December 23, 2024

A Critical Week Kicks Off Aboard the International Space Station

The 4 SpaceX Crew-7 members present for a portrait in their pressure fits. 4 spaceships are parked at the space station consisting of the SpaceX Dragon Endeavour, Northrop Grummans Cygnus area freighter, the Soyuz MS-23 team ship, and the Progress 84 resupply ship. NASA Jasmin Moghbeli astronaut will command SpaceX Crew-7 objective specialists Andreas Mogensen of ESA (European Space Agency), Satoshi Furukawa of JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency), and Konstantin Borisov of Roscosmos throughout their ride to the orbital laboratory. The quartet, inside the SpaceX Dragon Endurance spacecraft, will dock to the Harmony modules space-facing port at 2:02 a.m. on Saturday.
The foursome released to the station as the SpaceX Crew-6 mission on March 2, docked the following day, got in the station, and ended up being Expedition 68-69 flight engineers.

The four SpaceX Crew-7 members pose for a portrait in their pressure fits. From left are, Jasmin Moghbeli, Andreas Mogensen, Satoshi Furukawa, and Konstantin Borisov. Credit: SpaceX
The Expedition 69 team is preparing for cargo and team automobiles headed to the International Space Station (ISS) today. The 7 orbital citizens are likewise continuing crucial area research while preparing for Septembers team departure activities.
Roscosmos Progress Activities
An extra port on the orbital outpost is now open after the departure of the Roscosmos Progress 83 freight craft at 7:50 p.m. EDT on Sunday, August 20. It will be changed by the Roscosmos Progress 85 cargo craft after it releases at 9:08 p.m. EDT on Tuesday from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. The Progress 85 will dock to the port left uninhabited by the Progress 83 on the aft end of the Zvezda service module at 11:50 p.m. on Thursday.
Leader Sergey Prokopyev signed up with Flight Engineer Dmitri Petelin on Monday training for the 85Ps arrival. The duo from Roscosmos practiced using the telerobotically operated rendezvous unit, or TORU, located in Zvezda. A cosmonaut would use the TORU to remotely manage a getting here spacecraft in the not likely occasion the approaching automobile was unable to automatically dock.

International Space Station Configuration on August 20, 2023. 4 spaceships are parked at the spaceport station consisting of the SpaceX Dragon Endeavour, Northrop Grummans Cygnus area freighter, the Soyuz MS-23 crew ship, and the Progress 84 resupply ship. Credit: NASA
SpaceX Crew-7 Mission
Four Commercial Crew members are at NASAs Kennedy Space Center counting down to their launch to the orbital lab at 3:49 a.m. EDT on Friday. NASA Jasmin Moghbeli astronaut will command SpaceX Crew-7 objective specialists Andreas Mogensen of ESA (European Space Agency), Satoshi Furukawa of JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency), and Konstantin Borisov of Roscosmos during their ride to the orbital laboratory. The quartet, inside the SpaceX Dragon Endurance spacecraft, will dock to the Harmony modules space-facing port at 2:02 a.m. on Saturday.
Departure of Expedition 69 Crewmates
One week after the arrival of the SpaceX Crew-7 objective, four Expedition 69 crewmates will go back to Earth aboard the SpaceX Dragon Endeavour spacecraft. NASA astronaut Stephen Bowen will lead Woody Hoburg of NASA, Sultan Alneyadi of UAE (United Arab Emirates), and Andrey Fedyaev of Roscosmos when they undock from Harmonys forward port in Endeavour on September 1 and sprinkle down off the coast of Florida about 24 hours later on.
At the end of the day on Monday, the soon-to-be leaving quartet examined their departure activities and Dragon deorbit procedures on computer system tablets. Bowen, Hoburg, and Alneyadi also tried out specialized garments, also called orthostatic intolerance garments, that will assist their bodies rapidly re-adapt to Earths gravity after returning. The foursome launched to the station as the SpaceX Crew-6 mission on March 2, docked the following day, entered the station, and ended up being Expedition 68-69 flight engineers.
Match Evaluations and Ongoing Research
Cosmonauts Petelin and Fedyaev tested their own version of a suit, called the lower body unfavorable pressure fit, that helps crew members readjust to Earths gravity environment. They are examining the distinct fit for its potential to redistribute fluids that have actually pooled in the upper body, due to microgravity, towards the lower extremities.
NASA Flight Engineer Frank Rubio worked on science hardware throughout Monday, first reconfiguring the Cell Biology Experiment Facility, a biology research incubator. Later, he swapped out more graphene aerogel samples in the Microgravity Science Glovebox for a space manufacturing study.