Archivo de la etiqueta: iss

Dragon Operations and Space Science Fill Station’s Midweek Schedule

Dragon spacecraft operations are underway aboard the International Space Station as a new crew gets up to speed with life in microgravity and another crew turns its attention toward returning to Earth. Amid the crew swap activities, advanced space biology research continued apace on Wednesday exploring unique phenomena impossible to achieve in Earth’s gravity environment.

New Expedition 72 Flight Engineer Nick Hague spent his day with fellow flight engineers Matthew Dominick and Mike Barratt readying the SpaceX Dragon Endeavour spacecraft for its upcoming return to Earth. The three NASA astronauts reconfigured seats inside Dragon setting it up for a four-person crew and transferred standard emergency gear back into the spacecraft.

Dominick and Barratt, SpaceX Crew-8’s commander and pilot respectively, are getting ready to fly back to Earth with Mission Specialists Jeanette Epps of NASA and Alexander Grebenkin of Roscosmos. Officials from NASA and SpaceX will soon announce the date and time of Endeavour’s undocking from the Harmony module’s forward port and its splashdown off the coast of Florida. Before Crew-8 departs, the foursome will provide farewell remarks at 9:55 a.m. EDT on Sunday live on NASA+ and the agency’s website. Learn how to stream NASA content through a variety of platforms, including social media.

Veteran NASA Flight Engineer Don Pettit, who arrived at the station on Sept. 11, worked in Harmony exploring the genetic risks space travelers face by analyzing and amplifying RNA samples. Observations may help doctors identify mechanisms that lead to a variety of diseases and improve the diagnosis of illnesses both on Earth and in space. Commander Suni Williams cleaned the inside of the Life Science Glovebox following earlier stem cell research promoting therapies for certain blood diseases and cancers. NASA Flight Engineer Butch Wilmore refilled the Columbus laboratory module’s Human Research Facility with medicine, blood kits, and needles.

Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov, who docked to the orbital outpost with Hague aboard the SpaceX Dragon Freedom on Sept. 29, partnered with Grebenkin who trained him to use the European robotic arm. Gorbunov also continued familiarizing himself with station operations then installed Earth observation hardware in the Nauka science module to image the atmosphere in ultraviolet wavelengths. Grebenkin installed more Earth monitoring gear to obtain visible and near infrared imagery of landmarks in the Amazon, Portugal, and Germany.

New station flight engineers, Alexey Ovchinin and Ivan Vagner, who began their mission with Pettit aboard the Soyuz MS-26 crew ship, split their day on Roscosmos research and lab maintenance. Ovchinin joined Grebenkin setting up the Earth monitoring gear and also serviced carbon dioxide removal hardware. Vagner worked on routine upkeep of the Zvezda service module’s ventilation systems.

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/

Get the latest from NASA delivered every week. Subscribe here: www.nasa.gov/subscribe

Powered by WPeMatico

Get The Details…

Mark Garcia

Dragon Suit, Seat Checks During Crew Departure Preps and Space Science

Expedition 72 Commander Suni Williams and Flight Engineer Butch Wilmore, both NASA astronauts, tried on their SpaceX Dragon pressure suits for the first time on Tuesday with assistance from new crewmate Nick Hague of NASA. The NASA trio checked out their pressurized suits, tested the suits’ audio configurations, and conducted seat fit checks inside the Dragon Freedom spacecraft while wearing the suits.

The three astronauts later joined Roscosmos Flight Engineer Aleksandr Gorbunov and practiced emergency drills inside the Dragon docked to the Harmony module’s forward port. Williams and Wilmore, who rode the Boeing Starliner spacecraft to the International Space Station in June, will return to Earth with Hague and Gorbunov aboard the Dragon spacecraft in February.

In the meantime, four other Expedition 72 crewmates are nearing the end of their space research mission that began on March 5. NASA astronaut Matthew Dominick will command the SpaceX Dragon Endeavour spacecraft leading Pilot Mike Barratt and Mission Specialists Jeanette Epps and Alexander Grebenkin back to Earth on a date soon to be set by NASA and SpaceX mission managers. The homebound SpaceX Crew-8 quartet has been packing personal items and other station cargo inside Endeavour for the ride home. Grebenkin also tested the Roscosmos-designed lower body negative pressure suit that may help ease the adjustment to Earth’s gravity and offset space-caused symptoms.

NASA Flight Engineer Don Pettit and Roscosmos Flight Engineers Alexey Ovchinin and Ivan Vagner, who have been aboard the orbital outpost since Sept. 11, spent Tuesday working on a variety of physics and biology investigations. Pettit worked inside the Microgravity Science Glovebox testing advanced life support hardware that may be used on future space missions operating in different gravity environments. Ovchinin strapped on a sensor-packed cap that measured his responses while practicing futuristic planetary and robotic piloting techniques on a computer. Vagner assisted Grebenkin as he tried on the specialized suit that may counteract the effects of living in weightlessness.

At the end of the crew shift on Tuesday, all 11 space station crew residents gathered together and reviewed their roles and responsibilities in the unlikely event of an emergency. The orbital crew coordinated with mission controllers from around the world familiarizing themselves with using personal protective equipment and fire extinguishers. The astronauts and cosmonauts also reviewed the necessary actions and evacuation procedures in case of a fire, a chemical leak, or a pressure leak.

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/

Get the latest from NASA delivered every week. Subscribe here: www.nasa.gov/subscribe

Powered by WPeMatico

Get The Details…

Mark Garcia

Expedition 72 Welcomes New Crew, Crew-8 Departing Soon

The seven astronauts and four cosmonauts representing the Expedition 72 crew slept in on Monday working half-a-day during the afternoon following Sunday’s arrival of the SpaceX Crew-9 mission.

The International Space Station’s two newest crew members, Nick Hague of NASA and Aleksandr Gorbunov of Roscosmos, launched to the orbital outpost aboard the SpaceX Dragon at 1:17 p.m. EDT on Saturday. The duo docked to the Harmony module’s forward port at 5:30 p.m. on Sunday beginning a five-month space research mission.

Hague, on his second spaceflight, began his day on Monday afternoon joining NASA Flight Engineer Jeanette Epps as she demonstrated how to operate the advanced resistive exercise device to maintain muscle and bone mass in weightlessness. Afterward, he joined NASA Flight Engineer Matthew Dominick and transferred standard emergency gear inside the newly arrived Dragon spacecraft.

Gorbunov kicked off his first full day on the orbital lab getting familiar with life on the space station and learning its systems and procedures. Next, he joined fellow cosmonaut Alexander Grebenkin who began handing over his mission responsibilities to Gorbunov.

Flight Engineers Mike Barratt and Butch Wilmore with Commander Suni Williams, all three from NASA, helped unpack cargo and fresh scientific samples from Dragon. The trio removed and stowed a variety of crew supplies and station hardware then transferred portable science freezers containing the research samples and installed them inside station science freezers for preservation and later analysis.

Having been aboard the space station since Sept. 11, NASA Flight Engineer Don Pettit spent his shift on orbital plumbing duties, analyzing station water for microbes, and configuring specialized watches that monitor a crew member’s sleep/wake cycle. His Soyuz MS-26 crewmates, Flight Engineers Alexey Ovchinin and Ivan Vagner, spent the day servicing electronics systems and Earth observation hardware.

The next crew to depart the orbital outpost, SpaceX Crew-8, has been stepping up its cargo packing duties and mission handover responsibilities the last several days. NASA and SpaceX are evaluating departure opportunities before Dominick leads Barratt, Epps and Grebenkin back to Earth inside Dragon ending a six-and-a-half-month mission orbiting Earth.

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 updates from NASA Johnson Space Center at: https://roundupreads.jsc.nasa.gov/

Get the latest from NASA delivered every week. Subscribe here: www.nasa.gov/subscribe

Powered by WPeMatico

Get The Details…

Abby Graf

Expedition 72 Welcomes Crew-9 Duo Aboard Station

NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov entered the International Space Station after opening the hatch between the space station and the pressurized mating adapter at 7:04 p.m. EDT before opening the hatch to Dragon.

Hague and Gorbunov were welcomed by the space station’s Expedition 72 crew, including NASA astronauts Matthew Dominick, Michael Barratt, Jeanette Epps, Don Petitt, Butch Wilmore, and Suni Williams, as well as Roscosmos cosmonauts Alexander Grebenkin, Alexey Ovchinin, and Ivan Vagner.

NASA’s live coverage continues through crew welcome remarks aboard the station on NASA+, YouTube, and the agency’s website. Learn how to stream NASA content through a variety of platforms, including social media.

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 updates from NASA Johnson Space Center at: https://roundupreads.jsc.nasa.gov/

Get the latest from NASA delivered every week. Subscribe here: www.nasa.gov/subscribe

Powered by WPeMatico

Get The Details…

Abby Graf

SpaceX Dragon with Crew-9 Aboard Docks to Station

NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov arrived at the International Space Station Wednesday, as the SpaceX Dragon Freedom docked to the orbiting complex at 5:30 p.m. EDT while the station was 260 statute miles over Botswana.

Following Dragon’s link up to the Harmony module, the astronauts aboard the Dragon and the space station will begin conducting standard leak checks and pressurization between the spacecraft in preparation for hatch opening scheduled for approximately 7:15 p.m.

Hague and Gorbunov will join the space station’s Expedition 72 crew of NASA astronauts Matthew Dominick, Michael Barratt, Jeanette Epps, Don Petitt, Butch Wilmore, and Suni Williams, as well as Roscosmos cosmonauts Alexander Grebenkin, Alexey Ovchinin, and Ivan Vagner. For a short time, the number of crew aboard the space station will increase to 11 people until Crew-8 members Dominick, Barratt, Epps, and Grebenkin return to Earth in early October.

NASA’s live coverage continues on NASA+, YouTube, and the agency’s website. Learn how to stream NASA content through a variety of platforms, including social media.

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 updates from NASA Johnson Space Center at: https://roundupreads.jsc.nasa.gov/

Get the latest from NASA delivered every week. Subscribe here: www.nasa.gov/subscribe

Powered by WPeMatico

Get The Details…

Abby Graf