ISS - Expedition 53 Mission patch.
November 22, 2017
The six-member Expedition 53 crew heads into Thanksgiving observing how living in space affects the human body and packing the Cygnus cargo craft. The orbital crewmates are also preparing for next month’s arrival of the SpaceX Dragon resupply ship.
Veteran space station residents Paolo Nespoli and Sergey Ryazanskiy were back inside the Columbus lab module today examining what microgravity is doing to their leg muscles. The duo took turns strapping themselves in a unique exercise chair and attaching electrodes to their knees. Next, the pair used magnetic resonance imaging and ultrasound devices to observe the changes taking place in their legs in space.
Image above: Flight Engineer Mark Vande Hei swaps out a payload card from the TangoLab-1 facility and places it into the TangoLab-2 facility. Image Credit: NASA.
NASA astronaut Joe Acaba transferred the TangoLab-1 multi-use science facility into the Cygnus space freighter for a demonstration today. TangoLab-1 is being tested inside Cygnus to determine the viability of using a cargo craft as a laboratory while docked at the International Space Station.
The next cargo craft to visit the station will be the SpaceX Dragon when it launches Dec. 4 aboard the Falcon 9 rocket from Florida. Flight Engineer Mark Vande Hei trained today for the rendezvous and capture of Dragon when it arrives two days after its launch. Dragon will carry new science experiments to explore the Sun’s impact on Earth and improve the accuracy of a new diabetes implant device.
Related links:
Leg muscles: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/738.html
Sun’s impact on Earth: https://www.nasa.gov/goddard/tsis-1
New diabetes implant device: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/2636.html
Expedition 53: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/expeditions/expedition53/index.html
Cygnus cargo craft: https://blogs.nasa.gov/spacestation/2017/11/14/cygnus-installed-on-station-with-new-science-experiments/
SpaceX Dragon: http://www.nasa.gov/spacex
Space Station Research and Technology: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/index.html
International Space Station (ISS): https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/main/index.html
Image (mentioned), Text, Credits: NASA/Mark Garcia.
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