Archivo de la etiqueta: spacestation

NASA TV Broadcasts Saturday Morning Spacewalk

NASA astronauts Victor Glover and Michael Hopkins are scheduled to exit the International Space Station’s Quest airlock Saturday to complete tasks that were deferred from earlier spacewalks to allow for the successful installation of modification kits in preparation for future solar array upgrades.

The pair will set their spacesuits to battery power about 7:30 a.m. EST tomorrow, signifying the start of their spacewalk, which is expected to last about six and a half hours. NASA will begin its live coverage on NASA Television, the NASA app, and the agency’s website at 6 a.m.

During the spacewalk, Glover and Hopkins will vent early ammonia system jumper cables and relocate one outside the Quest airlock. The duo also will connect cables for the Columbus Bartolomeo payload platform, continuing work from a Jan. 27 spacewalk, and replace a cable for an amateur radio system. Additionally, the astronauts will replace a wireless antenna assembly on the Unity module, install a “stiffener” on the airlock’s thermal cover to provide additional structural integrity, and route cables to enable ethernet capabilities for two high-definition cameras on the station’s port truss, or “backbone.”

This will be the 237th spacewalk in support of space station assembly. Glover will be designated extravehicular crew member 1 (EV 1) and wear a spacesuit bearing red stripes. Hopkins will be extravehicular crew member 2 (EV 2), wearing an unmarked suit.

Glover and Hopkins both arrived at the space station in November as part of NASA’s SpaceX Crew-1 mission. This will be the fourth career spacewalk for Glover, and the fifth for Hopkins.

Learn more about station activities by following the space station blog, @space_station and @ISS_Research on Twitter as well as the ISS Facebook and ISS Instagram accounts.

Get The Details…

Mark Garcia

Powered by WPeMatico

Sound Checks, Eye Scans as Crew Preps for Saturday Spacewalk

The Expedition 64 crew is wrapping up final preparations before two astronauts exit the International Space Station for a maintenance spacewalk on Saturday morning. The orbital residents also measured lab sound levels and checked their crewmates’ eyes to end the workweek.

NASA spacewalkers Victor Glover and Michael Hopkins will take part in their third spacewalk together on Saturday when they set their U.S. spacesuits to battery power at 7:30 a.m. EST. The duo is scheduled to spend about six-and-a-half hours servicing the station’s cooling system and communications gear. NASA TV begins its live coverage of the spacewalk activities at 6 a.m.

Astronauts Kate Rubins and Soichi Noguchi will assist the spacewalkers in and out of their suits on Saturday while monitoring the spacewalk. Glover and Hopkins readied their spacesuits and tools in the U.S. Quest airlock on Friday. The quartet also met for a final procedures review and a conference with spacewalk specialists in Mission Control.

Toward the end of the day, Rubins set up acoustic monitors and recorded sound levels emanating from the Life Science Glovebox operating inside the Japanese Kibo laboratory module. NASA astronaut Shannon Walker was the crew medical officer on Friday and scanned the eyes of cosmonauts Sergey Ryzhikov and Sergey Kud-Sverchkov using an ultrasound device and optical coherence tomography.

The orbital lab will boost its orbit today at 2:09 p.m. placing it at the correct altitude for a crew swap taking place next month. The next crew to visit the station will launch aboard the Soyuz MS-18 crew ship on April 9 carrying NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hei and Roscosmos cosmonauts Oleg Novitskiy and Pyotr Dubrov. The trio will join the Expedition 64/65 crew for a six-month research mission in Earth orbit.

Finally, the Expedition 64 trio with Rubins, Ryzhikov and Kud-Sverchkov, will finish their mission on April 17 when their Soyuz MS-17 spacecraft undocks. They will parachute in their crew ship to a landing in Kazakhstan completing a six-month stay on the station.

Get The Details…

Mark Garcia

Powered by WPeMatico

Worm Observations, Eye Checks as Weekend Spacewalk Approaches

The Expedition 64 crew had a busy science day observing worms, readying small satellites for deployment, and conducting vision tests. Two astronauts are also pressing ahead with preparations for the third spacewalk in two weeks at the International Space Station.

Tiny worms were launched to the orbiting lab in February to study how weightlessness affects genetic expression in muscles. Today, NASA Flight Engineer Shannon Walker loaded cassette samples containing the live worms into a microscope for viewing. Next, NASA Flight Engineer Kate Rubins recorded microscopic video of the worm activities to understand the effects of spaceflight on muscles. Observations may lead to ways to maintain and improve muscle health for humans on and off the Earth.

Soon, a set of small satellites will be deployed outside of the Japanese Kibo laboratory module. JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) astronaut Soichi Noguchi loaded the tiny satellites, also called CubeSats, in a deployer that will be placed inside Kibo’s airlock. The airlock will be closed and depressurized before the Japanese robotic arm grabs the deployer and stages it in position where the CubeSats will be ejected into orbit a few days later.

It has been a busy period for spacewalks at the station as two astronauts gear up for another excursion to maintain cooling system and communications gear. Victor Glover and Michael Hopkins of NASA readied their spacewalk tools and safety tethers in the U.S. Quest airlock where their spacesuits are already located. Afterward, they were joined by Rubins and Noguchi, who will assist the spacewalkers this weekend, for procedure reviews. NASA TV will go on the air Saturday at 6 a.m. EST to broadcast the spacewalk set to begin at 7:30 a.m.

Vision is critical to mission success and researchers are continuously studying how microgravity affects the human eye. Cosmonauts Sergey Ryzhikov and Sergey Kud-Sverchkov partnered together Thursday afternoon reading an eye chart as part of regularly scheduled eye checks. Some crew members have documented eye pressure and vision issues after living in space for months at a time.

Mission controllers in Houston commanded the Canadarm2 robotic arm to release an external pallet loaded with old nickel-hydrogen batteries into Earth orbit on Thursday morning. It is safely moving away from the station and will orbit Earth between two to four years before burning up harmlessly in the atmosphere.

Roscosmos cosmonauts Sergey Ryzhikov and Sergey Kud-Sverchkov have completed the work to repair small cracks in the transfer compartment of the Russian Zvezda service module. The repairs were part of ongoing work to isolate and fix the source of a slight cabin air leak which is an increase above the standard rate that station teams have been investigating over the past year. At the current rate, the crew is in no danger, and the space station has ample consumables aboard to manage and maintain the nominal environment.

In the coming days, Ryzhikov and Kud-Sverchkov will close the hatches to the transfer compartment to enable Russian flight controllers to conduct pressure level checks to analyze the results of the sealing procedures.

Get The Details…

Mark Garcia

Powered by WPeMatico

Spacesuit Checks During Space Research and Russian Maintenance

Two astronauts are focusing in preparations for this weekend’s spacewalk as the rest of the Expedition 64 crew keeps up research and maintenance on the International Space Station.

NASA Flight Engineers Victor Glover and Michael Hopkins checked on the U.S. spacesuits today they will wear during a spacewalk scheduled for 7:30 a.m. EST on Saturday. The duo also reviewed the procedures they will use when working on the station’s cooling system and communications gear. NASA TV will begin its live coverage of the spacewalk activities at 6 a.m.

Advanced space science is always ongoing aboard the orbital lab even though the crew may be getting ready for mission events such as spaceship arrivals and departures or spacewalks. Scientists and engineers on Earth use the knowledge gained from the microgravity research observations to improve life for humans on and off the planet.

Veteran station resident Kate Rubins on NASA replaced fuel canisters for a suite of combustion studies exploring fuel efficiency, pollution control and spacecraft fire prevention. NASA astronaut Shannon Walker, on her second station mission, viewed high-quality protein crystals grown in a microscope for a space commercialization study that could benefit the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries. Soichi Noguchi of JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) serviced components inside the Kibo laboratory module’s airlock where experiments are staged before exposure to the harsh environment of space.

Roscosmos cosmonauts Sergey Ryzhikov and Sergey Kud-Sverchkov continued work to repair small cracks in the transfer compartment of the Russian Zvezda service module this week. This was part of ongoing work to isolate and fix the source of a slight cabin air leak which is an increase above the standard rate that station teams have been investigating over the past year. At the current rate, the crew is in no danger, and the space station has ample consumables aboard to manage and maintain the nominal environment.

The cosmonauts are applying a second layer of specialized paste to further seal the cracks. On March 12, hatches to the transfer chamber will be closed to enable Russian flight controllers to conduct pressure level checks to analyze the results of the sealing procedures.

Get The Details…

Mark Garcia

Powered by WPeMatico

Saturday Spacewalk Set as Crew Works Space Gardening

The Expedition 64 astronauts are gearing up for the third spacewalk in two weeks at the International Space Station. The orbital residents also fit in a variety of space agriculture studies and orbital maintenance tasks on their busy schedule today.

NASA astronauts Victor Glover and Michael Hopkins will partner up for their third spacewalk together on Saturday to work on the station’s cooling system and communications gear. The duo will begin their excursion when they set their spacesuits to battery power around 7:30 a.m. EST. NASA TV starts its broadcast of all the spacewalk activities at 6 a.m.

They will spend the first part of their six-and-a-half-hour spacewalk venting and relocating ammonia lines on the far-left side of the station at the Port-6 truss structure. Next, Glover will replace a wireless communications antenna on the Unity module. Hopkins will complete cable connections on the Bartolomeo external payload facility located on Europe’s Columbus laboratory module.

Following that, the spacewalkers will meet back up to install a “stiffener” on the Quest’s airlock cover. Finally, they will route high-definition video camera cables before wrapping up the fifth spacewalk of 2021.

Hopkins and Glover were joined by Flight Engineers Kate Rubins and Soichi Noguchi on Tuesday afternoon for a review of this weekend’s spacewalk procedures. NASA Flight Engineer Shannon Walker began cleaning and servicing their spacesuits and components today.

Hopkins and Noguchi also spent some time Tuesday on space gardening tasks. Hopkins began harvesting Amara Mustard and Extra Dwarf Pak Choi plants today for the Veg-03 botany study. Noguchi watered fast-growing plants used for traditional medicine and food flavoring for the Asian Herb investigation.

Commander Sergey Ryzhikov sampled the Zvezda service module’s air quality today. Roscosmos Flight Engineer Sergey Kud-Sverchkov worked on payload cable connections in the station’s Russian segment.

Get The Details…

Mark Garcia

Powered by WPeMatico