Archivo de la etiqueta: spacestation

Crew Readies for Dragon Relocation, Works Robotics and Connects with Students on Earth

Mission preparations are underway aboard the International Space Station as a spacecraft relocation on Thursday will make room for a crew arrival next week. The Expedition 71 crew spent Wednesday reviewing mission procedures, conducting robotics activities, and connecting with students on Earth.

Four crew members will suit up Thursday, May 2 and enter the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft to relocate it to a new port as the countdown to NASA’s Boeing Crew Flight Test continues. NASA astronauts Mike Barratt, Matthew Dominick, and Jeanette Epps, as well as cosmonaut Alexander Grebenkin of Roscosmos, will undock from the forward port of the Harmony module at 7:45 a.m. EDT and take a short ride aboard Dragon before redocking to the zenith port of Harmony around 8:28 a.m.

The quartet spent Wednesday morning reviewing procedures for Dragon’s relocation and was later joined by NASA astronaut Tracy C. Dyson—who will be monitoring the maneuver—to hold a conference with ground teams. In preparation for the move, Epps also cleaned and inspected the health of Dragon’s capture and docking system, then later reorganized supplies within the spacecraft.

After tomorrow’s relocation, Harmony’s forward port will be available, making room for the arrival of Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft next week. Starliner, scheduled to launch at 10:34 p.m. Monday, May 6, will carry NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams to the orbiting laboratory, with docking scheduled for around 12:46 a.m. Wednesday, May 8. The duo will spend about a week aboard station to test the Starliner spacecraft and its subsystems before NASA certifies the transportation system for rotational missions to the orbital complex as part of the agency’s Commercial Crew Program.

As the crew arrival nears, Dyson, Dominick, and Barratt held a conference with ground teams in the afternoon to go over Starliner procedures, including rendezvous, docking, and departure.

The orbital septet also scheduled in some time for robotics, space-to-ground operations, and maintenance on Wednesday. Dyson powered on Astrobee, the station’s free-flying robots, and performed a Zero Robotics tech demonstration, which allows students on Earth to write software to control the robots.

Dominick connected with students in North Carolina through an ISS Ham Radio session, answering questions about living and working in space. Meanwhile, Epps recalibrated ethernet cable connections in the crew quarters and Barratt conducted some routine orbital plumbing.

In the Roscosmos segment, station Commander Oleg Kononenko ran an experiment that studies the glow of Earth’s nighttime atmosphere in near-ultraviolet, while Flight Engineer Nikolai Chub investigated the behavior of various liquid phases exposed to different temperatures and vibrations in the microgravity environment.

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 updates from NASA Johnson Space Center at: https://roundupreads.jsc.nasa.gov/

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Abby Graf

On-Orbit Training and Health Research Occupy Schedule on Tuesday

A suite of on-orbit training topped Tuesday’s schedule aboard the International Space Station as the Expedition 71 crew gets ready for a spacecraft relocation on Thursday and a crew arrival next week. Four crew members also spent some time conducting ongoing health research to help scientists on Earth better understand the effects of spaceflight on the human body.

In the morning, NASA Flight Engineers Mike Barratt and Jeanette Epps assisted one another with ultrasound scans of veins in their necks, shoulders, clavicles, and back of the knees. The duo was then joined by their other Crew-8 crewmates, Flight Engineers Matthew Dominick of NASA and Alexander Grebenkin of Roscosmos, to review procedures and complete training for the upcoming relocation of their SpaceX Dragon spacecraft.

The quartet will suit up Thursday, May 2 and enter Dragon for an undocking from the forward port of the Harmony module at 7:45 a.m. EDT. They will then take a short ride aboard Dragon before redocking to the zenith port of Harmony around 8:28 a.m.

This relocation will make room for the Starliner spacecraft as part of NASA’s Boeing Crew Flight Test, scheduled to launch Monday, May 6 at 10:34 p.m. Starliner will carry NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams to the station for a docking around 12:48 a.m. Wednesday, May 8. The duo will join the Expedition 71 crew in low Earth orbit for about a week before returning home.

After lunch, the Crew-8 cadre was joined by astronaut Tracy C. Dyson of NASA, space station Commander Oleg Kononenko, and Flight Engineer Nikolai Chub of Roscosmos to complete a fire training session in the event an emergency were to occur aboard station. The septet then spent some time discussing the training and holding a conference with ground teams.

In the evening, Dominick set up tomography hardware and assisted Dyson with an eye exam. Dyson then shut down and stowed the hardware, wrapping up a round of health exams for the week.

On Earth, a SpaceX Dragon cargo spacecraft, which spent about a month docked to the orbiting laboratory, splashed down off the coast of Florida at 1:38 a.m. Tuesday, April 30, returning more than 4,100 pounds of supplies and scientific experiments back to researchers.

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 updates from NASA Johnson Space Center at: https://roundupreads.jsc.nasa.gov/

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Abby Graf

Dragon Spacecraft Splashes Down Completing Resupply Mission

SpaceX’s uncrewed Dragon cargo spacecraft splashed down at 1:38 a.m. EDT Tuesday off the coast of Tampa, Florida, marking the return of the company’s 30th contracted cargo resupply mission to the International Space Station for NASA. The spacecraft carried more than 4,100 pounds of valuable scientific experiments and other cargo back to Earth.

Next, four SpaceX Crew-8 members will board the Dragon crew spacecraft on  Thursday and undock the vehicle from the forward port of the station’s Harmony module and redock to Harmony’s zenith port. NASA TV coverage will begin on Thursday at 7:30 a.m. Undocking is scheduled at 7:45 a.m. with redocking scheduled at 8:28 a.m.

That will clear the forward port of Harmony for the arrival of the Boeing Starliner spacecraft with Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams aboard on the Crew Flight Test (CFT) mission. They are scheduled to launch at 10:34 pm on Monday, May 6, night atop an Atlas 5 rocket from Launch Complex 41 at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Fla..

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 Starts Week With Maintenance, Science Prep, and Health Exams

Five spacecraft are parked at the International Space Station following yesterday’s undocking of a cargo craft. Aboard the orbiting complex, the Expedition 71 crew is looking ahead to a Dragon relocation mid-week and the arrival of two new crew members next week. On Monday, the septet spent the day conducting routine maintenance, prepping for upcoming science activities, and performing health exams.

A Dragon cargo spacecraft is currently orbiting Earth preparing to splash down off the coast of Florida at approximately 1:38 a.m. EDT Tuesday, April 30. Dragon, which spent about a month docked to the station, departed at 1:10 p.m. Sunday, April 28, and is carrying more than 4,100 pounds of supplies and scientific experiments back to researchers on Earth.

Aboard station, four orbital residents—NASA astronauts Jeanette Epps, Matthew Dominick, Mike Barratt, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Alexander Grebenkin—are preparing to relocate their SpaceX Dragon spacecraft on Thursday, May 2 to the zenith port of the Harmony module. This relocation will make room for the Starliner spacecraft as part of NASA’s Boeing Crew Flight Test, scheduled to launch Monday, May 6. Starliner will carry NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams to the station for about a one week stay.

While mission preparations are underway, Dominick set up hardware to perform an eye exam on Epps and measure her blood pressure using a new thigh cuff. The hardware examines whether cuffs on the legs change the way fluid moves around the body. The microgravity environment often causes fluids to shift toward the head, which can result in changes to vision and eye structure. Scientists are exploring whether the new hardware could be useful for astronauts to wear in the future as a normal part of spaceflight.

In the Destiny laboratory module, Barratt swapped out cartridges inside the Materials Science Laboratory and prepared it for an upcoming sample run. The facility is used to investigate the behavior of different types of materials at high temperatures in microgravity. Meanwhile, NASA Flight Engineer Tracy C. Dyson changed out two water resupply tanks in the water storage system, then moved on to perform routine maintenance on the station’s Advanced Resistive Exercise Device, or ARED.

Over in the Roscosmos segment, Grebenkin practiced his piloting techniques during a Pilot-T session. His crewmates, Commander Oleg Kononenko and Flight Engineer Nikolai Chub, stowed tools they used during a four-hour and 36-minute spacewalk on Thursday, April 25.

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 updates from NASA Johnson Space Center at: https://roundupreads.jsc.nasa.gov/

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Abby Graf

Dragon Undocks from Station for Return to Earth

Following commands from ground controllers at SpaceX in Hawthorne, California, Dragon undocked at 1:10 p.m. EDT from the forward port of the station’s Harmony module. At the time of undocking, the station was flying at an altitude about 260 miles above Earth.

After re-entering Earth’s atmosphere, the spacecraft will make a parachute-assisted splashdown off the coast of Florida at 1:38 a.m. Tuesday, April 30. NASA will not broadcast the splashdown, but updates will be posted on the agency’s space station blog.

Dragon arrived at the space station as SpaceX’s 30th commercial resupply services mission for NASA, delivering about 6,000 pounds of research investigations, crew supplies, and station hardware. It was launched March 21 on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.

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