Crew Works Eye Checks, Abdomen Scans Earlier than Cargo Mission Launches At the moment

Eye checks and abdomen scans dominated the analysis schedule aboard the Worldwide Area Station on Thursday guaranteeing astronauts keep wholesome in weightlessness. The Expedition 72 crew can also be gearing up for the arrival of a brand new cargo mission this weekend.

Medical doctors have recognized eye situations in astronauts who’ve reported imaginative and prescient points after dwelling and dealing in microgravity for months at a time. Quite a lot of eye exams scheduled all through a mission assist researchers monitor and perceive the space-caused optical signs and develop remedies to maintain crews wholesome.

NASA Flight Engineer Butch Wilmore kicked off the primary set of eye exams on Wednesday scanning the eyes of NASA astronauts Suni Williams and Nick Hague utilizing the Ultrasound 2 system. The trio was contained in the Columbus laboratory module as docs on the bottom monitored the downlinked biomedical knowledge in actual time analyzing the crew’s cornea, lens, and optic nerve.

The second set of eye exams included Williams, Hague, and Roscosmos Flight Engineer Aleksandr Gorbunov who peered right into a high-resolution medical imaging system analyzing their retina. Flight Engineers Don Pettit of NASA and Alexey Ovchinin of Roscosmos, with distant steerage from docs on Earth, assisted with the attention examine to detect and counter eye and imaginative and prescient points brought about throughout area missions.

In the beginning of his shift, Hague eliminated blood samples from the Kubik analysis incubator and spun them within the Human Analysis Facility’s centrifuge. He then processed the specimens for stowage in a science freezer for later evaluation. The samples shall be studied on the area station to know space-caused stress on cells and tissue and the way the human immune system adapts to weightlessness.

Gorbunov and Flight Engineer Ivan Vagner have been again on area digestion analysis initially of their shift on Wednesday. The 2 cosmonauts joined one another for ultrasound scans of their stomachs earlier than and after breakfast for a long-running human analysis investigation to find out how weightlessness impacts their digestion system.

The Progress 91 cargo craft is counting to its launch to the orbital outpost from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 4:24 p.m. EST in the present day. Ovchinin and cosmonaut Ivan Vagner shall be on obligation when Progress 91 and its three tons of meals, gas, and provides arrives on Saturday and docks to the Zvezda service module’s aft port at 6:03 p.m. Each the launch and docking shall be broadcast stay on NASA+.

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.

Get the newest from NASA delivered each week. Subscribe right here:

February 27, 2025