Archivo del Autor: admin

Space Botany, Station Upkeep, and Departure Prep for Crew on Friday

Friday sees a busy day for the Expedition 69 crew ahead of their off-duty weekend aboard the International Space Station. Preparing for upcoming crew departures and October spacewalks, health exams, and space gardening topped the ten crew members’ research schedules today.

Flight Engineer Jasmin Moghbeli of NASA started her day with orbital plumbing and maintenance on the EXPRESS racks, payloads used for storing research experiments. After lunch, she continued station upkeep tasks, removing and troubleshooting lights and inspecting the station’s cupola, or “window to the world.” Later in the day, Moghbeli was joined once again by ESA (European Space Agency) astronaut Andreas Mogensen and JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) Flight Engineer Satoshi Furukawa for another round of eye exams.

Mogensen then moved into some space gardening, harvesting the final round of Arabidopsis plants, part of the Plant Habitat-03 investigation. The experiment aims to help researchers better understand how adaptations of plants in one generation could transfer to the next, given the environmental stress of the microgravity environment. Research as such provides an array of scientific data that can be applied on future space missions.

Ahead of eye exams, Furukawa spent his morning in the Kibo Laboratory Module, installing solid combustion into the Multipurpose Payload Rack, research of this magnitude helping improve fuel efficiency and fire safety both on orbit and on Earth.

Flight Engineer Loral O’Hara of NASA was joined by Mogensen and NASA astronaut Frank Rubio in the morning to replace batteries and install restraint straps and helmet lights to spacesuits in preparation for a round of U.S. spacewalks in October.

After spacesuit maintenance, Rubio was joined by Commander Sergey Prokopyev and Flight Engineer Dmitiri Petelin of Roscosmos to train on descent of the Soyuz spacecraft they’ll take home in just a few short days. After spending over a year in space, the three long-serving residents will undock from the station’s Prichal Module at 3:55 a.m. EDT on Wednesday, Sept. 27. Following a quick ride back home, they will land in Kazakhstan at 7:17 a.m.

The three other crew members of Roscosmos split up orbital duties today. Flight Engineer Konstantin Borisov conducted maintenance activities in the Nauka module, while Oleg Kononenko donned a sensor-packed cap to practice piloting techniques and explore how spacecraft can be controlled on future planetary missions as part of the ongoing Pilot-T investigation. Powered on earlier this week, the EarthKam—a digital camera mounted on the station that is remotely controlled by students to take photographs of Earth—was shut off and stowed for future use by Flight Engineer Nikolai Chub.

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

Powered by WPeMatico

Get The Details…

Abby Graf

Rubio Spends One Full Year in Space; Cleaning and Maintenance Tasks Top Thursday’s Schedule

As the Expedition 69 crew members near the end of their work week, the ten orbital residents completed a variety of cleaning and maintenance tasks on Thursday aboard the International Space Station.

After arriving to the orbital outpost on Sept. 21, 2022, NASA astronaut Frank Rubio has reached one full year in space today. His record-breaking mission has included dozens of scientific investigations that have helped researchers better understand how humans thrive while living and working in space. Rubio spent most of his 365^th day on station upkeep, performing maintenance on the Human Research Facility, removing and replacing its pressure sensor block. In the evening, he collected biological samples for the ongoing Standard Measures investigation.

Flight Engineers Jasmin Moghbeli and Loral O’Hara of NASA began their day in the Japanese Experiment Module (JEM) cleaning smoke detectors. The duo then split up after lunch, Moghbeli removing and replacing cables on the network router in the Destiny Laboratory Module, while O’Hara studied training materials on the station’s new Potable Water Dispenser. O’Hara then joined ESA (European Space Agency) astronaut Andreas Mogensen to review spacesuit operations.

Meanwhile, JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) Flight Engineer Satoshi Furukawa kick-started his day with the required two hours of exercise for astronauts, using the station’s bike, CEVIS, and the Advanced Resistive Exercise Device, or ARED. The rest of his day was spent working in JEM, collecting samples from the Water Recovery System for future analysis.

The five Roscosmos cosmonauts living in low-Earth orbit worked on separate tasks today as two prepare to head home to Earth next week. Flight Engineer Konstantin Borisov worked in the Nauka module, removing and replacing vacuum pumps, while Flight Engineer Nikolai Chub ran the 3D printer in the Zvezda service module. Their fellow cosmonaut Oleg Kononenko, who arrived to the orbiting laboratory just last week with O’Hara and Chub, ran an experiment that assesses cardiovascular and respiratory function.

The other two long-serving station residents, Commander Sergey Prokopyev and Flight Engineer Dmitri Petelin, reached one year in space today along with Rubio. The duo spent their 365^th day continuing to prepare for their journey back home to Earth next week on Sept. 27.

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

Powered by WPeMatico

Get The Details…

Abby Graf