ISS - Expedition 61 Mission patch.
December 26, 2019
It is back to work for the six-member Expedition 61 crew from the U.S., Russia and Italy after celebrating Christmas aboard the International Space Station. The space residents checked out BEAM and a commercial resupply ship and researched a variety of space phenomena.
NASA astronaut Andrew Morgan opened up the Bigelow Expandable Activity Module (BEAM) today for some housecleaning work. He and fellow NASA Flight Engineer Christina Koch relocated gear stowed in front of BEAM’s hatch and sampled the module’s air and surfaces for microbes. BEAM has been attached to the station since April 2016.
Image above: Expedition 61 Flight Engineers (clockwise from bottom) Andrew Morgan and Jessica Meir of NASA and cosmonaut Oleg Skripochka of Roscosmos brush up on their emergency response skills. Image Credit: NASA.
Koch then moved on to loading cargo inside the SpaceX Dragon cargo craft due to return to Earth on January 5. Flight Engineer Jessica Meir started the packing work today as the crew readies research results for splashdown in the Pacific Ocean aboard Dragon.
Meir also explored what microgravity does to genetics sequencing DNA samples with student-designed tools. Next, she ran a combustion experiment and observed how different samples burn and how flames spread in weightlessness.
International Space Station (ISS). Image Credit: NASA
Commander Luca Parmitano of ESA (European Space Agency) is also gathering hardware for return to Earth inside Dragon. He is packing the obsolete power and electronics gear retrieved during a series of spacewalks earlier this year. Engineers on the ground will analyze how years of exposure to the harsh space environment impacted the devices that powered multiple station systems.
Russia’s docked cargo craft, the Progress 74, will fire its engines twice beginning tonight to lift the station’s orbit to support Russian spacecraft activities in 2020. Cosmonauts Alexander Skvortsov and Oleg Skripochka readied the orbital lab today and shuttered windows for the orbital reboost.
Related articles:
Russian Space Freighter Docks Automatically to Station
https://orbiterchspacenews.blogspot.com/2019/12/russian-space-freighter-docks.html
Dragon Attached to Station for Month-Long Stay
https://orbiterchspacenews.blogspot.com/2019/12/dragon-attached-to-station-for-month.html
Related links:
Expedition 61: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/expeditions/expedition61/index.html
Bigelow Expandable Activity Module (BEAM): https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/structure/elements/bigelow-expandable-activity-module.html
Sequencing DNA samples: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/explorer/Investigation.html?#id=7893
Flames spread in weightlessness: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/explorer/Investigation.html?#id=7886
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
Images (mentioned), Text, Credits: NASA/Mark Garcia.
Best regards, Orbiter.ch
