NASA will hold a community town hall meeting with Associate Administrator for Science Thomas Zurbuchen and his leadership team at 10:30 a.m. EDT on Thursday, Oct. 6. The group will discuss updates to the agency’s science program and share the status of activities.
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The next crew to the launch to the International Space Station is at the Kennedy Space Center counting down to liftoff this week. Back onboard the orbiting lab, the seven-member Expedition 68 crew is busy conducting advanced space research to improve life for humans on and off the Earth.
Four SpaceX Crew-5 crew members arrived in Florida on Saturday ahead of their launch aboard the Dragon Endurance at noon EDT on Wednesday. NASA astronauts Nicole Mann and Josh Cassada will command and pilot Endurance respectively. They will ride along with Mission Specialists Koichi Wakata of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) and Anna Kikina of Roscosmos. The commercial crew quartet will dock to the forward port of the Harmony module 29 hours after launch to begin their station mission.
After the Dragon Endurance docks to the orbiting lab, another four station crew members will turn their attention to ending their mission and returning to Earth just over a week later. NASA astronauts Kjell Lindgren, Bob Hines, and Jessica Watkins, with ESA (European Space Agency) astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti, who have been living on the station since April 27, will help their Crew-5 replacements adjust to life on the station. The homebound astronauts will then undock inside the SpaceX Dragon Freedom crew ship and parachute to a splashdown off the coast of Florida.
In the meantime, Lindgren and Hines began Monday focusing on how living in space is affecting their muscles. The duo used an Ultrasound device and the Myotones device to scan and measure the biochemical properties of their leg, neck, and back muscles. Watkins nourished vegetables and took photos of the plants growing for the XROOTS space agriculture study taking place in the Columbus laboratory module. NASA Flight Engineer Frank Rubio swapped glass fiber samples in the Microgravity Science Glovebox for the Intelligent Glass Optics space manufacturing investigation. Station Commander Cristoforetti serviced samples inside the Electrostatic Levitation Furnace that supports high-temperature thermophysical research in space.
The station’s two cosmonauts, two-time station visitor Sergey Prokopyev and first-time space flyer Dmitri Petelin, had their hands full on Monday keeping up with lab maintenance while continuing their station familiarization activities. Prokopyev inspected windows inside the Zvezda service module then set up Earth observation gear. Petelin worked on orbital plumbing duties before inventorying and restocking station docking hardware.
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.
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Mark Garcia
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This is the last complete image of the asteroid Dimorphos, as seen by our Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) 2 seconds before impact.
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The Expedition 68 mission is officially underway with seven astronauts and cosmonauts living and working together aboard the International Space Station. The crew swaps aren’t over yet as four SpaceX Crew-5 members count down to their upcoming launch to the orbiting lab.
Commander Samantha Cristoforetti of ESA (European Space Agency) will lead station operations until she and fellow crewmates Kjell Lindgren, Bob Hines, and Jessica Watkins return to Earth aboard the SpaceX Dragon Freedom crew ship in about two weeks. The quartet, who have been aboard the space station since April 27, spent Friday checking their Dragon pressure suits, packing personal items, and reviewing departure and landing procedures.
The homebound commercial crew is waiting for their replacements who are targeting a launch to the orbiting lab for no earlier than noon EDT on Wednesday, Oct. 5. SpaceX Crew-5 Commander Nicole Mann and Pilot Josh Cassada, both from NASA, with Mission Specialists Koichi Wakata of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) and Anna Kikina of Roscosmos, are due to arrive at the station one day after launching aboard the Dragon Endurance. They will spend a few days getting used to life on orbit before Cristoforetti and her three Freedom crewmates end their mission and parachute to Earth inside the Freedom crew ship.
In the meantime, first time space-flyer Frank Rubio of NASA is in his second week as a space station flight engineer. He arrived at the orbiting lab with fellow flight engineers Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitriy Petelin, both from Roscosmos, on Sept. 21 inside the Soyuz MS-22 crew ship.
Rubio spent the end of the week exploring how to use artificial intelligence to adapt materials manufacturing, such as fiber optics, to the vacuum of space for the Intelligent Glass Optics study. He swapped and observed glass fiber samples being pulled inside the Microgravity Science Glovebox. Petelin and Prokopyev and Petelin partnered together for a study exploring how microgravity affects the heart and blood vessels.v
Mark Garcia
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NASA will provide coverage of the upcoming prelaunch and launch activities for the agency’s SpaceX Crew-5 mission with astronauts to the International Space Station.
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