Space life

Clockwise from left, Expedition 68 Flight Engineers Anna Kikina, Josh Cassada, Nicole Mann, and Koichi Wakata pose for a fun portrait aboard the station. The quartet is planning on returning to Earth this month. Watch live coverage now on NASA TV,  the  NASA app  and the agency’s   website  as hatch closure and undocking preparations are underway for the return of NASA’s SpaceX Crew-5 mission.    NASA astronauts Mission Commander Nicole Mann and Pilot Josh Cassada, along with JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) astronaut Koichi Wakata and Roscosmos cosmonaut Anna Kikina, who will serve as mission specialists, are in the process of boarding the Dragon for departure from the  International Space Station .   Crew-5 is targeting a return to Earth at about 9:02 p.m. EST Saturday, March 11, with a splashdown off the coast of Florida. The Dragon spacecraft, named Endurance, is scheduled to undock from the  International Space Station  at 2:05 a.m. to begin the journey hom...

The 11-member crew aboard the International Space Station give thumbs up signs in this portrait from March 6, 2023. In the bottom row from left are Flight Engineers Andrey Fedyaev of Roscosmos, Sultan Alneyadi from UAE (United Arab Emirates), and Woody Hoburg from NASA. In the middle row from left are Flight Engineers Anna Kikina from Roscosmos, Koichi Wakata from JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency), Nicole Mann from NASA, Dmitri Petelin from Roscosmos, and Frank Rubio from NASA. In the back are Flight Engineer Stephen Bowen from NASA, Commander Sergey Prokopyev from Roscosmos, and Flight Engineer Josh Cassada from NASA. It was a relaxed Friday aboard the International Space Station as crew swap activities begin winding down ahead of the return to Earth of four crew members on Saturday. Three cosmonauts remained busy at the end of the week, however, working on orbital household maintenance tasks. Expedition 68 Flight Engineers Nicole Mann and Josh Cassada of NASA, Koichi ...

Expedition 68 Flight Engineers (from left) Anna Kikina, Josh Cassada, Nicole Mann, and Koichi Wakata, are preparing to return to Earth this weekend. Four Expedition 68 crew members are nearing the end of their stay aboard the International Space Station this weekend. Their replacements are completing their first week aboard the orbital outpost and getting up to speed with life in space. The SpaceX Crew Dragon Endurance with four crewmates is targeted to depart the space station at 2:05 a.m. EST on Saturday and return to Earth less than 24 hours later. NASA astronauts Nicole Mann and Josh Cassada will command and pilot Endurance respectively flanked by Koichi Wakata of JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) and Anna Kikina of Roscosmos. The foursome is due to splashdown off the coast of Florida at 9:19 p.m. on Saturday. The quartet blasted off toward the orbiting lab as the SpaceX Crew-5 mission on Oct. 5, 2022 , and docked to the Harmony module ’s forward port on Oct. 6...

Expedition 68 Flight Engineers Josh Cassada and Nicole Mann, both from NASA, work on life support maintenance inside the Destiny laboratory module. The four new Expedition 68 crew members are getting used to life in space while four other crewmates are preparing to go home this month. Also, today’s research includes replacing fuel bottles in the Combustion Integrated Rack and collecting samples for the Food Physiology and Host Pathogen experiment. Flight engineers Frank Rubio of NASA and Dmitri Petelin of Roscosmos removed the rack and replaced it with a new high-percentage oxygen bottle. The Combustion Integration Rack is used to perform combustion investigations in microgravity, and results could improve understanding of early fire growth behavior and help determine the best fire suppression techniques, improving crew safety in future space facilities. Rubio also participated in the Food Physiology experiment. A variety of samples are collected and then placed in cold stowa...

Clockwise from left, Expedition 68 Flight Engineers Anna Kikina, Josh Cassada, Nicole Mann, and Koichi Wakata pose for a fun portrait aboard the station. The quartet is planning on returning to Earth this month. The International Space Station ’s 11 residents are comprised of three individual crews that arrived at the orbital outpost on three different crew ships. The most recent crew to arrive was SpaceX Crew-6 docking on Friday at 1:40 a.m. EST in the Crew Dragon Endeavour vehicle. The four Crew-6 members are now Expedition 68 flight engineers embarking on a six-month space research mission. The new station crewmates are Stephen Bowen and Woody Hoburg of NASA along with Sultan Alneyadi of UAE (United Arab Emirates) and Andrey Fedyaev of Roscosmos. They are familiarizing themselves with station operations, systems, and emergency procedures. The new quartet is also beginning standard science and maintenance activities. Bowen and Hoburg started a new experiment today conducti...

The SpaceX Crew Dragon Endeavour with four Crew-6 members aboard approaches the International Space Station on March 3, 2023. The newly-expanded International Space Station crew of 11 members kicked off a busy work week today conducting a variety of research and visiting vehicle activities. Meanwhile, four Expedition 68 crew members are also getting ready to complete their mission and return to Earth. New station residents Stephen Bowen and Woody Hoburg of NASA, who commanded and piloted the SpaceX Crew-6 mission respectively, reviewed docked Crew Dragon procedures first thing on Monday. The duo, along Crew-6 mission specialist Sultan Alneyadi of UAE (United Arab Emirates) and Andrey Fedyaev of Roscosmos, automatically docked Crew Dragon Endeavour to the Harmony module ’s space-facing port at 1:40 a.m. EST on Friday . The quartet will live and work aboard the orbital outpost for six months. The four newest crew members continue getting up to speed with life on orbit familiari...

The four SpaceX Crew-6 members joined the seven Expedition 68 crew members aboard the space station expanding its population to 11. Credit: NASA TV NASA astronauts, Mission Commander Stephen Bowen and Pilot Woody Hoburg , along with UAE (United Arab Emirates) astronaut Sultan Alneyadi, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev aboard the SpaceX Dragon, named Endeavour, have arrived at the International Space Station . Crew-6 joins the Expedition 68 crew of NASA astronauts Frank Rubio , Nicole Mann , and Josh Cassada , as well as Koichi Wakata of JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency), and Roscosmos cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev , Dmitri Petelin , and Anna Kikina . The crew members first opened the hatch between the space station and the pressurized mating adapter at 3:45 a.m. EST then opened the hatch to Dragon. More details about the Crew-6 mission can be found by following the Crew-6 blog, the commercial crew blog , @commercial_crew on Twitter, and commercial crew on Facebo...