Station Has New Commander; Soyuz Trio Ready for Saturday Departure
The International Space Station has a new commander as three Expedition 72 crew members get ready to return to Earth on Saturday. The orbital residents staying behind will soon welcome a U.S. cargo craft and get ready for their increment’s first spacewalk.
Takuya Onishi of JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) took control of the orbital outpost from Roscosmos cosmonaut Alexey Ovchinin during a change of command ceremony on Friday afternoon. Onishi will officially lead the new Expedition 73 mission when Ovchinin undocks from the station’s Rassvet module aboard the Soyuz MS-26 spacecraft with NASA astronaut Don Pettit and Roscosmos cosmonaut Ivan Vagner at 5:57 p.m. EDT on Saturday. The Earthbound trio will parachute to a landing in Kazakhstan at 9:20 p.m. the same day (6:20 a.m. on Sunday, April 20, in Kazakhstan) of Pettit’s 70th birthday. NASA+ will broadcast Saturday’s crew farewell, undocking, and landing activities live beginning at 2 p.m.
Ovchinin and Vagner had one last research session on Friday with assistance from Flight Engineer Kirill Peskov testing the lower body negative pressure suit. The specialized suit from Roscosmos may prevent space-caused head and eye pressure symptoms and help a crew member adjust to Earth’s gravity quicker. Vagner also wrapped up handing over his crew responsibilities to his fellow cosmonauts while Pettit finished cleaning out his crew quarters. Ovchinin will complete packing the Soyuz crew ship with cargo on Saturday before activating the spacecraft’s systems.
A day-and-a-half later, the NASA’s SpaceX 32nd commercial resupply mission will lift off from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center carrying about 6,700 pounds of new science experiments and crew supplies for the Expedition 73 crew. Dragon will launch at 4:15 a.m. EDT on Monday and dock at 8:20 a.m. on Tuesday to the Harmony module’s space-facing port for a month long cargo mission. Onishi and NASA Flight Engineer Jonny Kim will be on duty Tuesday monitoring Dragon’s automated arrival and docking. NASA+ will provide live launch and docking coverage of Dragon’s 32nd cargo mission to the orbiting laboratory.
NASA Flight Engineers Anne McClain and Nichole Ayers are getting ready for the first spacewalk of Expedition 73 planned for May 1. The duo spent Friday organizing the Quest airlock where their spacewalk will begin and checking their spacesuits’ components and systems. Next, the duo verified the suits’ helmets, boots, and arm and leg assemblies fittings. McClain and Ayers will spend six-and-a-half hours in the vacuum of space preparing the station for a new rollout solar array and relocating an antenna that communicates with commercial spacecraft.
Roscosmos cosmonauts Sergey Ryzhikov and Alexey Zubritsky have finished transitioning their new crew responsibilities from their departing crewmates Vagner and Ovchinin. Ryzhikov also spent Friday on life science activities collecting samples of mold and bacteria for analysis while Zubritsky set up and activated Earth observation gear.
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.
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Mark A. Garcia
