Week Wraps Aboard Station with Spacesuits, Eye Checks, Robotics, and More
Spacesuit work and eye checks wrapped up the week for the Expedition 74 crew aboard the International Space Station. The orbital residents also focused on robotics, cargo transfers, and science hardware maintenance at the end of the week.
ESA (European Space Agency) flight engineer Sophie Adenot tried on a spacesuit in Friday with assistance from NASA flight engineer Jessica Meir inside the Quest airlock. Adenot wore the suit in a powered and pressurized configuration and tested it for mobility, comfort, and optimal fit. Meir also helped Adenot conduct suit leak and pressure checks while verifying the suit’s communications hardware and life support systems.
NASA flight engineers Jack Hathaway and Chris Williams also worked on spacewalking gear inspecting tethers and their associated components before stowing them inside Quest. Earlier, Hathaway installed new orbital plumbing gear inside the Tranquility module’s bathroom. At the end of his shift, he reconfigured the Columbus laboratory module to make room for a new experimental exercise machine due to be delivered on the next Cygnus XL resupply mission. Williams rearranged cargo packed inside the Pressurized Mating Adapter-2 where the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft dock to on the forward port of the Harmony module.
At the end of his shift, Williams led eye exams inside Harmony with Meir and Adenot as his subjects. Williams operated medical imaging gear that Meir and Adenot peered into while doctors on the ground viewed their retina, lens, and cornea in real-time. Doctors regularly check the astronauts’ eyes to counteract the potential effects of living in space. Station commander Sergey Kud-Sverchkov and flight engineer Sergei Mikaev, both Roscosmos cosmonauts, joined each other on Friday and installed power and data cables to support upcoming operations of a new solar radiation experiment.
Roscosmos flight engineer Andrey Fedyaev kicked off his shift cleaning the Nauka science module’s ventilation system before spending the rest of his day updating the software that controls and displays information for the European robotic arm.
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
