Spacesuits, Exercise, and Cargo Ops Wrap Week Aboard Station
Spacesuit cleaning, exercise research, and cargo operations wrapped up the week aboard the International Space Station. The Expedition 75 crew members also practiced an emergency drill to ensure familiarity with medical operations in weightlessness.
NASA flight engineer Anil Menon worked throughout Friday cleaning the cooling systems in a pair of spacesuits that station commander Jessica Meir of NASA and flight engineer Sophie Adenot of ESA (European Space Agency) wore during a spacewalk on Sept. 1. Menon and Adenot also took turns stowing spacewalking tools inside the Quest airlock. Meir competed work to clean the spacesuit helmets and visors worn during the spacewalk.
Adenot began her shift working out on the new European Enhanced Exploration Exercise Device (E4D) in the Columbus laboratory module helping researchers evaluate its effectiveness for use on future long-duration missions. Afterward, NASA flight engineer Jack Hathaway inspected and greased the E4D’s vibration isolation system that protects sensitive station research gear and other hardware when a crew member works out. Hathaway also joined Meir and replaced orbital plumbing components inside the Tranquility module.
The four astronauts will be off duty on Monday, Sept. 7, for the Labor Day holiday. However, the three Roscosmos cosmonauts will be busy monitoring the Progress 94 resupply spacecraft when it undocks on Monday, packed with trash and obsolete gear, from the Poisk module. It will be replaced by the Progress 96 resupply spacecraft after it launches from Kazakhstan’s Baikonur Cosmodrome on Sept. 9 for an automated docking two days later to Poisk’s vacated port.
Flight engineers Anna Kikina and Pyotr Dubrov are finalizing cargo transfers in the Progress 94 before closing the spacecraft’s hatch and conducting leak checks. The duo also tested the tele-operated robotic unit, or TORU, in the Zvezda service module. The TORU would be used to remotely control a Roscosmos spacecraft in the unlikely event its automated rendezvous and docking system failed.
At the end of their shift, Kikina and Dubrov joined Menon for an emergency drill and practiced cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR), located medical gear, and reviewed communication procedures. The trio launched to the station together aboard the Soyuz MS-29 crew spacecraft on July 14 and docked the same day to the Prichal module.
Flight engineer Andrey Fedyaev spent his shift on camera maintenance first uninstalling Earth-imaging gear that photographed Earth landmarks during the crew’s sleep shift. Next, Fedyaev took inventory of a variety of hardware supporting Earth observations on the orbiting lab. Finally, he inspected video cameras for degraded sensors caused by space radiation.
Learn more about station activities by following the space station blog, @space_station on X, as well as the ISS Facebook and ISS Instagram accounts.
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Mark A. Garcia
