Science Hardware Upkeep All Day on Station

Expedition 63 Commander Chris Cassidy poses for a portrait wearing his flight suit inside the cupola, the International Space Station's window to the world.
Expedition 63 Commander Chris Cassidy poses for a portrait wearing his flight suit inside the cupola, the International Space Station’s window to the world.

The International Space Station’s advanced microgravity research systems continue to be serviced today ensuring innovative results and insights to benefit humans on and off the Earth.

The Kibo lab module from JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) contains an airlock used to transfer science experiments into the vacuum of space. Expedition 63 Commander Chris Cassidy installed a variety of components and connected cables this morning that operate the airlock and control the pressure.

JAXA’s robotic arm grapples and maneuvers the experiments back and forth from the airlock to an external pallet. Air pressure inside the airlock is turned off and on as materials exposure investigations are installed outside Kibo or retrieved for analysis.

Cassidy also checked a memory card for a laptop computer that runs the COLBERT treadmill inside the Tranquility module. The NASA astronaut then photographed the front panel display of a GLACIER science freezer for review on the ground. Finally, he cleaned dust and debris inside a server supporting the MUSES Earth-imaging platform.

Cosmonauts Anatoly Ivanishin and Ivan Vagner spent a good portion of Wednesday checking Russian power supply connections and battery temperatures. Ivanishin then researched ways to optimize interactions between station crews and mission controllers from around the world. Vagner also worked on fluid and pressure checks inside the Progress 76 resupply ship docked to the Pirs docking compartment.



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