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Cosmonauts Rest Before Spacewalk, Astronauts Work Eye-Brain Study

The Expedition 69 cosmonauts are sleeping in today resting up for a logistics spacewalk set to begin tonight. Meanwhile, the rest of the International Space Station crew continued cleaning biology research hardware, conducted an eye and brain study, and serviced a pair of spacesuits.

Commander Sergey Prokopyev and Flight Engineer Dmitri Petelin have completed their spacewalk preparations and are getting a good night’s sleep before beginning a spacewalk at 9:30 p.m. EDT today. The pair from Roscosmos will exit the Poisk module‘s airlock in their Orlan spacesuits and spend about six hours and 40 minutes moving a radiator from the Rassvet module to the Nauka science module.

Fellow cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev will assist the spacewalkers from inside the station operating the European robotic arm and maneuvering the radiator from Rassvet to Nauka. NASA TV begins its live spacewalk coverage at 9 p.m. Tuesday on the agency’s app and website.

While all three cosmonauts rested, the orbital outpost’s four astronauts were busy with science and spacesuit work on Tuesday. The foursome split its time throughout the day maintaining science hardware, studying how microgravity affects their eyes and brain, and cleaning spacesuits.

NASA Flight Engineers Frank Rubio and Stephen Bowen worked together Tuesday cleaning up the Cell Biology Experiment Facility (CBEF) located in the Kibo laboratory module. The CBEF housed biological samples that were returned to Earth inside the SpaceX Dragon cargo craft several hours after it undocked from the station at 11:05 a.m.  Saturday. Those samples and more will be analyzed by scientists on Earth to continue learning how living in weightlessness affects the human body.

Rubio later checked out the KERMIT fluorescence microscope that supports biology, physics, and materials research. Bowen joined NASA Flight Engineer Woody Hoburg at the end of the day for eye exams that are part of the ISAFE study that measures eye, brain, and blood vessel changes in space.

Hoburg began his day checking cooling loops and collecting water samples from inside an Extravehicular Mobility Unit (EMU), or spacesuit. UAE (United Arab Emirates) Flight Engineer Sultan Alneyadi continued the EMU maintenance as he recharged and filled water tanks in the suits. The spacesuit work is being done in advance of a spacewalk planned for Friday, April 28, to continue upgrading the station’s power generation capability.

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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Crew Preps for Tuesday Spacewalk, Next Cargo Mission Departure

Spacewalk preparations are under way at the International Space Station as two cosmonauts get ready for the first of three spacewalks set to begin on Tuesday. The rest of the Expedition 69 crew is cleaning up following the departure of a U.S. cargo craft while also working on a pair of Extravehicular Mobility Units (EMUs), or spacesuits.

Commander Sergey Prokopyev and Flight Engineer Dmitri Petelin are set to begin their second spacewalk together at 9:30 p.m. EDT on Tuesday. The duo spent Monday reviewing the tasks required to move a radiator from the Rassvet module to the Nauka science module during the planned six-hour and 40-minute excursion. Prokopyev and Petelin also set up their spacewalking tools, installed components on their Orlan spacesuits, and organized the Poisk module’s airlock where they will exit the station.

Roscosmos Flight Engineer Andrey Fedyaev will assist the spacewalkers in and out of their spacesuits on Tuesday and command the European robotic arm to maneuver the radiator and attach it to Nauka. NASA TV begins its live spacewalk coverage at 9 p.m. on Tuesday on the agency’s app and website.

Two NASA Flight Engineers spent Monday cleaning up after the SpaceX Dragon cargo craft departed the orbital outpost on Saturday returning 4,300 pounds of science experiments and station hardware back to Earth for analysis. Astronauts Woody Hoburg and Frank Rubio cleaned and stowed biology hardware housing samples that were shipped back to Earth aboard Dragon. Those samples and others will now be examined by scientists to understand how the human body adapts to living and working in weightlessness.

The NASA duo also partnered up with UAE (United Arab Emirates) astronaut Sultan Alneyadi loading another U.S. resupply ship ahead of its departure at the end of the week. The three flight engineers are packing trash and other discarded gear inside the Northrop Grumman Cygnus space freighter before it leaves the station later this week. Alneyadi will be on duty that morning monitoring Cygnus as mission controllers on the ground command the Canadarm2 robotic arm to release the spacecraft from the Unity module’s Earth-facing port. Cygnus will then reenter Earth’s atmosphere above the Pacific Ocean for a fiery, but safe demise.

Finally, Alneyadi and NASA Flight Engineer Stephen Bowen worked together resizing a pair of EMUs in the Quest airlock. The two astronauts are getting the U.S. spacesuits ready for an upcoming spacewalk to continue upgrading the station’s power generation capability.

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/

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

Get The Details…

Mark Garcia

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