Crew Kicks off Week With Space Biology and Robotics

The prominent city lights of Europe from Amsterdam to Paris and London across the English Channel are pictured from the space station.
The prominent city lights of Europe from Amsterdam to Paris and London across the English Channel are pictured from the space station.

Expedition 65 is kicking off the week with a host of space biology and robotics activities aboard the International Space Station today.

Five astronauts out of the seven crewmates who comprise the space station crew joined each other today for a review of upcoming research operations with rodents. The quintet reviewed roles and procedures for the study to learn how microgravity affects normal skin and healing functions. The astronauts will take turns transferring the mice from the Mouse Habitat Unit to the Life Science Glovebox for observation.

Full-fledged operations for the Rodent Research-1 Demonstration will begin Tuesday and continue before the SpaceX Cargo Dragon returns to Earth with the rodents on Sept. 30. NASA Flight Engineers Megan McArthur and Shane Kimbrough will trade shifts on Tuesday with Commander Akihiko Hoshide of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) and Flight Engineer Thomas Pesquet of ESA (European Space Agency). NASA Flight Engineer Mark Vande Hei will also contribute to the experiment later in the week.

Kimbrough started Monday checking out and activating the toaster-sized Astrobee robotic fee-flyers in cooperation with engineers on the ground. Hoshide began his day extracting DNA from microbe samples for sequencing to understand the microbial environment of the station. McArthur replaced fuel bottles inside the Combustion Integrated Rack. Pesquet set up student-controlled Earth observation hardware then cleaned up debris to support the Plant Habitat-04 space crop experiment.

Cosmonauts Oleg Novitskiy and Pyotr Dubrov are continuing to set up hardware, including cables and laptop computers, inside the Nauka multipurpose laboratory module. The new gear will enable the crew to control the European Robotic Arm from both inside and outside the station. The duo then split up Monday afternoon for Russian communications work and life support maintenance.



from Space Station https://ift.tt/3u9fvJT

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Station Wraps Busy Week Before Cygnus Cargo Mission Launches

Image
This high exposure photograph from the International Space Station shows Earth’s atmospheric glow and a starry sky as the orbital complex soared above the Pacific Ocean. The Expedition 70 crew is looking ahead to the arrival of a U.S. cargo craft due to arrive at the International Space Station next week. Meanwhile, the Axiom Space 3 (Ax-3) crew finished its first week in orbit with a busy schedule of research, education, and media activities. Northrop Grumman’s Cygnus cargo craft will take its first ride atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket when it lifts off at 12:29 p.m. EST on Monday from Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The private space freighter will be carrying over 8,200 pounds of science experiments, crew supplies, and lab hardware to the orbiting outpost. NASA Flight Engineer Jasmin Moghbeli is due to capture Cygnus with the Canadarm 2 robotic arm at 3:35 a.m. on Wednesday. She will be on duty that morning along with fellow NASA astronaut Loral O’Hara who will monitor Cygn...
Read more

Dream Chaser Undergoes Testing at NASA Test Facility in Ohio

Image
NASA and Sierra Space are making progress on the first flight of the company’s Dream Chaser spacecraft to the International Space Station. The uncrewed cargo spaceplane is planned to launch its demonstration mission in 2024 to the orbital complex as part of NASA’s commercial resupply services. Credit: Sierra Space/Shay Saldana NASA and Sierra Space are preparing for the first flight of the company’s Dream Chaser spacecraft to the International Space Station. Dream Chaser and its companion cargo module, called Shooting Star, arrived at NASA’s Neil Armstrong Test Facility in Sandusky, Ohio, for environmental testing, scheduled to start in mid-December, ahead of its first flight, scheduled for the first half of 2024. The Neil Armstrong Test Facility, part of NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, is home to multiple test facilities, including the Space Environments Complex and the In-Space Propulsion Facility, both stops for Dream Chaser. The complex is home to the Mechanical Vib...
Read more

Crew Dragon Suit Checks as Station Begins Orbital Reboosts

Image
This long-exposure photograph from the space station reveals the Milky Way glittering above a bright but exaggerated atmospheric glow blanketing the Earth’s horizon. The Expedition 63 crew checked out SpaceX Crew Dragon suits today and stayed busy with a full slate of space research. The International Space Station also completed the first of three orbital reboosts to get ready for the next crew mission in October. Flight Engineers Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken inspected the suits they will wear when they return to Earth aboard the Crew Dragon spaceship. The duo tried on their suits for a fit check and ensured the components are in good condition. They are scheduled to depart the station on Saturday and splashdown the following day. NASA TV will cover all the departure activities live. The homebound-duo started the day replacing environmental control system (ECS) hardware aboard the orbiting lab. That work required temporarily removing a plant habitat from the Unity module to...
Read more