Expanded Station Crew Works Together Before Next Trio Departs

The Moon's image is refracted due to Earth's atmosphere in this photograph from the space station as it orbited above the Pacific Ocean.
The Moon’s image is refracted due to Earth’s atmosphere in this photograph from the space station as it orbited above the Pacific Ocean.

Ten people are living aboard the International Space Station following Friday’s arrival of three crewmates aboard the Soyuz MS-24 spacecraft. However, at the end of the month another trio of orbital lab residents will return to Earth after a year in space.

NASA astronaut Loral O’Hara is in her first week aboard the space station along with Roscosmos cosmonauts Nikolai Chub and Oleg Kononenko. O’Hara and Chub are getting used to life in space for the first time as they familiarize themselves with station operations and systems. O’Hara also worked throughout the day on life support tasks while Chub installed Earth imaging hardware in the Harmony module.

Kononenko is beginning his record fifth mission as a space station crew member. The experienced cosmonaut spent Monday on a variety of activities including charging video camera batteries and unpacking cargo delivered aboard the new Soyuz crew ship. Kononenko will stay in space for a year with Chub, while O’Hara will live aboard the station until spring for a six-month mission.

Meanwhile, NASA Flight Engineer Frank Rubio is nearing a year in space with his crewmates Commander Sergey Prokopyev and Flight Engineer Dmitri Petelin, both from Roscosmos. The trio is now turning its attention to parachuting back to Earth inside the Soyuz MS-23 crew ship on Sept. 27. The threesome joined each other midday on Monday and checked out the Sokol launch and entry suits they will wear inside the Soyuz during the ride home. Prokopyev and Petelin also tested the lower body negative pressure suit that may help their bodies adjust quicker to Earth’s gravity.

The station’s other four Expedition 69 flight engineers are in their fourth week aboard the orbital lab having arrived on Aug. 27 aboard the SpaceX Dragon Endurance spacecraft. The quartet has completed its familiarization and orientation activities and are working full-time on space research and lab maintenance.

Astronauts Jasmin Moghbeli of NASA and Andreas Mogensen of ESA (European Space Agency) kicked off Monday with life science in the Columbus laboratory module. Moghbeli set up a pair of Kubik incubators that Mogensen used to stow blood samples. The duo later conducted a vision test in the Destiny laboratory module using similar tools found in a doctor’s office.

JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) astronaut Satoshi Furukawa spent Monday on housekeeping tasks cleaning up the Harmony module, reorganizing food packs, and transferring cargo in and out of the Cygnus space freighter. Cosmonaut Konstantin Borisov primarily spent his day on electronics maintenance and wiping down surfaces for microbes in the Roscosmos segment of the orbiting lab.

Learn more about station activities by following the space station blog, @space_station and @ISS_Research on X, as well as the ISS Facebook and ISS Instagram accounts.

Get weekly video highlights at: https://roundupreads.jsc.nasa.gov/videoupdate/

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



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

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