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Science, Spacewalk Preps Continue 20 Years After First Station Crew

Twenty years ago, today, the Expedition One crew docked to the fledgling, three-module International Space Station beginning 20 years of continuous human presence in space. William Shepherd of NASA, the first station commander, with Roscosmos Flight Engineers Sergei Krikalev and Yuri Gidzenko, would orbit Earth for 141 days before returning home in March 2001.

Now, the Expedition 64 crew inhabits the near-complete orbital lab with an internal volume of a five-bedroom house. The trio will be welcoming in November a SpaceX commercial crew mission and is also gearing up for a Russian spacewalk.

NASA Flight Engineer Kate Rubins reviewed rendezvous procedures today for the planned Nov. 15 arrival of four astronauts aboard the SpaceX Crew Dragon vehicle. Three NASA astronauts and one JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) astronaut are targeted to launch on Nov. 14 from Florida aboard the Crew Dragon for a five-and-a-half-month research mission on the station.

Michael Hopkins will command the first operational mission of the Crew Dragon spacecraft piloted by first-time space flyer Victor Glover. Shannon Walker and Soichi Noguchi are the mission specialists.

Rubins’ two Russian crewmates, Commander Sergey Ryzhikov and Flight Engineer Sergey Kud-Sverchkov, are getting ready for their first spacewalk set for Nov. 18. The Roscosmos duo spent Monday morning studying their planned spacewalk duties which include about six hours of external science and maintenance tasks.

The orbiting trio also spent Monday fulfilling a multitude of space science objectives. Rubins and Ryzhikov began the day collecting and stowing their blood samples for later analysis. Rubins then set up a small satellite deployer that will soon release a set of CubeSats into Earth orbit for governmental and educational research.

Ryzhikov joined Kud-Sverchkov in the afternoon for a long-running study that explores how crew members perform complex tasks on long-duration space missions. Scientists will use the data to gauge how operators might pilot future spaceships and robots on planetary missions.

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Mark Garcia

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Space Botany and Spacewalk Preps Wrap Up Work Week

Space botany and CubeSats were the dominant research theme Friday as the Expedition 64 crew looks ahead to its first spacewalk in November.

NASA and its international partners are exploring ways to sustain healthy crews on space missions farther away from Earth. Growing food on spacecraft and space habitats is critical if astronauts are going to successfully explore the Moon, Mars and beyond.

Flight Engineer Kate Rubins, who was also a scientist before being recruited as a NASA astronaut, put on her green thumb today and installed new components inside the Advanced Plant Habitat. The botany research gear resides in Europe’s Columbus laboratory module and allows scientists to observe how plants grow and thrive in microgravity.

Rubins also spent some time Friday reviewing an upcoming CubeSat deployment that will take place outside Japan’s Kibo laboratory module. She will be readying several tiny satellites that will provide insights into oceanography, weather, ship and aircraft tracking, as well as GPS and satellite communication technologies.

Two cosmonauts are getting ready for a spacewalk targeted for Nov. 18 on the outside of the International Space Station’s Russian segment. Commander Sergey Ryzhikov joined Flight Engineer Sergey Kud-Sverchkov on Friday and began setting up the Pirs docking compartment where they will stage their tools and suit up for the planned six-hour excursion. The duo will be primarily be servicing external station hardware and science experiments during their mission’s first spacewalk.

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Mark Garcia

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