December 23, 2024

Space Station Crew Preps for Spacewalk and Dragon Spaceship Relocation

The Richat Structure, likewise called the “Eye of the Sahara,” an eroded geological dome in the nation of Mauritania, is envisioned from the International Space Station as it orbited 259 miles above the African continent. At left, from leading to bottom, are the Nauka multipurpose laboratory modules forward port, the Prichal docking module, and the Soyuz MS-23 team ship. Credit: NASA
Two cosmonauts from Roscosmos are getting ready for the fifth spacewalk of the year on the ISS to transfer an experiment airlock. Concurrently, 4 team members are getting ready to move the SpaceX Crew Dragon Endeavour to a new port. In the middle of these operations, the team is also focusing on research involving robotics and bioprinting of organ-like tissues in microgravity.
2 cosmonauts are preparing yourself to leave the International Space Station (ISS) on Wednesday, May 3, to carry out the years 5th spacewalk. The remainder of the Expedition 69 crew invested Tuesday preparing to relocate the SpaceX Crew Dragon spaceship, establishing robotic free-flyers, and dealing with life support maintenance.
Leader Sergey Prokopyev and Flight Engineer Dmitri Petelin of Roscosmos are completing their treatment reviews and finishing their Orlan spacesuit setups today ahead of a spacewalk prepared to start at 4:05 p.m. EDT (1:05 p.m. PDT) on Wednesday. The duo will invest about six-and-a-half hours getting rid of an experiment airlock from the Rassvet module and then installing it on the Nauka science module. Flight Engineer Andrey Fedyaev will be inside the station assisting the spacewalkers and navigating the European robotic arm with the airlock in its grip.

Roscosmos cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitri Petelin perform a six-hour and 25-minute spacewalk on November 17, 2022, in their Orlan spacesuits to move a radiator from the Rassvet module to the Nauka multipurpose lab module for future setup. The duo is envisioned connected to the Rassvet module with the Soyuz MS-22 team ship docked at top. Credit: NASA
Coming up on Saturday, four team members will get in the SpaceX Crew Dragon Endeavour and move the spaceship to a new station port. The quartet will undock from the Harmony modules space-facing port at 7:10 a.m. and then redock to Harmonys forward port at 7:53 a.m
.
NASA television is covering both the spacewalk and the Dragon moving activities live on the companys app and site. Spacewalk protection begins at 2:30 p.m. on Wednesday and the Dragon moving broadcast starts at 6 a.m. on Saturday.
Animation of Astrobees on the International Space Station. Credit: NASA
Robotics and bioprinting were the top research top priorities on Tuesday in the middle of the spacewalk and Dragon preparations. Hoburg turned on an Astrobee robotic free-flyer in the Kibo laboratory module during the early morning and tested its operations in conjunction with mission controllers. The robotics work is being done to demonstrate ways to control the complimentary leaflets using student-written code. NASA Flight Engineer Frank Rubio dealt with the BioFabrication Facility (BFF) changing and installing elements. The BFF is developed to print organ-like tissues in microgravity and find out how to make entire, fully operating human organs in space.
Bowen and Sultan partnered together throughout the morning inside the Destiny laboratory module working on life support gear. The duo took turns gathering water samples and changing parts from inside Destinys oxygen generation system.

At left, from leading to bottom, are the Nauka multipurpose laboratory modules forward port, the Prichal docking module, and the Soyuz MS-23 team ship. The duo will spend about six-and-a-half hours getting rid of an experiment airlock from the Rassvet module and then installing it on the Nauka science module. Roscosmos cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitri Petelin perform a six-hour and 25-minute spacewalk on November 17, 2022, in their Orlan spacesuits to move a radiator from the Rassvet module to the Nauka multipurpose laboratory module for future setup. The duo is envisioned tethered to the Rassvet module with the Soyuz MS-22 crew ship docked at top. The quartet will undock from the Harmony modules space-facing port at 7:10 a.m. and then redock to Harmonys forward port at 7:53 a.m
.