Expedition 73 will swap commanders this weekend earlier than three crew members return to Earth on Monday. Expedition 74 formally begins as soon as the house sure trio undocks from the Rassvet module contained in the Soyuz MS-27 spacecraft the next day.
Veteran Roscosmos cosmonaut and station Commander Sergey Ryzhikov will hand over a symbolic key representing command of the orbital outpost to four-time area flyer NASA astronaut Mike Fincke at 10:30 a.m. EDT on Sunday, Dec. 7. Fincke will formally take duty of station operations and lead the brand new Expedition 74 crew in the intervening time Ryzhikov and Flight Engineers Alexey Zubritsky of Roscosmos and Jonny Kim of NASA again away from the orbital outpost inside their Soyuz at 8:41 p.m. on Monday. Ryzhikov and Zubritsky spent Friday packing cargo and private objects contained in the Soyuz MS-27 and making remaining preparations for his or her Monday evening departure with Kim.
The trio aboard the Soyuz descent module will parachute to touchdown in Kazakhstan lower than three-and-a-half hours later at 12:04 a.m. on Tuesday finishing an eight-month area analysis journey orbiting over 250 miles above Earth. NASA’s stay protection of the crew’s return will probably be broadcast on NASA+, Amazon Prime, and the company’s YouTube channel starting at 4:45 p.m. on Monday with farewell and hatch closure.
NASA Flight Engineer Chris Williams, who arrived on the station with Flight Engineers Sergey Kud-Sverchkov and Sergei Mikaev on Nov. 27, has stepped into his new function as a first-time station astronaut and assisted Kim contained in the Quest airlock on Friday putting in lights, cameras, and straps on a pair of spacesuit helmets. Williams then wore electrodes round his eyes as computerized medical gear operated by NASA Flight Engineer Zena Cardman despatched gentle indicators to check his retinal response in microgravity.
Kim additionally cleaned his crew quarters and took airflow measurements as he prepares to finish his keep in area. Cardman later checked out wi-fi high-definition digital camera {hardware} for use contained in the station when photographing future spacewalks.
Flight Engineers Sergey Kud-Sverchkov and Sergei Mikaev took turns measuring their blood stress then getting on top of things with life on orbit in the course of the first half of Friday. Subsequent, Kud-Sverchkov and Mikaev collected a wide range of station microbial and private organic samples for stowage and evaluation as a part of ongoing analysis to maintain crews wholesome in area.
Flight Engineer Kimiya Yui of JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Company uninstalled the NanoRacks CubeSat deployer after it deployed a number of tiny satellites into Earth orbit for presidency, academic, and business analysis. Fincke spent his shift changing orbital plumbing parts and inspecting fireplace extinguishers and respiration masks. Roscosmos Flight Engineer Oleg Platonov accomplished the tip of the week transferring fluids right into a Progress cargo craft then assisted Kud-Sverchkov processing microbe samples swabbed from surfaces within the station’s Roscosmos phase.
Study extra about station actions by following the area station weblog, @space_station on X, in addition to the ISS Facebook and ISS Instagram accounts.
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