Archivos de la categoría ISS News

NASA TV Broadcasts Earth-bound Trio Saying Farewell to Crewmates

Three people who have been living in space for a 204-day mission conducting science and maintenance aboard the International Space Station are set for return to Earth at 10:48 p.m. EDT Monday, June 24.

Coverage of the farewell and hatch closure is now underway on NASA TV and the agency’s website. Hatch closure is expected at approximately 4:10 p.m.

After closing the hatch to their Soyuz MS-11 spacecraft, NASA Flight Engineer Anne McClain, Expedition 59/Soyuz Commander Oleg Konenenko of the Russian space agency Roscosmos, and David Saint-Jacques of the Canadian Space Agency will undock from the station’s Rassvet module at 7:25 p.m. for their return to Earth, landing southeast of the remote town of Dzhezkazgan in Kazakhstan.

On Sunday, Konenenko handed over station command to Alexey Ovchinin of Roscosmos in a change of command ceremony. Expedition 60 officially will begin following the undocking of the Expedition 59 crew.

The Expedition 59 crew contributed to hundreds of experiments in biology, biotechnology, physical science and Earth science; conducted a total of four spacewalks; and saw the arrival and departure of six visiting spacecraft – including the first commercial crew flight test with the SpaceX Crew Dragon.

Their return will conclude 204 days in space since they launched Dec. 3. It was the fourth spaceflight for Konenenko and the first for McClain and Saint-Jacques, who now holds the record for the longest single spaceflight by a Canadian astronaut.

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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Virtual Reality Filming, Final Tests Before Crew Splits Up Monday

The Expedition 59 crew is going into the weekend preparing to split up on Monday amidst an array of ongoing human research. The orbital residents are also working on power upgrades and filming a virtual reality experience today.

Astronauts Anne McClain and David Saint-Jacques are in their final weekend aboard the International Space Station. They will ride back to Earth on Monday with Commander Oleg Kononenko inside the Soyuz MS-11 spacecraft. Their Soyuz vehicle undocks at 7:25 p.m. EDT and lands in Kazakhstan at 10:47 p.m. (8:47 a.m. Tuesday Kazakh time). NASA TV will broadcast all the homecoming activities live.

Kononenko will hand over station command to cosmonaut Alexey Ovchinin in a ceremony slated for Sunday at 3:35 p.m. live on NASA TV. Ovchinin officially becomes commander of Expedition 60 when the homebound trio’s Soyuz undocks Monday. NASA astronauts Christina Koch and Nick Hague are continuing their stay aboard the orbiting lab.

McClain and Saint-Jacques participated in one final study today exploring behavior, performance and cognition in space. The duo practiced grappling a cargo craft during a robotic simulation for the Behavioral Core Measures study. McClain also prepared a CubeSat for deployment next week. Saint-Jacques recorded a science video demonstrating Newton’s second and third laws in microgravity.

Hague joined McClain during the morning setting up the CubeSat hardware inside Japan’s Kibo laboratory module. In the afternoon, he partnered up with Koch and upgraded power electronics hardware in the Harmony module.

Finally, all six crewmembers gathered in the Zvezda service module at dinnertime and videotaped their activities with a 360-degree camera. The crew has been filming a variety of immersive, cinematic experiences throughout their mission to share with audiences on Earth.

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Mark Garcia

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Station Trio Reviews Landing Procedures During Human, Physics Research

Three Expedition 59 crewmembers are reviewing the procedures they will use on their way to Earth after undocking from the International Space Station early next week. In the midst of the departure preparations, the six orbital residents also had time set aside for biomedical science and physics research aboard the orbiting lab.

Commander Oleg Kononenko will lead astronauts Anne McClain and David Saint-Jacques back to Earth on Monday inside the Soyuz MS-11 spacecraft after 204 days in space. The trio spent the afternoon practicing their Soyuz undocking, atmosphere reentry and landing procedures. The homebound crew also familiarized themselves with the g-forces and the physical sensations they will experience when they penetrate Earth’s atmosphere 100 kilometers above Earth’s surface.

McClain continued more biomedical tests Thursday as she submitted breath samples for the Marrow fat and blood cell study. Saint-Jacques injected control samples inside the new Bio-Analyzer to demonstrate the rapid analysis of blood, urine and saliva samples in microgravity.

Flight Engineer Christina Koch is in the midst of a ten-and-a-half month mission on the station, conducting scientific research and station maintenance. Today, she explored the possibility of producing high-grade fiber optic cables made possible only in microgravity. Fellow NASA astronaut Nick Hague, who is staying in space until October, nourished and collected samples of microalgae grown inside the Photobioreactor. The study is demonstrating biological processes that may support hybrid life support systems in space.

Flight Engineer Alexey Ovchinin will lead Expedition 60 after the Expedition 59 trio departs Monday. He and Kononenko continued training to use a specialized Russian suit that counteracts the upward fluid shifts in the human body caused by microgravity. Ovchinin also checked inventory and configured hardware aboard Russia’s Progress 72 resupply ship.

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Mark Garcia

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Alzheimer’s Research and Homecoming Packing Aboard Lab Today

Three Expedition 59 crewmembers are less than one week away from completing their 204-day mission aboard the International Space Station. In the meantime, space research continues into advanced life support systems and nanoparticle therapies for Alzheimer’s disease.

Astronauts Anne McClain and David Saint-Jacques collected and stowed their biological samples for the Probiotics human research experiment this morning. The study from the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency is researching the consumption of beneficial bacteria, or probiotics, to promote healthy intestines and immune systems in space.

The two flight engineers are also packing cargo and personal items for return to Earth inside the Soyuz MS-11 crew craft. Commander Oleg Kononenko will lead the duo home inside the Russian spaceship for a June 24 landing in Kazakhstan. The threesome blasted off Dec. 3 and docked to the station’s Poisk module about six hours later inside the same Soyuz vehicle.

NASA TV will cover all the homecoming activities live beginning Sunday at 3:35 pm. EDT with the Change of Command Ceremony. Monday’s crew farewell and hatch closing will be at 4:10 p.m. with Soyuz undocking at 7:25 p.m. The Soyuz vehicle will fire its engines one last time at 9:55 p.m., followed by a parachute-assisted a landing in Kazakhstan on Monday at 10:48 p.m. EDT (Tuesday 8:48 a.m. Kazakh time).

NASA is evaluating technologies for a lightweight, advanced life support system that can recover water and remove carbon dioxide in space. Flight Engineer Nick Hague is supporting that research today with more Capillary Structures work. Hague is using specialized hardware to demonstrate the flow of fluid and gas mixtures using surface tension and fluid dynamics.

NASA Flight Engineer Christina Koch is helping doctors on Earth target therapies for diseases such as Alzheimer’s and human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). She collected samples from a temperature-controlled experiment facility and stowed them in a science freezer for analysis on Wednesday. The research is exploring manufacturing nanoparticles that target a disease’s underlying cause rather than its symptoms.

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Mark Garcia

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Biomedicine and Physics Research During Crew Departure Preps Today

Biomedicine and physics topped the research schedule aboard the International Space Station today. The Expedition 59 crew also checked out U.S. spacesuits while preparing a Russian crew ship for return to Earth next week.

NASA is preparing for human missions to the Moon, Mars and beyond. The astronauts aboard the orbiting lab are helping scientists keep crews healthy and engineers design safer, more advanced spacecraft.

Astronauts Anne McClain and David Saint-Jacques started Tuesday morning collecting blood, urine and body swab samples for the Standard Measures study. They stowed the samples in a science freezer for later analysis to help doctors understand how humans respond to microgravity.

The Genes In Space-6 (GIS-6) experiment had another run today inside Europe’s Columbus laboratory module. Christina Koch of NASA set up the Biomolecule Sequencer to sequence DNA samples during the morning. The DNA research seeks to understand how space radiation mutates DNA and assesses the molecular level repair process.

She and Saint-Jacques also took turns resizing U.S. spacesuits and swapping out components. Mission managers are planning more spacewalks later this year for battery and science hardware maintenance.

Flight Engineer Nick Hague spent most of Tuesday running the Capillary Structures study to observe how fluid and gas mixtures behave inside structures designed for microgravity. Today’s operations demonstrated fluid flows with potential applications for advanced life support systems in space.

Commander Oleg Kononenko continues inventorying gear and trash for packing inside the Soyuz MS-11 spacecraft. He will complete a 204-day mission with McClain and Saint-Jacques when they parachute to a landing in Kazakhstan on June 24 scheduled for 10:48 p.m. EDT (June 25 8:48 a.m. Kazakh time).

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Mark Garcia

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