Life Science, Spacewalk Preps as Station Orbits Higher

Astronaut Nicole Mann is pictured inside the seven-window cupola as the SpaceX Dragon cargo craft approaches the space station on Nov. 27, 2022.
Astronaut Nicole Mann is pictured inside the seven-window cupola as the SpaceX Dragon cargo craft approaches the space station on Nov. 27, 2022.

Science and spacewalk preparations kept the Expedition 68 crew busy throughout Wednesday. Meanwhile, the International Space Station is orbiting slightly higher after a docked cargo craft fired its engines during the morning.

NASA astronauts Nicole Mann and Frank Rubio began the morning cleaning and stowing biology hardware used to transfer research samples from the SpaceX Dragon resupply ship into the space station’s U.S. Destiny laboratory module. Those samples will soon be examined to understand how microgravity affects the regeneration of skeletal stem cells possibly improving therapies for bone conditions on Earth and in space.

NASA Flight Engineer Josh Cassada started his day supporting student-designed botany experiments packed inside specialized tubes delivered aboard Dragon. Flight Engineer Koichi Wakata of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) peered at microscopic worms inside the Confocal microscope for deeper insight into how the nervous system adapts to weightlessness. Observations may help doctors keep astronauts healthy in space and design therapies for neuromuscular diseases such as Parkinson’s.

After working on advanced science experiments during the morning, all four astronauts joined each other and reviewed plans for Saturday’s spacewalk set to start at 7:25 a.m. EST. Cassada and Rubio will exit the station for a seven-hour job to install a new roll-out solar array on the station’s starboard truss structure. Mann and Wakata will support the duo in and out of their Extravehicular Mobility Units (EMUs), or spacesuits, and operate the Canadarm2 robotic arm during the spacewalk.

Station Commander Sergey Prokopyev from Roscosmos worked inside the Zvezda service module replacing life support gear on Wednesday afternoon after completing a heart-monitoring session during the morning. Flight Engineer Dmitri Petelin continued the heart research and attached sensors to himself to monitor his cardiac activity and blood pressure for 24 hours. Petelin then spent the rest of the day cleaning hydraulic components inside a Russian Orlan spacesuit. Flight Engineer Anna Kikina analyzed the Zarya module’s power supply system using an oscilloscope and infrared camera before conducting ventilation maintenance inside Zvezda.

A docked ISS Progress 81 space freighter fired its engines for 12 minutes early Wednesday raising the station’s altitude. The orbital reboost places the station at the correct altitude for an upcoming crew swap planned for early spring.

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 weekly video highlights at: http://jscfeatures.jsc.nasa.gov/videoupdate/

Get the latest from NASA delivered every week. Subscribe here: www.nasa.gov/subscribe



from Space Station https://ift.tt/Bcr1LtP

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