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Crew Works Autonomous Medicine, Garbage Packing on Wednesday

Wednesday’s schedule on the International Space Station encompassed practicing complicated medical procedures in microgravity to preparing to take out the trash 260 miles above the Earth. The Expedition 67 crew members also continued investigating a wide variety of space phenomena to improve life for humans on Earth and in space.

Future astronauts will need to work independently of mission controllers as they travel beyond low-Earth orbit to the Moon, Mars, and beyond.  As a result, NASA Flight Engineers Kjell Lindgren and Bob Hines trained to diagnose and treat acute medical conditions without ground support today. Hines practiced ultrasound exams on Lindgren’s bladder and kidneys for the Autonomous Medical Officer Support demonstration, or AMOS. The study aims to help crews become more self-reliant and reduce mission risks as communication delays increase the farther a spacecraft ventures from Earth.

The orbiting lab’s four astronauts are also preparing to take out the trash this weekend requiring procedures more complicated than packing garbage on Earth. Astronauts Jessica Watkins of NASA and Samantha Cristoforetti of ESA (European Space Agency) finished loading trash containers in the NanoRacks Bishop airlock today. They were assisted by Lindgren and Hines as they closed the hatch to Bishop and depressurized the airlock. The trash container will be jettisoned towards Earth’s atmosphere for a fiery, but safe disposal on Saturday.

Station Commander Oleg Artemyev of Roscosmos studied ways future crew members might pilot spacecraft or control robots on planetary missions for a long-running Russian investigation. Flight Engineer Denis Matveev continued configuring nanosatellites for a future deployment and worked inside the ISS Progress 80 resupply ship on cargo operations. Cosmonaut Sergey Korsakov spent his day on electronics and computer maintenance before studying international crew dynamics and collecting radiation readings.

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Mark Garcia

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NASA, SpaceX Target New Launch Date for Commercial Cargo Mission

NASA and SpaceX now are targeting no earlier than Thursday, July 14, for launch of the CRS-25 commercial resupply services mission to the International Space Station. The new target launch date supports ongoing Dragon spacecraft inspections as well as repair and replacement of any components that could have degraded by exposure to mono-methyl hydrazine (MMH) vapor found during testing in early June. In order to allow a more detailed off-vehicle inspection of the parachutes, the SpaceX team made the decision to replace the main parachutes on this spacecraft.

The new date also allows for launch of the uncrewed cargo mission for the earliest possible rendezvous opportunity with the International Space Station following the upcoming high-beta angle period when the sun angle with space station’s orbital plane causes problems with thermal and power generation at the microgravity laboratory in the planned docking attitude for visiting spacecraft.

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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