Expedition 72 is starting the New 12 months getting ready for an upcoming spacewalk to service science {hardware} and set up communications gear. The International Space Station residents additionally performed area agriculture and labored on cargo duties originally of the week.
Two NASA astronauts are scheduled to exit the orbital outpost’s Quest airlock this month for a spacewalk to checkout a pair of astrophysics experiments connected to the surface of the area station, in addition to conduct different duties. First, the NICER X-ray telescope will likely be serviced with a patch to forestall undesirable daylight from getting into the instrument and corrupting analysis information. Subsequent, the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer will likely be ready for future upgrades tasked for spacewalks deliberate later this 12 months.
The 4 astronauts aboard the station together with Commander Suni Williams and Combat Engineers Nick Hague, Don Pettit, and Butch Wilmore labored all through Monday getting ready for the science upkeep spacewalk. These preps included accumulating and organizing spacewalking instruments inside Quest and working towards putting in the jetpacks on spacesuits a spacewalker would use to maneuver again to security within the unlikely occasion they turned untethered from the area station. The quartet additionally reviewed the procedures deliberate for the primary spacewalk of 2025.
Pettit and Wilmore rounded out their day conducting science and transferring cargo. Pettit labored within the Columbus laboratory module thinning Crimson Romaine lettuce seedlings to study how to grow food crops on space missions. Wilmore transferred cargo out and in of the Cygnus cargo craft that has been berthed to the Unity module since Aug. 6, 2024.
The three cosmonauts from Roscosmos spent their shift within the Roscosmos phase of the orbiting lab performing quite a lot of science and upkeep duties. Flight Engineer Aleksandr Gorbunov photographed microorganisms being incubated for an area biology research. Flight Engineer Ivan Vagner spent his day pumping water and transferring cargo from contained in the Progress 90 resupply ship that docked to the Poisk module on Nov. 23. Flight Engineer Alexey Ovchinin inventoried {hardware} contained in the Zarya, Zvezda, Nauka, and Poisk modules.
Study 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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