Archivos de la categoría ISS News

Crew Works Maintenance, Botany Before Resupply Ship Relocation

Life support, spacesuits and botany work filled Wednesday’s schedule for the Expedition 66 crew aboard the International Space Station. The orbital residents are also gearing up for a Russian resupply ship backing away from the station tonight and switching docking ports just over a day later.

Astronauts Megan McArthur of NASA and Akihiko Hoshide of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) were back in the Tranquility module today replacing components inside the oxygen generation system (OGS). The duo started the work on Tuesday flushing OGS parts of contaminants. They closed out the work today and reactivated the U.S. life support device.

Commander Thomas Pesquet of ESA (European Space Agency) spent the afternoon in the U.S. Quest airlock working on a U.S. spacesuit. The two-time space station resident verified the resized suit is fully functional ahead of an upcoming spacewalk planned for later this year.

NASA Flight Engineer Mark Vande Hei serviced a pair of science freezers during the morning. Afterward, he cleaned debris around the Advanced Plant Habitat then photographed the condition of the botany research facility. Station Flight Engineer Shane Kimbrough of NASA, who is also commander of the SpaceX Crew-2 mission, is now packing cargo and turning his attention to early November’s return to Earth of he and his Crew-2 crewmates McArthur, Hoshide and Pesquet aboard the Crew Dragon Endeavour.

Two Roscosmos cosmonauts are sleeping in today before monitoring tonight’s undocking of a Russian cargo craft from the Poisk module. They will shift their schedule again on Thursday when the ISS Progress 78 resupply ship redocks to the Nauka multipurpose laboratory module just over a day later.

Roscosmos Flight Engineers Pyotr Dubrov and Anton Shkaplerov will be on duty monitoring the Progress 78’s undocking tonight at 7:42 p.m. EDT. However, there will be no live TV coverage of the undocking. NASA TV will be on the air on Thursday at 11:30 p.m. and broadcast its redocking to Nauka set for Friday at 12:23 a.m.

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Mark Garcia

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Station Gears Up for Russian Resupply Ship Relocation

Tuesday aboard the International Space Station was devoted mainly to orbital maintenance tasks with some light science duties on the schedule. The Expedition 66 crew is also gearing up for a Russian cargo craft backing away from the station and moving to a new docking port this week.

Flight Engineers Megan McArthur and Akihiko Hoshide began two days of work on the Tranquility module’s oxygen generation system (OGS) today. NASA’s McArthur and Hoshide of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) partnered up and cleaned out contaminants in the OGS throughout the day. They will continue replacing components and reactivating the life support device on Wednesday.

NASA Flight Engineer Shane Kimbrough worked aboard the U.S. Destiny laboratory module swapping fuel bottles inside the Combustion Integrated Rack to support ongoing fuel and flame research in microgravity. Mark Vande Hei, also a NASA Flight Engineer, worked in the U.S. Quest airlock checking a variety of spacewalking tools and tethers ahead of an upcoming spacewalk planned for later this year. Station commander Thomas Pesquet from ESA (European Space Agency) calibrated carbon dioxide monitors then configured temporary crew quarters in the Columbus laboratory module.

The station’s two cosmonauts, Flight Engineers Pyotr Dubrov and Anton Shkaplerov, are getting ready for Wednesday night’s ISS Progress 78 (78P) resupply ship relocation maneuver that begins with it undocking from the Poisk module. The duo practiced on the Zvezda service module’s tele-robotically operated rendezvous unit for the unlikely event they would have to manually redock the 78P. The Russian cargo craft is due to automatically redock to the Nauka multipurpose laboratory module just after midnight Eastern time on Friday. NASA TV begins its live coverage of the redocking at 11:30 p.m. on Thursday.

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Mark Garcia

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Crew Focuses on Exercise, EVA Preparation, and Maintenance

The Expedition 66 crew focused on exercise, EVA preparation, and routine maintenance checks as part of its activities aboard the International Space Station today.

International astronaut Thomas Pesquet spent a portion of the day setting up hardware and completing a session for the Immersive Exercise project. Pesquet was tasked with deploying a wireless virtual reality (VR) headset, which he donned while biking.

Pesquet and other crews took turns performing resistive exercises throughout the day. Roscosmos cosmonauts Pyotr Dubrov and Anton Shkaplerov also exercised for a study alongside other maintenance activities.

Beyond exercising, NASA astronauts Shane Kimbrough, and Mark Vande Hei, and JAXA (Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency) astronaut Akihiko Hoshide were busy performing a variety of extravehicular (EVA)-related tasks. Among these tasks, Kimbrough took photos of the Extravehicular Mobility Unit (EMU) Scrubber Assembly to help determine the nature of a previously observed leak. McArthur performed preventive maintenance on the Simplified Aid for EVA Rescue (SAFER), a device that astronauts wear in case they become untethered during spacewalks. Meanwhile, Vande Hei and Hoshide used a camcorder to inspect and provide feedback about how to improve the stowage of EVA hardware.

As for other maintenance activities, Kimbrough collected water samples from the Portable Water Dispenser (PWF) for in-flight analysis. NASA astronaut Megan McArthur changed batteries in devices that monitor the levels of specific compounds aboard the space station as well.

Looking forward, McArthur prepared for an in-flight interview with Space.com at 1:05 p.m. EDT Thursday, October 21. She will be joined with Vande Hei during the event.

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.

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Deepthi Cauligi

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Russian Station Veteran, Filmmakers Back on Earth

Russian cosmonaut Oleg Novitskiy of Roscosmos and Russian actress Yulia Peresild and Russian producer-director Klim Shipenko landed on Earth at 12:35 a.m. EDT Sunday, October 17 in Kazakhstan (10:35 a.m. Kazakhstan time), southeast of the remote town of Dzhezkazgan. The trio departed the International Space Station in their Soyuz MS-18 spacecraft at 9:14 p.m.

Novitskiy arrived to the space station April 9 and returns to Earth after 191 days in space on his third mission that spanned 3,056 orbits of Earth and 80.9 million miles. During the mission, he completed three spacewalks totaling 22 hours, 38 minutes. He has now logged 531 days in space on his three flights.

Peresild and Shipenko arrived at the station Oct. 5 as spaceflight participants for 12 days of filming their movie, “Challenge,” under a commercial agreement between Roscosmos and Moscow-based media entities.

The trio will return by Russian helicopters to the recovery staging city in Karaganda, Kazakhstan, before boarding a Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center aircraft to return to their training base in Star City, Russia.

Remaining aboard the station is the seven-person crew of Expedition 66 with station commander Thomas Pesquet of ESA (European Space Agency), NASA astronauts Shane Kimbrough, Megan McArthur, and Mark Vande Hei, JAXA (Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency) astronaut Akihiko Hoshide, and Roscosmos cosmonauts Anton Shkaplerov and Pyotr Dubrov.

Later this month, NASA’s SpaceX Crew-3 members – NASA astronauts Raja Chari, Tom Marshburn, and Kayla Barron as well as ESA (European Space Agency) astronaut Matthias Maurer – will join the Expedition 66 members aboard the station. Crew-3 will be the third long-duration mission to fly as part of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, continuing to provide the capability of regularly launching humans from American soil.

In November 2020, the International Space Station surpassed a 20-year milestone of continuous human presence, providing opportunities for unique technological demonstrations and research that help prepare for long-duration missions to the Moon and Mars while also improving life on Earth. To date, 246 people from 19 countries have visited the orbiting laboratory that has hosted nearly 3,000 research investigations from researchers in 108 countries and areas.

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.

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Mark Garcia

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NASA TV Back on Air for Soyuz Crew Landing Coverage

NASA Television, the agency’s website, and the NASA app are now broadcasting live coverage of the return to Earth of a trio of Russian spacefarers.

The Soyuz MS-18 spacecraft carrying Russian cosmonaut Oleg Novitskiy of Roscosmos and Russian actress Yulia Peresild and Russian producer-director Klim Shipenko will make its deorbit burn at 11:41 p.m. EDT to set the spaceship on its re-entry through Earth’s atmosphere for a landing in Kazakhstan at 12:35 a.m. (10:35 a.m. Kazakhstan time) Sunday, October 17.

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.

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Mark Garcia

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