Archivo de la etiqueta: spacestation

NASA, Boeing Crew Fly Jet to Florida for Starliner Launch

The two NASA astronauts that will fly aboard a new spacecraft for the first time to the International Space Station are on their way on Thursday to the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida to begin final launch preparations. 

NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams are targeting 10:34 p.m. EDT Monday, May 6, for launch of the agency’s Boeing Crew Flight Test from Space Launch Complex-41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. 

As retired U.S. Navy captains, Wilmore and Williams are flying on a T-38 jet from Ellington Field near NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston for the short flight to Kennedy’s Launch and Landing Facility. 

At 1 p.m., NASA will host a crew arrival event at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, with the following participants:

• Jennifer Kunz, associate director, NASA Kennedy 
• Dana Hutcherson, deputy manager, NASA’s Commercial Crew Program 
• NASA astronaut Butch Wilmore 
• NASA astronaut Suni Williams

The arrival will air live on NASA+, NASA Television, the NASA app, YouTube, and the agency’s website. Learn how to stream NASA TV through a variety of platforms including social media. 

Following launch, the astronauts will spend about a week at the orbiting laboratory before the crew capsule makes a parachute and airbag-assisted landing in the southwestern United States. 

Learn more about NASA’s Boeing Crew Flight Test by following the mission blog, the commercial crew blog, @commercial_crew on X, and commercial crew on Facebook.

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Elyna Niles-Carnes

Spacewalkers Get Ready as Crew Packs Dragon with Science

The Expedition 71 crew is getting ready for a spacewalk on Thursday while finishing payload operations inside a U.S. cargo craft before its return to Earth. The International Space Station residents also investigated antibiotic resistance and participated in a cardiorespiratory study on Wednesday.

Two cosmonauts will exit the orbital outpost’s Poisk airlock at 10:55 a.m. EDT on Thursday for a planned seven-hour spacewalk. Station Commander Oleg Kononenko and Flight Engineer Nikolai Chub will work outside in the vacuum of space to install hardware and science experiments on the station’s Roscosmos segment. The duo from Roscosmos spent Wednesday finalizing their procedure reviews and completing checks and component installations on their Russian Orlan spacesuits.

Flight Engineer Alexander Grebenkin joined his cosmonaut crewmates for the procedure reviews and installed radiation detectors on the duo’s spacesuits. Grebenkin will be on duty Thursday helping Kononenko and Chub in and out of their Orlan spacesuits and monitoring them while they work outside the space station.

Watch the year’s first spacewalk live on the NASA+ streaming service via the web or the NASA app beginning at 10:30 a.m. Coverage also will air live on NASA Television, YouTube, and on the agency’s website. Learn how to stream NASA TV through a variety of platforms including social media.

Meanwhile, in the opposite side of the station, the astronauts are packing the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft with completed experiments and their research samples for return and analysis back on Earth. NASA Flight Engineers Tracy C. Dyson and Matthew Dominick removed science freezers containing the critical science from inside the station and transferred them to Dragon for stowage. NASA Flight Engineers Mike Barratt and Jeanette Epps assisted with the experiment loading and prepared more research hardware that will soon carry biology samples back to the planet.

Earlier, Dyson pedaled on an exercise cycle while attached to sensors measuring how heart activity and breathing in microgravity affects a crew member’s blood pressure. After Dominick wrapped up his cargo activities, he serviced cardiac tissue samples printed inside the BioFabrication Facility and loaded them inside a MERLIN research incubator.

Barratt and Epps spent half the day exploring why microbes are more resistant to antibiotics in space. Barratt worked in the Kibo laboratory module processing bacteria samples in the Life Science Glovebox. Epps selected some of those bacteria colonies then moved into the Harmony module and extracted DNA from the samples for genomic analysis. Results may help researchers understand how bacteria adapts to weightlessness and develop ways to protect space crews and humans on Earth.

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/

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Mark Garcia

Crew Packs Dragon, Works Neuroscience, and Preps for Spacewalk

Payload operations are underway aboard the International Space Station as a U.S. cargo craft prepares for its return to Earth at the end of the week. Meanwhile, the Expedition 71 crew continued researching neuroscience and getting ready for the year’s first spacewalk.

The four NASA astronauts in the orbital outpost’s U.S. segment spent the first half of their day packing the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft with science cargo for analysis back on Earth. Flight Engineers Tracy C. Dyson and Matthew Dominick started the day removing research samples from station science freezers and carefully placing them inside Dragon science freezers. Afterward, Flight Engineers Mike Barratt and Jeanette Epps ensured cargo already packed inside Dragon was properly strapped and secured for the flight back to Earth. Dragon is due to undock from the Harmony module’s space-facing port on April 26, weather dependent, and splash down off the coast of Florida the following day.

Afterward, Barratt worked in the Destiny laboratory module and set up a fluorescence microscope then joined Epps and Dominick swapping brain organoid samples inside the optical device. Scientists on the ground remotely operated the specialized microscope viewing the samples to observe the effects of a drug therapy on the brain organoid cultures. Researchers will use the results to study ways protect an astronaut’s central nervous system in microgravity as well as prevent and treat neurological conditions on Earth.

Dyson serviced components and cleaned hardware inside the BioFabrication Facility located in the Columbus laboratory module. The 3D biological printer is being tested for its ability to print organ-like tissues in microgravity potentially enabling space crews to print meals or medicines and allowing doctors to manufacture organs for patients on Earth. Dyson then had her eyes checked as Dominick operated medical imaging gear to view her cornea, retina, and optic nerve.

The next spacewalk at the space station is scheduled for Thursday, April 25. Cosmonauts Oleg Kononenko and Nikolai Chub will exit the Poisk airlock and spend about seven hours configuring hardware and installing experiments on the Roscosmos segment of the space station. The duo spent most of Tuesday reviewing their spacewalk procedures and collecting tools planned for the excursion. The two cosmonauts began the day attaching sensors to themselves measuring their heart activity for a long-running Roscosmos cardiac study.

Flight Engineer Alexander Grebenkin joined his cosmonaut crewmates for the spacewalk procedure reviews on Thursday. He will help the duo in and out of their Orlan spacesuits and monitor the spacewalkers while they work outside the space station.

At the end of the day, Grebenkin joined Dominick, Barratt, and Epps, his SpaceX Dragon Endeavour crewmates, and checked out their Dragon pressure suits and communication systems. The quartet earlier tested a garment that may help crews adjust quicker to the effects of gravity after returning to Earth.

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/

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Mark Garcia

NASA’s Boeing Crew Flight Test Astronauts Enter Quarantine for Mission

NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, who are set to launch to the International Space Station on Monday, May 6, entered pre-flight quarantine in preparation for the agency’s Boeing Crew Flight Test mission.

Flight crew health stabilization is a standard process ahead of any human spaceflight mission to ensure the health and safety of the crew prior to liftoff, as well as prevent sickness of the astronauts at the space station. During quarantine, astronaut contact is limited, and most interactions are remote – although family and some launch team members also may be in quarantine or cleared before interacting with the crew.

Wilmore and Williams will launch aboard Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft on a ULA (United Launch Alliance) Atlas V rocket from Space Launch Complex-41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida as part of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program. The duo will make history as the first people to fly on the Starliner spacecraft.

Wilmore and Williams will quarantine at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston before traveling to the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida no earlier than Thursday, April 25, where they’ll remain in quarantine until launch.

Meanwhile, teams also are preparing for the Flight Test Readiness Review, which will take place over the course of two days – Wednesday, April 24, and April 25. That review brings together teams from NASA, Boeing, ULA, and its international partners to verify mission readiness including all systems, facilities, and teams that will support the end-to-end test of the Starliner.

Following a successful flight test, NASA will begin certifying the Starliner system for regular crew rotation missions to space station for the agency.

Launch is scheduled no earlier than 10:34 p.m. EDT May 6.

Learn more about NASA’s Boeing Crew Flight Test by following the mission blog, the commercial crew blog, @commercial_crew on X, and commercial crew on Facebook.

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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Elyna Niles-Carnes

Neurology Study and Spacewalk Preps Kickoff Week

The Expedition 71 crew kicked off a busy schedule on Monday exploring ways to treat neurological diseases while gearing up for a spacewalk planned for Thursday. Cargo operations are also picking up as a U.S. cargo craft gets ready for its departure from the International Space Station.

Researchers use the orbital outpost’s weightless environment to gain insights impossible to achieve on Earth’s surface. Results extrapolated from the space investigations can be applied not only to promoting living in space for crews but also improving health and industry on Earth for humans.

On Monday, NASA Flight Engineers Tracy C. Dyson and Mike Barratt took turns processing brain organoid samples for a neurodegenerative disorder study. Dyson first serviced the specimens and injected a drug treatment into the sample cultures for a microscopic analysis of the therapy’s ability to counteract the effects of microgravity. Barratt processed the samples at the end of the day preparing them for stowage and later analysis. Doctors will use the results to learn how protect a crew member’s central nervous system and provide treatments for neurodegenerative conditions on Earth.

The duo then joined fellow NASA astronauts Matthew Dominick and Jeanette Epps and helped pack the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft with cargo ahead of its targeted undocking on Friday, April 26. Soon the crewmates will begin concentrating on stowing completed science experiments, including the brain organoid study, and their critical research samples inside Dragon for the ride back to Earth and analysis in laboratories.

Station Commander Oleg Kononenko and Flight Engineer Nikolai Chub are getting ready for the year’s first spacewalk at the orbital lab set to begin at 10:55 a.m. EDT on Thursday. The duo tried on their Orlan spacesuits today checking for pressure leaks and testing their communications and medical systems. The cosmonauts will spend about seven hours in the vacuum of space configuring hardware and installing experiments on the Roscosmos segment of the space station.

Cosmonaut Alexander Grebenkin assisted his cosmonaut crewmates helping the duo in and out of their Orlan spacesuits and checking the suits’ components and batteries. Grebenkin then spent the rest of Monday servicing Roscosmos life support hardware and ventilation systems.

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

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Mark Garcia