Busy Day of Science Rack Swaps and Life Support Work

A waxing gibbous moon is pictured above the Earth's horizon as the station orbited above the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Brazil.
A waxing gibbous moon is pictured above the Earth’s horizon as the station orbited above the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Brazil.

It was a busy Tuesday aboard the International Space Station as the Expedition 63 crew reorganized science racks and serviced life support hardware.

Since its inception, the main focus of the orbiting lab has been research that is only possible in microgravity. Scientists take advantage of these unique insights to improve health and industry for humans on Earth and in space. A variety of specialized racks throughout the station’s laboratory modules host numerous science experiments revealing phenomena only seen in weightlessness.

Commander Chris Cassidy and Flight Engineer Ivan Vagner partnered up today, moving three dedicated science racks, also known as EXPRESS racks, and installing them inside the U.S. Destiny, Japan’s Kibo and Europe’s Columbus lab modules.

A total of 11 refrigerator-sized EXPRESS racks are installed on the station supporting a multitude of experiments. The internationally sponsored studies are tended to by astronauts, remotely controlled by scientists on Earth, as well as programmed to run automatically.

Veteran cosmonaut Anatoly Ivanishin concentrated on life support maintenance tasks in the Russian segment of the space station. He replaced dust filters in the ventilation system in his side of the orbital lab before servicing an oxygen generator and a carbon dioxide filter.



from Space Station https://ift.tt/2QLznj6

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Astronauts Complete Spacewalk, Dragon Launch Moves to Nov. 7

Image
NASA astronauts Jasmin Moghbeli (top) and Loral O’Hara (bottom) team up during their first spacewalk for maintenance on the outside of the space station. Credit: NASA TV NASA astronauts Jasmin Moghbeli and Loral O’Hara concluded their spacewalk today at 2:47 p.m. EST after 6 hours and 42 minutes. Moghbeli and O’Hara were able to complete one of the spacewalk’s two major objectives, replacing one of the 12 trundle bearing assemblies on the port solar alpha rotary joint, which allows the arrays to track the Sun and generate electricity to power the station. Mission Control told the station crew that the solar array is functioning well after the bearing replacement. Spacewalkers also removed a handling bar fixture to prepare for future installation of a roll-out solar array and properly configured a cable that was previously interfering with an external camera. The astronauts had planned to remove and stow a communications electronics box called the Radio Frequency Group, but there w
Read more

Crews Study Eyes, Physics and Prep for Cygnus Cargo Mission

Image
Astronauts (from left) Jasmin Moghbeli and Loral O’Hara are pictured inside the International Space Station’s cupola holding NASA’s first graphc novel, “First Woman.” Human research and space physics were the dominant science topics aboard the International Space Station on Thursday. The Expedition 70 crew is also preparing for a U.S. cargo mission targeted to launch next week. NASA astronaut Jasmin Moghbeli and Roscosmos cosmonaut Konstantin Borisov took turns as crew medical officer on Thursday and performed eye scans of their crewmates using the Ultrasound 2 device . Moghbeli operated the device imaging the eyes of Commander Andreas Mogensen and Flight Engineer Satoshi Furukawa . Borisov also scanned Roscosmos Flight Engineer Nikolai Chub’s eyes. Doctors on the ground monitored and assisted the diagnostic exam in real-time. The ultrasound scanning procedure uses high-frequency soundwaves to observe how microgravity affects a crew member’s eye structure. Afterward, Mogensen
Read more

Spacewalkers Installing Solar Array Live on NASA TV

Image
Astronaut Stephen Bowen is pictured exiting the space station’s Quest airlock and beginning a spacewalk on April 28, 2023. NASA Television coverage of today’s spacewalk with NASA astronauts  Steve Bowen and Woody Hoburg is now underway and is also available on the  NASA app , the  space station blog  and the agency’s  website . The crew members of Expedition 69 are preparing to exit the  International Space Station ‘s Quest airlock for a spacewalk expected to begin about 9:15 a.m. EDT and last about seven hours. Bowen and Hoburg will install an IROSA (International Space Station Roll-Out Solar Array) to augment power generation for the 1A power channel on the station’s starboard truss structure. The new arrays are 60 feet long by 20 feet wide (18.2 meters by 6 meters) and will shade a little more than half of the original arrays, which are 112 feet long by 39 feet wide. Each new IROSA will produce more than 20 kilowatts of electricity, and once all are installed, will enable a
Read more