Archivo de la etiqueta: iss

Crew Handovers Continue as Four Members Near End of Six-Month Research Mission

The eleven orbital residents aboard the International Space Station spent Thursday gearing up for a crew split as the four newest members continue to settle into their daily routines in weightlessness and four other Expedition 69 crew members prepare for their ride home to Earth.

Two crews are in the process of swapping places as NASA astronauts Woody Hoburg and Stephen Bowen, UAE (United Arab Emirates) Flight Engineer Sultan Alneyadi, and Roscosmos Flight Engineer Andrey Fedyaev spent most of their day handing over responsibilities, including training new crew members on station procedures and the use of station exercise equipment.

Sunday saw the arrival of NASA astronaut Jasmin Moghbeli, ESA astronaut Andreas Mogensen, JAXA astronaut Satoshi Furukawa, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Konstantin Borisov to the station as the SpaceX Dragon Endurance Spacecraft docked to the Harmony module. The international quartet is quickly adjusting to orbital tasks and spent some of Thursday on the firsts of many science and maintenance activities they’ll perform in microgravity during their six-month stay.

After breakfast, Moghbeli completed a round of eye exams with NASA astronaut Frank Rubio, Commander Sergey Prokopyev and Flight Engineer Dmitri Petelin of Roscosmos. Later in the evening, the first-time orbital resident continued to unpack Dragon, which will remain docked to the station for six months until Crew-7 returns to Earth. Meanwhile, Mogensen deployed dosimeters in the Columbus Laboratory Module that will detect levels of radiation doses inside the station, while Furukawa carried out some maintenance on the Advanced Resistive Exercise Device or ARED.

The four Crew-6 members—Hoburg, Bowen, Alneyadi and Fedyaev—are nearing the end of their six-month research mission and spent the afternoon prepping and packing SpaceX’s Dragon Endeavour spacecraft for departure no earlier than Sept. 2. This will bring the space station’s population down to seven before further crew swaps take place in September.

After lunchtime, Alneyadi scheduled some time for maintenance activities, installing and examining the station’s new Potable Water Dispenser. Hoburg collected biological samples for the ongoing Standard Measures investigation, while Bowen completed cargo tasks in the Cygnus spacecraft which has been docked to the station since Aug. 4.

Rubio, Prokopyev, and Petelin will soon reach a year in space after arriving to the station on Sept. 21, 2022, and are gearing up for their trek home in late September. The three long-time station residents continued to help with crew handover activities on Thursday and completed some station maintenance tasks of their own.

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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Abby Graf

Ongoing Crew Swap, Science Activities on Station this Week

Aboard the International Space Station on Wednesday, four new crew members are adjusting to their first week orbiting Earth. Meanwhile, another quartet of Expedition 69 flight engineers is preparing to end their six-month stay in space.

Eleven crew members from five countries are living and working together on the orbital outpost as two of its crews are in the middle of swapping places. New station flight engineers Jasmin Moghbeli and Andreas Mogensen, of NASA and ESA (European Space Agency) respectively, continued unpacking the SpaceX Dragon Endurance spacecraft throughout the day. In the afternoon, the duo joined NASA Flight Engineer Frank Rubio, who has been aboard the station for nearly a year, and reviewed station operations, systems, and procedures.

The other two new flight engineers, Satoshi Furukawa of JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) and Konstantin Borisov of Roscosmos, also continued familiarizing themselves with life in weightlessness. The pair is learning how to make meals, exercise on the workout facilities, sleep in the crew quarters, and use the station’s bathroom, also known as the waste and hygiene compartment.

The station crew will fall back to seven members no earlier than Sept. 2 when the SpaceX Dragon Endeavour is due to return four flight engineers, who have been in space since March, back to Earth. NASA astronaut Stephen Bowen will command Endeavour leading NASA Pilot Woody Hoburg and Mission Specialists Sultan Alneyadi of UAE (United Arab Emirates) and Andrey Fedyaev of Roscosmos to a splashdown off the coast of Florida.

The Earth-bound foursome has been handing over its responsibilities to the newly arrived crew while preparing for the return to Earth’s gravity environment. The four crew mates this week have been packing Endeavour, reviewing deorbit and splashdown procedures, and talking to NASA and SpaceX ground support personnel.

Bowen and Hoburg still had time on Wednesday for ongoing research activities. Bowen rounded up science hardware for an upcoming space biology experiment. Hoburg inspected and activated an Astrobee free-flying robotic helper as engineers on the ground monitored its performance.

The longest-serving crew aboard the station has been orbiting Earth since Sept. 21, 2022. Rubio along with Commander Sergey Prokopyev and Flight Engineer Dmitri Petelin are assisting with the crew swap activities. The trio from NASA and Roscosmos has also worked on cargo activities, space science, and standard health checks this week.

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.

Get weekly video highlights at: https://roundupreads.jsc.nasa.gov/videoupdate/

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Mark Garcia

Space Station Crew Members Focused on In-Orbit Handover

NASA’s SpaceX Crew-7 crew members are settling into their new orbital home aboard the International Space Station while Crew-6 make their own preparations for a safe return to Earth in the coming days.

Crew-7 NASA astronaut Jasmin Moghbeli, ESA (European Space Agency) astronaut Andreas Mogensen, JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) astronaut Satoshi Furukawa, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Konstantin Borisov moved into the space station on Aug. 27. The crew launched on Aug. 26 from Launch Complex 39A at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Meanwhile, NASA astronauts Stephen Bowen and Woody Hoburg, UAE (United Arab Emirates) astronaut Sultan Alneyadi, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev are wrapping up crew handover activities with Crew-7 which involves concluding science experiments, and transferring return cargo to their Dragon spacecraft. Their spacecraft has been docked with the space station since arriving in March 2023.

NASA and SpaceX are targeting Saturday, Sept. 2, for Crew-6 and SpaceX’s Dragon to undock from the space station and safely splashdown off the coast of Florida on Sunday, Sept. 3. Joint teams are monitoring weather forecasts across seven potential splashdown sites off the coast of Florida and any impacts Hurricane Idalia may have on recovery operations.

The agency will share more information on Crew-6 return as it becomes available.

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Jason Costa

New Crew Adjusts to Space Life Before Next Crew Departure

The four newest crew members aboard the International Space Station are adjusting to life in weightlessness while stepping up orbital maintenance duties. The seven other Expedition 69 crew mates continued their space research and health activities before September sees the orbital residents split up.

Three new astronauts and one cosmonaut, who began their station mission on Sunday, are getting up to speed with a wide array of station systems and procedures. The quartet is familiarizing itself with communications gear, computer equipment, emergency hardware, and more. They spent about half the day learning how to operate life support systems, maneuver throughout the modules, configure their crew quarters, and use the waste and hygiene compartment, also known as the station’s bathroom.

Astronauts Jasmin Moghbeli of NASA, Andreas Mogensen of ESA (European Space Agency), and Satoshi Furukawa of JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency), and Roscosmos cosmonaut Konstantin Borisov, launched to the station on Aug. 26 as the SpaceX Crew-7 mission. They docked to the orbital lab and entered on Aug. 27 becoming Expedition 69 Flight Engineers and beginning a six-month space research mission.

Another station crew that has been on orbit since March 2 is scheduled to return to Earth no earlier than Sept. 2. NASA astronauts Stephen Bowen and Woody Hoburg will respectively command and pilot the SpaceX Dragon Endeavour spacecraft during its ride back into Earth’s atmosphere and parachute-assisted splash down off the coast of Florida. Flanking the duo during the flight home will be UAE (United Arab Amirates) astronaut Sultan Alneyadi and Roscosmos cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev.

While the homebound flight engineers hand over their responsibilities and swap roles with the newest crew mates, they are also continuing space research and maintaining lab operations. Bowen swapped samples inside the Fluid Science Laboratory for a physics study. Hoburg serviced stem cell samples for an investigation seeking advanced treatments for patients with blood diseases and cancers. Alneyadi installed new hardware inside the Microgravity Science Glovebox to validate new research capabilities in space. Fedyaev tested the lower body negative pressure suit that may help humans readapt quicker to Earth’s gravity after living for several months or more in microgravity.

The station’s longest serving crew will soon surpass a year in space. NASA astronaut Frank Rubio treated samples for a biology study pursuing therapies for space-caused cardiac abnormalities and Earth-bound heart diseases. Roscosmos Commander Sergey Prokopyev unpacked cargo recently delivered aboard the Roscosmos Progress 85 resupply ship. He also examined Flight Engineer Dmitri Petelin’s eyes using standard medical imaging gear found in a doctor’s office on Earth. The trio is expected to complete its station mission at the end of September.

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.

Get weekly video highlights at: https://roundupreads.jsc.nasa.gov/videoupdate/

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Mark Garcia

Station Hosts 11 Crewmates from Five Countries

Eleven astronauts and cosmonauts are living together aboard the International Space Station following the arrival of the SpaceX Crew-7 mission on Sunday. While the new crewmates get adapted to life in microgravity another crew is preparing for its departure this weekend.

The orbital outpost’s newest crew of four, representing the U.S., Denmark, Japan, and Russia, arrived on Sunday aboard the SpaceX Dragon Endurance spacecraft. NASA astronaut Jasmin Moghbeli, ESA (European Space Agency) astronaut Andreas Mogensen, JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) astronaut Satoshi Furukawa, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Konstantin Borisov are familiarizing themselves with station safety procedures and getting used to life on orbit.

The Crew-7 crew was now Expedition 69 Flight Engineers and will live and work 260 miles above the Earth for the next six months. During Monday afternoon, the new crew members were joined by station commander Sergey Prokopyev of Roscosmos and Flight Engineer Sultan Alneyadi of (UAE) United Arab Emirates) and reviewed the location of emergency hardware throughout the orbital lab.

Another crew is set to return to Earth this weekend after beginning its space station mission in March. NASA astronaut Stephen Bowen, commander of the SpaceX Dragon Endeavour spacecraft, will lead NASA Pilot Woody Hoburg and Mission Specialists Alneyadi and Andrey Fedyaev of Roscosmos when they end their mission as Expedition 69 flight engineers. The quartet is scheduled to undock Endeavour no earlier than Saturday, Sept. 2, and splash down off the coast of Florida.

The station’s other two crew members, Frank Rubio of NASA and Dmitri Petelin, spent Monday on a variety of orbital tasks. Rubio checked out a Dragon pressure suit in the Endeavour spacecraft with assistance from Alneyadi. Petelin conducted photographic inspections throughout the station’s Roscosmos segment then wrapped up his day with a vision test and exercise.

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Mark Garcia