As a part of the Expedition 73 crew started making ready for his or her return to Earth, science analysis and upkeep actions continued this week aboard the Worldwide House Station (ISS). So did outreach efforts, because the outpost’s residents spoke to audiences in Las Vegas and South Korea.
Orbital remark
On Thursday (July 24), NASA astronaut Jonny Kim, a flight engineer on the house station’s Expedition 73 crew, spoke with the 125 contributors from 39 nations within the Worldwide House College House Research Program held this 12 months in Seoul, South Korea. A medical physician and a former U.S. Navy SEAL, Kim’s mother and father immigrated from South Korea.
“I had a cargo mission come up that had a few of my most favourite meals. So after all I had kimchi introduced up. I had gochujang, which is a purple pepper paste, and I had rice come up. So with these components, and naturally, some Spam, I used to be capable of make my very own house model of kimchi fried rice. It wasn’t nearly as good as I might make at residence, on Earth, however in house you’re employed with the very best you have acquired, and I actually, actually loved it,” stated Kim, after listening to that that the ISU attendees had additionally been having fun with the native delicacies.
You’ll be able to watch the total 20-minute interplay under.
Science standing
Among the many analysis that was carried out by the Expedition 73 crew aboard the house station this week was:
Bone on ISS — Flight engineer Nichole Ayers of NASA collected blood samples and spun them in a centrifuge for an ongoing research on bone mass loss throughout prolonged publicity to the microgravity of house. Takuya Onishi of JAXA, the commander of the Expedition 73 crew, assisted Ayers on this work.
CIPHER — Flight engineer Anne McClain of NASA additionally ready blood samples, in addition to urine samples, for a unique research centered on cardiovascular well being. Her work was a part of a collection of 14 protocols for human exploration analysis on various mission durations.
Floor Avatar — Jonny Kim labored with a laptop computer laptop on the station and engineers on Earth to check completely different strategies of driving robotic autos on planetary surfaces by way of distant entry from orbit.
Cellular Companion — Onishi labored with CIMON, or the Crew Interactive MObile companioN, an experimental, free-flyer robotic, to check the power of synthetic intelligence (AI) to supply assist to the house station’s crew.
Roscosmos cosmonauts Sergey Ryzhikov and Alexey Zubritsky used an ultrasound to picture their stomachs after consuming breakfast as a part of a research on potential biochemical adjustments to the digestive system throughout spaceflight.
Station protecting
The Expedition 73 crew additionally devoted time to sustaining the house station’s techniques, together with:
Packing for residence — Takuya Onishi, Anne McClain, Nichole Ayers and Kirill Peskov, the members of SpaceX’s Crew-10 mission, have begun transferring objects into the Dragon spacecraft that can return them to Earth in August.
Distant Energy Controller Module — As pictured above, Ayers and Jonny Kim labored to switch a unit that distributes energy to house station techniques contained in the Tranquility node.
Water switch — Cosmonaut Alexey Zubritsky refilled house station tanks with water that was launched aboard Russia’s Progress MS-31 cargo spacecraft.
Astronaut exercise
You may say that Expedition 73 crewmates Anne McClain and Nichole Ayers rose to the event on Tuesday (July 22), as they took questions from the attendees on the American Institute for Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) ASCEND convention being held in Las Vegas.
Choose classes from this 12 months’s ISS Analysis and Growth Convention had been folded into the ASCEND program.
“At any given level right here on the Worldwide House Station, there are over 200 science experiments happening, each inside and outdoors of the house station. There may be lots of human analysis that goes on aboard the Worldwide House Station, and it is truly volunteer-only, so we volunteer for the human analysis that occurs up right here,” stated Ayers.
These research should not solely concerning the astronauts in Earth orbit.
“Actually, every thing that we do aboard the Worldwide house Station is inside the NASA motto, ‘For the good thing about all.’ We work with a number of completely different house companies, organizations, academic establishments [and] analysis facilities from all over the world to maximise the quantity of science on the house station,” stated McClain.
You’ll be able to watch their full dialogue above.
By the numbers
As of Friday (July 25), there are 7 individuals aboard the Worldwide House Station: Expedition 73 commander Takuya Onishi of JAXA, Anne McClain, Nichole Ayers and Jonny Kim of NASA and Kirill Peskov, Sergey Ryzhikov and Alexey Zubritsky of Roscosmos, all flight engineers.
There are two docked crew spacecraft: SpaceX’s Dragon “Endurance” hooked up to the ahead port of the Concord module and Roscosmos’ Soyuz MS-27 hooked up to the Earth-facing port of the Prichal node.
There are two docked cargo spacecraft: Roscosmos’ Progress MS-30 (91P) hooked up to the aft port of the Zvezda service module, and Progress MS-31 (92P) docked to the space-facing port of the Poisk module.
As of Friday, the house station has been repeatedly crewed for 24 years, 8 months and 24 days.
