NASA has selected Virgin Galactic LLC of Las Cruces, New Mexico, and Masten Space Systems Inc. of Mojave, California, to provide flight and integration services for payloads chosen by the agency’s Flight Opportunities program, which is managed at the agency’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California.
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Carol Carol «Bird Song» Harrison is a a quality assurance specialist (QAS) working in the Mission Assurance Branch at NASA’s Langley Research Center.
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The main science focus today aboard the International Space Station was a human research study observing an astronaut’s muscular system. All seven Expedition 64 crew members also gathered together Friday afternoon and familiarized themselves with emergency hardware.
Flight Engineer Michael Hopkins kicked off the Myotones study Friday morning gathering hardware to collect measurements of his muscles and tendons. Crewmates Victor Glover and Shannon Walker also joined Hopkins for the muscle scans and measurements. Methods such as an ultrasound scan and blood draws are used to look at the biomechanical properties of muscles. Observations may improve performance and fitness in space as well as treatments for rehabilitation on Earth.
A pair of studies looking at botany and fluid technology was also on Friday’s research schedule. Rubins collected and stowed leaf samples from radish plants growing in the Columbus laboratory module. She also explored the behavior of water droplets with an eye towards developing advanced fuel and life support systems.
JAXA astronaut Soichi Noguchi relaxed Friday morning before moving onto lab maintenance activities. The three-time space visitor first serviced U.S. spacesuit batteries before closing out the Avatar-X robotic camera experiment. He also worked on light plumbing duties servicing components in the station’s restroom located in the Tranquility module.
Crews aboard the station regularly practice emergency drills such as evacuations or medical procedures in conjunction with mission controllers on the ground. Today, all the station residents, including Commander Sergey Ryzhikov and Flight Engineer Sergey Kud-Sverchkov, familiarized themselves with emergency gear to be prepared for an unlikely emergency scenario in space.
Norah Moran
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What is a black hole? A black hole is an astronomical object with a gravitational pull so strong that nothing, not even light, can escape it.
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The seven-member Expedition 64 crew from the United States, Russia and Japan will take the day off on Thanksgiving before ending the week with a day full of microgravity research. In the meantime, the crew spent Wednesday on a wide array of space science while getting the International Space Station ready for an upgraded SpaceX Dragon resupply ship.
NASA Flight Engineers Kate Rubins and Shannon Walker worked throughout Wednesday readying the station’s Tranquility module for a new commercial airlock from NanoRacks. Dubbed Bishop, the airlock will be delivered on the next SpaceX Dragon cargo mission targeted to launch on Dec. 5. The Bishop airlock will enable private industries to increase research opportunities in the vacuum of space.
Planned for Dec. 6, this will be the first automated docking of the Cargo Dragon to the space-facing port on the Harmony module. Previous Cargo Dragon vehicles were captured with the Canadarm2 robotic arm maneuvered by astronauts. Robotics controllers then took over and remotely installed Dragon to Harmony’s Earth-facing port.
The GRASP human research experiment, sponsored by the European Space Agency (ESA), was back on the science schedule Wednesday. Flight Engineers Michael Hopkins and Victor Glover wore virtual reality goggles and responded to virtual stimuli to help doctors understand how the central nervous system, specifically hand-eye coordination, adapts to weightlessness.
JAXA astronaut and Flight Engineer Soichi Noguchi started his day servicing the Kibo laboratory module’s Cell Biology Experiment Facility, a specialized incubator that can generate artificial gravity. Later, he joined Kate Rubins and examined her eyes using optical coherence tomography.
The orbiting lab’s two cosmonauts, Commander Sergey Ryzhikov and Flight Engineer Sergey Kud-Sverchkov, continued studying ways to make space workouts more effective. The duo later joined Rubins and practiced chest compressions, or cardiopulmonary resuscitation, in the event of a medical emergency aboard the space station.
Mark Garcia
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