Science and upkeep work continued this week aboard the Worldwide House Station (ISS), however updates concerning these actions are nonetheless all however halted by the U.S. authorities shutdown. Japanese astronaut Kimiya Yui’s social media posts have been the exception…
Orbital observation
“Isn’t this one of the top five stunning views among all the photos taken from the ‘Kibo’ window? Self-praise here…” wrote Kimiya Yui, an Expedition 73 flight engineer, with amusing from on board the Worldwide House Station.
“The ISS took on a distinct posture than typical, so the view from the window modified as nicely,” defined Yui.
That submit truly options two pictures. In each, a band of our galaxy, the Milky Way, is seen above Earth’s horizon, with the space station’s solar arrays and the Kibo exposed facility in the foreground. One image also shows dancing green and red auroras, while the other captures a darker night sky.
“[It was a] special view that I wanted everyone to see, so I pushed through my work early to make time and took this photo,” said Yui.
Astronaut activity
“I’m waiting for you! I’ll catch you gently, so don’t worry!” wrote Yui to the resupply ship nonetheless on Earth on Friday (Oct. 17).
Yui will use the house station’s Canadarm2 robotic arm to seize maintain of the HTV-X1 spacecraft as soon as it’s in proximity of the manipulator’s attain.
By the numbers
As of Friday (Oct. 17), there are 7 individuals aboard the International Space Station: Expedition 73 commander Sergey Ryzhikov of the Russian space agency Roscosmos; fellow cosmonauts Alexey Zubritsky and Oleg Platonov; Jonny Kim, Zena Cardman and Mike Fincke of NASA; and Kimiya Yui of JAXA, all flight engineers.
There are two docked crew spacecraft: SpaceX‘s Dragon “Endeavour” attached to the zenith port of the Harmony module and Roscosmos’ Soyuz MS-27 attached to the Earth-facing port of the Prichal node.
There are four docked cargo spacecraft: Roscosmos’ Progress MS-31 (92P) docked to the space-facing port of the Poisk module and Progress M-32 (93P) docked to the aft port of the Zvezda service module, SpaceX’s CRS-33 Dragon spacecraft docked to the forward port of Harmony Node 2 and Northrop Grumman’s NG-23 Cygnus XL, the “SS William C. ‘Willie’ McCool,” berthed to the Unity node.
As of Friday, the space station has been continuously crewed for 24 years, 11 months and 15 days.
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