The Expedition 70 crew is popping its consideration to the third personal astronaut mission from Axiom House because it counts all the way down to launch subsequent week. In the meantime, the seven International Space Station residents are additionally persevering with their deal with human analysis, area botany, and life help upkeep duties.
The following spacecraft to launch to the orbital outpost rolled out to its launch pad on the Kennedy House Heart on Thursday. The SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, with the Dragon Freedom crew spacecraft atop, is scheduled to launch 4 personal astronauts at 5:11 p.m. EST on Jan. 17 on a day-and-a-half-long trip to the area station.
NASA astronauts Loral O’Hara and Jasmin Moghbeli shall be monitoring the arrival of Axiom Mission 3 (Ax-3) because the Dragon approaches the Harmony module’s ahead port for an automatic docking at 5:15 a.m. on Jan. 19. About an hour-and-a-half later, the hatches will open and Ax-3 Commander and veteran astronaut Michael Lopez-Alegria will enter the station. He shall be adopted by first time area guests Pilot Walter Villadei and Mission Specialists Alper Gezeravci and Marcus Wandt. The Ax-3 quartet will reside and work aboard the station for 2 weeks of analysis, schooling, and industrial actions.
O’Hara and Moghbeli on Friday reviewed the Dragon’s method and rendezvous procedures that can see the duo monitoring knowledge from the automobile because it nears Concord for a docking. The pair additionally joined astronauts Andreas Mogensen from ESA (European House Company) and Satoshi Furukawa from JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Company) earlier within the day familiarizing themselves with the Ax-3 mission profile together with crew coordination expectations, the analysis program, and different actions. The quartet then referred to as all the way down to mission controllers discussing their readiness for the Ax-3 mission.
The 4 station astronauts additionally stored up their science work to enhance life for people on Earth and in area. O’Hara started her day gathering and stowing blood samples for evaluation adopted by a cognition take a look at for the CIPHER suite of 14 human analysis experiments. Furukawa checked wire connections on combustion experiment gear then tended to tomato crops rising for a plant immunity investigation. Mogensen labored on a science laptop computer laptop and a lab freezer earlier than exploring how virtual reality could enhance morale on long-term area missions. Moghbeli explored anti-microbial coatings that will forestall the unfold of microbes attributable to the human contact on spacecraft.
The three cosmonauts from Roscosmos stored up their upkeep duties guaranteeing the maintenance of the orbital lab. Oleg Kononenko as soon as once more spent the day inspecting the Zvezda service module’s inside constructions. Flight Engineer Nikolai Chub checked out digital elements on a carbon dioxide removing gadget. Flight Engineer Konstantin Borisov labored all through the day on fluid physics and communications gear.
The area station is orbiting barely larger after the 85P fired its engines for 17 minutes and 30 seconds Friday morning. The orbital reboost units up the right phasing for the ISS Progress 87 resupply mission subsequent month.
Study 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.
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