The Soyuz rocket is seen after being rolled out by train to the launch pad at Site 31, Tuesday, September 12, 2023, at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Expedition 70 NASA astronaut Loral OHara, Roscosmos cosmonauts Oleg Kononenko, and Nikolai Chub are arranged to introduce aboard their Soyuz MS-24 spacecraft on September 15. Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls
Objective managers have actually given the go for the launch of 3 new crew members aboard the Soyuz MS-24 spacecraft to the International Space Station at 11:44 a.m. EDT today, Friday, September 15. NASA astronaut Loral OHara and Roscosmos cosmonauts Oleg Kononenko and Nikolai Chub will ride the Soyuz team ship and dock to the Rassvet module just over 3 hours later at 2:56 p.m.
Arrival and Integration
Exploration 69 Commander Sergey Prokopyev and Flight Engineer Dmitri Petelin will be on task Friday keeping an eye on the arrival of the new Soyuz. After the brand-new team docks and after leak and pressure checks, Prokopyev will open the stations Rassvet hatch while Kononenko and Chub will open the Soyuz hatch. The new trio will get in the orbital outpost, join the station crew for an inviting ceremony, participate in a security briefing, and begin a six-month space research study mission.
Preparation Activities
Prokopyev and Petelin continued getting ready for the arrival of the new trio by establishing team quarters for the brand-new cosmonauts inside the orbital laboratorys Roscosmos segment on Thursday. NASA Flight Engineer Frank Rubio will configure OHaras new team quarters in the Columbus lab module on Friday before she gets here.
The Soyuz rocket is seen after being rolled out by train to the launch pad at Site 31, Tuesday, September 12, 2023, at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Exploration 70 NASA astronaut Loral OHara, Roscosmos cosmonauts Oleg Kononenko, and Nikolai Chub are scheduled to launch aboard their Soyuz MS-24 spacecraft on September 15. The Soyuz rocket is seen after being rolled out by train to the launch pad at Site 31, Tuesday, September 12, 2023, at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Exploration 70 NASA astronaut Loral OHara, Roscosmos cosmonauts Oleg Kononenko, and Nikolai Chub are arranged to release aboard their Soyuz MS-24 spacecraft on September 15. Prokopyev, Petelin, and Rubio are also preparing for their return to Earth inside the Soyuz MS-23 spacecraft on September 27.
The Soyuz rocket is seen after being presented by train to the launch pad at Site 31, Tuesday, September 12, 2023, at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Exploration 70 NASA astronaut Loral OHara, Roscosmos cosmonauts Oleg Kononenko, and Nikolai Chub are set up to release aboard their Soyuz MS-24 spacecraft on September 15. Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls
Upcoming Departure
Prokopyev, Petelin, and Rubio are likewise preparing for their go back to Earth inside the Soyuz MS-23 spacecraft on September 27. The two cosmonauts have been testing the lower body unfavorable pressure match that might assist their bodies adjust quicker to Earths gravity after living in weightlessness for simply over one year. When Rubio lands with his Soyuz crewmates, he will have the record for the longest single spaceflight by a NASA astronaut at 371 days, surpassing astronaut Mark Vande Heis record of 355 days.
Scientific Endeavors
Rubio joined several of his Expedition 69 crewmates on Thursday for the Vascular Aging research study gathering blood, urine, and saliva samples for analysis. Rubio along with astronauts Jasmin Moghbeli, Andreas Mogensen, and Satoshi Furukawa helped each other with the blood draws. Moghbeli of NASA liquidated the research study spinning samples in a centrifuge and after that stowing them in a science freezer.
Additional Activities
Mogensen of ESA (European Space Agency) later trained to operate the Canadarm2 robotic arm and serviced laptop in the Columbus laboratory. Furukawa from JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) established food and beverages for the showing up crew and gathered water samples for analysis from the Kibo laboratory module.
Roscosmos cosmonaut Konstantin Borisov focused his activities on orbital pipes and electronic devices upkeep during the first part of his day. In the afternoon, he checked out video hardware and laptop.