One cargo spacecraft has docked to the Worldwide Area Station and one other one is on its technique to proceed resupplying the Expedition 73 crew. Whereas the orbital residents await their subsequent supply, they continued researching on Monday superior methods to maintain people wholesome and nourished on lengthy period house missions.
Roscosmos’ Progress 93 cargo craft accomplished its journey to the orbital outpost at 1:23 p.m. EDT on Saturday, Sept. 13, when it docked to the Zvezda service module’s rear port delivering over 2.8 tons of meals, gas, and provides. Station Commander Sergey Ryzhikov opened the Progress’ hatch the subsequent day and entered the spacecraft with Flight Engineer Alexey Ovchinin to start unpacking the brand new gear. Progress 93 started its mission after launching from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Thursday, Sept. 11.
Northrop Grumman’s Cygnus XL resupply ship, carrying over 11,000 kilos of recent science experiments and station {hardware}, is orbiting Earth at the moment after blasting off at 6:11 p.m. on Sunday, Sept. 14, from Cape Canaveral Area Power Station in Florida. Cygnus XL will catch as much as the orbital outpost on Wednesday as NASA Flight Engineers Jonny Kim and Zena Cardman monitor the spacecraft’s automated method and rendezvous. Kim will command the Canadarm2 robotic arm from the cupola’s robotics workstation to succeed in out and seize the spacecraft at 6:35 a.m. on Wednesday when it reaches some extent about 10 meters from the station. Floor controllers will then take over and remotely command Canadarm2 to put in Cygnus to the Unity module’s Earth-facing port the place it’s going to keep for six months. Hearken to mission managers speak in regards to the Cygnus XL mission throughout Friday’s prelaunch media teleconference on YouTube.
In the meantime, biotechnology analysis crammed Monday’s crew schedule retaining scientists on the bottom knowledgeable about microgravity’s impact on the human physique. The astronauts not solely examine superior house biology but additionally recurrently ship down bodily and psychological knowledge informing docs of crew well being in actual time.
Kim and Cardman joined one another in the beginning of their shift Monday amassing blood strain measurements and ultrasound artery scans. Kim, a Harvard-educated doctor, led the examine working the biomedical gear and analyzing Cardman with help from docs on the bottom. Cardman additionally wore electrodes measuring her cardiac exercise for the portion of the CIPHER human analysis investigation learning coronary heart, mind, and eye operate in house.
Later in the course of the second half of his shift, Kim took turns with Flight Engineer Kimiya Yui of JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Company) learning how liver tissues with blood vessels bioprinted on Earth react to weightlessness. They every cut up their shift and used a transportable glovebag contained in the Future laboratory module processing experiment modules containing the tissue samples then inserting the modules inside a synthetic gravity-generating analysis platform. Outcomes might advance the manufacture of high-quality vascularized tissues and organs bettering long run well being for astronauts and high quality of life for sufferers on Earth.
Cardman wrapped up her shift on Monday treating bone stem cell samples within the Kibo laboratory module’s Life Science Glovebox for preservation in a science freezer and later evaluation. Researchers are exploring how microgravity impacts bone tissue to safeguard a crew member’s skeletal system and presumably deal with ageing situations and bone ailments on Earth.
NASA Flight Engineer Mike Fincke labored contained in the Concord module exploring methods to supply nutritional vitamins and vitamins on spacecraft serving to provide satisfactory vitamin for long-term house missions. He handled yeast, yogurt, and fermented milk samples then stowed them in a analysis incubator for the BioNutrients-3 investigation searching for to create a biomanufacturing facility to assist maintain future house crews.
Roscosmos cosmonauts Sergey Ryzhikov and Alexey Zubritsky, station Commander and Flight Engineer respectively, spent Monday configuring the brand new Progress 93 for docked operations. The duo started Monday trying out a docking mechanism inside the Zvezda service module’s aft port the place Progress arrived on Saturday. Ryzhikov and Zubritsky then spent the remainder of their shift transferring water and unpacking cargo from contained in the Progress. Flight Engineer Oleg Platonov centered on science photographing landmarks in South America for evaluation and sustaining physics analysis {hardware} that observes advanced plasmas probably advancing spacecraft designs and industrial processes on Earth.
Study extra about station actions by following the space station blog, @NASASpaceOps and @space_station on X, in addition to the ISS Facebook and ISS Instagram accounts.
