cargo spacecraft on Monday, Jan. 9. The cargo Dragon is scheduled to return valuable scientific research samples through a splashdown off the Florida coast. Undocking is scheduled for 5:05 p.m. EST, with splashdown planned for Wednesday, Jan. 11. Live coverage of the undocking and departure will begin at 4:45 p.m. on NASA Television, the NASA app, and the agency’s website.
Learn more about station activities by following the space station blog, @space_station and @ISS_Research on Twitter, 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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Heidi Lavelle
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HIRISE Spots Martian Crater Deposits
HIRISE Spots Martian Crater Deposits
This image taken by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) spacecraft’s HIRISE instrument on Oct. 23, 2022, of the northern plains of Arabia Terra shows craters that contain curious deposits with mysterious shapes and distribution.
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Starry Wreath in Pegasus
Starry Wreath in Pegasus
The James Webb Space Telescope spies the spiral galaxy NGC 7469, located 220 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Pegasus, in this image released on Dec. 21, 2022.
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Crew Goes into Christmas Weekend After Spacewalk and Science Ops
Crew Goes into Christmas Weekend After Spacewalk and Science Ops
The seven Expedition 68 crew members wrapped up the work week cleaning up after a spacewalk and performing a variety of research operations. The space residents will spend a quiet weekend observing the Christmas holiday orbiting Earth aboard the International Space Station.
NASA Flight Engineers Frank Rubio and Josh Cassada worked throughout Friday cleaning up after conducting a seven-hour and eight minute spacewalk on Thursday. The duo started the day with standard post-spacewalk health checkups and measured each other’s temperature, blood pressure, pulse, and respiratory rate. Afterward, Rubio and Cassada stowed tools inside the Quest airlock and refilled water tanks inside their Extravehicular Mobility Units (EMUs), also known as spacesuits.
The spacewalking pair successfully installed and deployed a roll-out solar array on the International Space Station’s Port-4 truss segment during the Dec. 22 spacewalk. During a previous spacewalk on Dec. 3, the two NASA astronauts spent seven hours and 28 minutes installing another roll-out solar array on the Starboard-4 truss segment on the opposite side of the station.
Science operations continued aboard the orbiting lab on Friday with NASA Flight Engineer Nicole Mann attaching sensors to herself and pedaling on an exercise bike. She was working out for the Cardiobreath investigation that observes how an astronaut’s cardiovascular and respiratory systems affect blood pressure in weightlessness. Flight Engineer Koichi Wakata of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) worked all day in the Kibo laboratory module servicing a variety of research hardware and electronics components.
Roscosmos Commander Sergey Prokopyev worked on two different science experiments beginning Friday with cardiac research then spending the afternoon exploring ways to pilot futuristic spacecraft and robots. Flight Engineer Dmitri Petelin began the day on a space physics study before researching ways international crews and mission controllers can improve communications. Flight Engineer Anna Kikina assisted Prokopyev in the morning with the heart study then wrapped up her day setting up Earth observation gear.
Learn more about station activities by following the space station blog, @space_station and @ISS_Research on Twitter, as well as the ISS Facebook and ISS Instagram accounts.
Get weekly video highlights at: https://roundupreads.jsc.nasa.gov/videupdate/
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Mark Garcia
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