Expedition 70 Welcomes 4 New Crewmates, Rapidly Will get to Work – Area Station

11 crew members now reside aboard the International Space Station following the arrival of the SpaceX Crew-8 mission early Tuesday morning. The 4 new Crew-8 members will spend the subsequent few days getting used to life on orbit as 4 Expedition 70 crewmates pack up for his or her return to Earth.

The SpaceX Dragon “Endeavour“ spacecraft docked to the ahead port of orbital outpost’s Concord module at 2:28 a.m. EST on Tuesday. About an hour-and-a-half later, Crew-8 Commander Matthew Dominick, Pilot Mike Barratt, and Mission Specialists Jeanette Epps and Alexander Grebenkin opened Dragon’s hatch and entered Concord formally changing into station flight engineers. Quickly after, the brand new quartet, with the Expedition 70 septet, referred to as all the way down to Earth for welcome remarks.

Afterward, your entire crew rapidly set to work first conducting a security briefing, then unpacking new science and provides, conducting well being checks, and extra. The crewmates transferred Dragon freezers containing analysis samples and put in them into science racks all through the station. Tuesday’s well being research included testing the inner-ear stability system, conducting eye scans with an ultrasound system, and evaluating a specialised swimsuit’s skill to assist a crew member readjust to Earth’s gravity.

The foursome will dwell aboard the area station for a six-month area analysis mission. They are going to reap the benefits of the microgravity atmosphere to discover the mechanisms behind neurodegenerative problems, how spaceflight impacts plant growth to maintain crews, countering space-caused fluid shifts that create head and eye stress in astronauts, and the potential for algae to enhance spacecraft life help programs.

Whereas Crew-8 will get up to the mark with area station programs, 4 Expedition 70 crewmates are nearing their departure after a six-and-a-half-month mission on orbit. NASA astronaut Jasmin Moghbeli will lead Andreas Mogensen of ESA (European Area Company), Satoshi Furukawa of JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Company) and Konstantin Borisov of Roscosmos again to Earth contained in the SpaceX Dragon “Endurance” spacecraft. The homebound quartet has been aboard the station since Aug. 27, 2023, and is anticipated to undock from Concord’s space-facing port no sooner than Monday, March 11.

The station’s different three crewmates, NASA astronaut Loral O’Hara and cosmonauts Oleg Kononenko and Nikolai Chub, have been aboard the station since Sept. 15, after they docked to the Rassvet module contained in the Soyuz MS-24 crew ship. O’Hara is because of return to Earth in April whereas Kononenko and Chub will keep in area for a number of extra months.

Be taught extra about station actions by following the area station weblog, @space_station and @ISS_Research on X, in addition to the ISS Facebook and ISS Instagram accounts.

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