Seven-Member Expedition 73 Crew Awaits Dragon and Preps for Spacewalk
A cargo-packed SpaceX Dragon spacecraft is orbiting Earth today heading toward the International Space Station for a docking on Tuesday. The Expedition 73 crew prepared on Monday for Dragon’s arrival and also reviewed procedures for an upcoming spacewalk.
Approximately 6,700 pounds of new science experiments and supplies are on the way to the orbital lab following Dragon’s launch at 4:15 a.m. EDT on Monday from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Astronauts Jonny Kim of NASA and Takuya Onishi of JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) will be on duty monitoring Dragon when it automatically docks to the station’s space-facing port on the Harmony module at around 8:20 a.m. on Tuesday live on NASA+. The duo joined NASA Flight Engineers Anne McClain and Nichole Ayers on Monday and studied plans to retrieve critical research investigations for activation and crew food packs and more for stowage aboard the orbital outpost.
McClain and Ayers are also getting ready for a May 1 spacewalk when they will prepare the station for a new rollout solar array and relocate an antenna that communicates with commercial vehicles. The NASA pair reviewed on Monday standard safety procedures, their tool configurations, and the spacewalking maneuvers and paths they will use to access their worksites. They also joined Kim and Onishi and called down to mission controllers at the end of their shift and discussed spacewalk operations. Mission managers will provide an overview of the upcoming spacewalk during a news conference from NASA’s Johnson Space Center at 2 p.m. on Thursday.
Kim earlier set up two student-controlled computers for a European Space Agency educational event. One computer outfitted with a camera was pointed out a window toward Earth for students with intermediate coding skills to remotely capture imagery and accurately calculate the space station’s speed. The second computer was targeted to younger students with beginner coding skills and tested their ability to create pixel-art images on the computer’s LED screen.
Onishi, the station’s commander, started his day recording a video for Japanese students to inspire them as they decide on space-related careers. Next, he conducted leak checks on combustion science hardware then set up the Internal Ball Camera-2 for remote operations, both located inside the Kibo laboratory module. Finally, the two-time space station resident worked inside the Destiny laboratory module adjusting science hardware in the Combustion Integrated Rack.
The orbiting lab’s three cosmonauts took a well-deserved break on Monday following two weeks of Soyuz crew swap activities. Roscosmos Flight Engineers Sergey Ryzhikov and Ivan Vagner have adjusted to life in space after arriving at the station with Jonny Kim on April 8 inside the Soyuz MS-27 spacecraft. Flight Engineer Kirill Peskov has been aboard the station since March 15 arriving with the SpaceX Crew-10 mission and helped his cosmonaut crewmates get oriented to microgravity. Kirill and his crewmates also said goodbye to three Expedition 72 crew members, NASA astronaut Don Pettit and Roscosmos cosmonauts Alexey Ovchinin and Ivan Vagner, when they undocked from the station and returned to Earth on April 19 inside the Soyuz MS-26 spacecraft.
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.
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Mark A. Garcia
