ISS - Expedition 68 Mission patch.
Feb 21. 2023
The Expedition 68 crew members began the week exploring what microgravity is doing to their bodies and ways to offset those effects. The International Space Station’s residents also inspected BEAM as a pair of crew ships prepare to blast off to the orbital outpost.
Flight Engineers Nicole Mann of NASA and Koichi Wakata of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) kicked off Monday with muscle scans in the Kibo laboratory module. The pair took turns marking each other’s back, neck, leg, and arm muscles and measuring their biochemical properties. They used both the Myotones device and an Ultrasound scanner to study microgravity’s effect on muscle tone, elasticity, and stiffness. The human research study may inform advanced treatments for muscle conditions on Earth and in space.
Image above: The waning gibbous Moon is pictured above Earth’s horizon as the space station orbited above the Pacific Ocean. Image Credit: NASA.
NASA Flight Engineers Frank Rubio and Josh Cassada spent their Monday partnering on a variety of maintenance activities. Rubio opened up BEAM, the Bigelow Expandable Activity Module, and entered it performing inspections and organizing cargo inside the seven-year-old module. Cassada also worked inside BEAM collecting atmospheric and surface microbe samples for incubating and analysis.
In the Roscosmos segment of the orbiting lab, cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev and Anna Kikina tested the lower body negative pressure suit. Doctors are exploring the suit’s ability to counteract the upward flow of body fluids causing head and eye pressure in crew members. Prokopyev also had time for cardiac research before checking the performance of a 3-D printer. Kikina spent the rest of her day on life support maintenance. Flight Engineer Dmitri Petelin assisted Prokopyev with the cardiac study then collected samples from a science freezer and serviced them for a space biology study.
Two crew ships are poised to launch to the orbiting lab before the end of the month. Teams are assessing the launch date of the Soyuz MS-23 spacecraft, which will launch from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. It will dock automatically to the Poisk module. The MS-23 will arrive uncrewed but will return home crewmates Rubio, Prokopyev, and Petelin on a future date.
Image above: SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket, with the Dragon Endurance spacecraft atop, lifts off from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center Launch Complex 39A in Florida on Oct. 5, 2022, on the agency’s SpaceX Crew-5 launch. Inside Endurance are NASA astronauts Nicole Mann, commander; Josh Cassada, pilot; and Mission Specialists Koichi Wakata, of JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency), and Roscosmos cosmonaut Anna Kikina. The crew is heading to the International Space Station for a science expedition mission as part of the agency’s Commercial Crew Program. Liftoff occurred at noon EDT. Image Credits: Kim Shiflett.
The SpaceX Crew-6 mission is targeted to launch on Sunday at 2:07 a.m. from Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The Crew Dragon Endeavour will carry Commander Stephen Bowen and Pilot Warren “Woody” Hoburg along with Mission Specialists Sultan Alneyadi and Andrey Fedyaev to the station where they will dock to the Harmony module’s space-facing port on Monday at 2:54 a.m. beginning a six-month space research mission. Bowen and Hoburg are both NASA astronauts and Alneyadi is an astronaut representing the Mohammed bin Rashid Space Centre and Fedyaev is a cosmonaut representing Roscosmos.
Crew-6 Flight Crew Touches Down in Florida
NASA’s SpaceX Crew-6 flight crew has reported to NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida to start final preparations for their mission to the International Space Station.
Image above: NASA’s SpaceX Crew-6 crewmates are pictured in front of the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft during a crew equipment integration test at SpaceX’s headquarters in Hawthorne, California, last month. From left, in their pressure suits, are: Roscosmos cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev, NASA astronauts Warren “Woody” Hoburg and Stephen Bowen, and UAE (United Arab Emirates) astronaut Sultan Alneyadi. Photo Credit: SpaceX.
NASA astronauts Stephen Bowen and Woody Hoburg, UAE (United Arab Emirates) astronaut Sultan Alneyadi, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev arrived at Kennedy’s Launch and Landing Facility at approximately 12:20 p.m. today, Feb. 21, after departing Ellington Field near the agency’s Johnson Space Center in Houston.
The international crew will fly aboard the SpaceX Dragon Endeavour spacecraft, which previously flew NASA’s Crew-1, Inspiration4, and Axiom Mission-1 astronauts. Liftoff is targeted for 2:07 a.m. EST Sunday, Feb. 26 – from Kennedy’s Launch Complex 39A.
Related information by NASA:
NASA Sets Coverage for Agency’s SpaceX Crew-6 Events, Launch
https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-sets-coverage-for-agency-s-spacex-crew-6-events-launch
Related article:
The ISS orbit was raised before landing of the Soyuz MS-22 unmanned spacecraft
https://orbiterchspacenews.blogspot.com/2023/02/the-iss-orbit-was-raised-before-landing.html
Related links:
Commercial Crew Program: https://www.nasa.gov/exploration/commercial/crew/index.html
Expedition 68: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/expeditions/expedition68/index.html
Kibo laboratory module: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/structure/elements/japan-kibo-laboratory
Myotones device: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/explorer/Investigation.html?#id=7573
BEAM: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/structure/elements/bigelow-expandable-activity-module.html
Lower body negative pressure suit: https://blogs.nasa.gov/ISS_Science_Blog/2015/06/02/rubber-vacuum-pants-that-suck/
Poisk module: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/structure/elements/poisk-mini-research-module-2
Space Station Research and Technology: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/overview.html
International Space Station (ISS): https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/main/index.html
Images (mentioned), Text, Credits: NASA/Mark Garcia.
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