ISS - Expedition 68 Mission patch.
March 14, 2023
The Expedition 68 crew members spent their day carrying out biological research, harvesting vegetables, and prepping for a commercial resupply mission delivering more than 6,000 pounds of cargo to the International Space Station.
The SpaceX Dragon spacecraft is set to launch at 8:30 p.m. EDT this evening from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The spacecraft is providing the crew with new science investigations, food, fuel, and supplies. Dragon is slated to dock autonomously to the forward-facing port of the station’s Harmony module Thursday morning.
Image above: A view of red dwarf tomato plants growing in the Veggie plant growth facility aboard the International Space Station as part of the Pick-and-Eat Salad-Crop Productivity, Nutritional Value, and Acceptability to Supplement the ISS Food System (Veg-05) investigation from Feb. 5, 2023. Image Credit: NASA.
NASA Flight Engineer Woody Hoburg is scheduled to monitor Dragon’s automated docking. In the meantime, he completed a session using the Robotics On-board Trainer, which teaches astronauts docking and grappling techniques.
NASA Flight Engineer Stephen Bowen continued to work on the Immunity Assay study. The study aims to monitor how the immune system changes in response to the stresses of space by analyzing biological samples taken before, during, and after flight. Bowen was tasked with uninstalling containers and prepping test tubes for the experiment.
Falcon 9 carrying Dragon cargo resupply liftoff. Animation Credit: SpaceX
NASA Flight Engineer Frank Rubio plucked tomatoes from the Veggie Vegetable Production System (Veggie) for the Veg-05 space botany study. The investigation seeks to determine the best horticultural practices for growing fresh vegetables in space. Rubio and Bowen both capped the evening with a remotely guided eye exam.
Flight Engineer Sultan Alneyadi from UAE (United Arab Emirates) had a chance to record a video for an educational series focused on demonstrating scientific concepts in space for students and teachers. He later fit in an exercise session on the treadmill.
The cosmonauts aboard the station gathered to shoot a series of video greetings as well. Commander Sergey Prokopyev and Flight Engineers Dmitri Petelin, and Andrey Fedyaev of Roscomsos also reviewed a procedure together for checking the temperature and humidity conditions during the undocking and descent of a Soyuz spacecraft.
ISS reboost. Video Credit: ESA
At 7:54 a.m. the ISS Progress 83 thrusters performed a 2-minute, 35-second burn to provide extra distance from a fragment of Russian Cosmos 1408 satellite debris. NASA and Russian flight controllers worked together to conduct the maneuver. Without the maneuver, which will have no impact on the rendezvous profile for the Dragon cargo craft or downstream vehicle operations, it is estimated that the fragment could have passed within 1/10th of a mile of the station. Crew were notified of the conjunction in advance and were never in danger.
Related NASA article:
NASA Sets Coverage for Next SpaceX Resupply Launch to Space Station
https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-sets-coverage-for-next-spacex-resupply-launch-to-space-station-0
Related links:
Expedition 68: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/expeditions/expedition68/index.html
Immunity Assay: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/explorer/Investigation.html?#id=8170
Veggie Vegetable Production System (Veggie): https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/explorer/Facility.html?#id=374
Veg-05: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/explorer/Investigation.html?#id=7443
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
Image (mentioned), Animation (mentioned), Video (mentioned), Text, Credits: NASA/Heidi Lavelle.
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