The newly arrived and soon-to-depart crew members of Expedition 73 ready for what’s to return subsequent throughout this, their remaining week all collectively aboard the Worldwide House Station, Dec. 1-5, 2025.
Orbital statement
“Final evening, I went to mattress early and awakened as soon as in the midst of the evening to movie a video of the Japanese archipelago,” Yui posted to social media. “Even from house, it regarded very chilly.”
“There have been many areas the place it gave the impression to be snowing or locations the place it had snowed afterward, and whereas it regarded lovely from house, I grew to become just a little anxious after I thought of all of you,” he wrote.
Within the foreground are Northrop Grumman’s Cygnus XL cargo ship, the S.S. William C. “Willie” McCool (at proper) and the newly docked Soyuz MS-28 spacecraft.
Science standing
Among the many analysis that was performed by the Expedition 73 crew aboard the house station this week was:
CIPHER — Zena Cardman and Jonny Kim of NASA collected samples of Cardman’s blood, examined her cognition and measured her train, all as actions below the CIPHER human analysis research monitoring astronauts’ well being earlier than, throughout and after a spaceflight. Afterward, Cardman used a centrifuge to organize them for being positioned inside a science freezer for future evaluation.
Astrobee — Scientists on Earth, working with astronauts on the house station like Kim, assessed robotic free-flying assistants referred to as “Astrobee” to allow astronauts to conduct extra analysis.
Station maintaining
The Expedition 73 crew additionally devoted time to sustaining the house station’s methods, together with:
New Crew Member Orientation — Having simply arrived on the house station the week earlier than, NASA astronaut Chris Williams attended an orientation session, of types, as fellow NASA astronaut Mike Fincke and Kimiya Yui of JAXA took turns bringing Williams up to the mark about life on orbit. Fincke and Yui familiarized Williams with house station {hardware}, operations and methods.
‘Closet’ stock — Oleg Platonov, a flight engineer with the Russian house company Roscosmos, spent the primary a part of his shift documenting the placement and quantity of clothes and towels remaining within the Russian phase of the house station.
Zero Boil-Off Tank Noncondensables — Flight Engineer Mike Fincke modified out the cameras inside a microgravity science glovebox to {photograph} how cryogenic fluids behave in microgravity to enhance the design of spacecraft gasoline tanks.
Astronaut exercise
As a part of their work sustaining the methods aboard the Worldwide House Station, NASA astronauts Jonny Kim and Chris Williams spent this week cleansing and inspecting the European Exploration Train Machine (E4D) after its set up within the European House Company‘s (ESA) Columbus laboratory.
In line with NASA, the E4D is being examined for its capability to supply bicycling, rowing and resistance workouts to guard crew members’ muscle mass, bones and coronary heart well being in microgravity.
By the numbers
As of Friday (Dec. 5), there are 10 folks aboard the Worldwide House Station: Expedition 73 commander Sergey Ryzhikov and Oleg Platonov, Sergey Kud-Sverchkov, Sergey Mikaev and Alexey Zubritsky of Roscosmos; NASA astronauts Zena Cardman, Mike Fincke, Jonny Kim and Chris Williams and JAXA (the Japan Aerospace Exploration Company) astronaut Kimiya Yui, all flight engineers.
There are three docked crew spacecraft: SpaceX‘s Dragon “Endeavour” hooked up to the space-facing port of the Concord module, Roscosmos’ Soyuz MS-27 hooked up to the Earth-facing port of the Prichal node and Soyuz MS-28 hooked up to the Earth-facing port of the Rassvet module.
There are 4 cargo spacecraft: Roscosmos’ Progress MS-31 (92P) docked to the space-facing port of the Poisk module, Progress MS-32 (93P) hooked up to the aft port of the Zvezda service module, Northrop Grumman’s Cygnus XL, the S.S. William C. “Willie” McCool, berthed to the Earth-facing widespread berthing mechanism (CBM) on the Unity node and Japan’s HTV-X1 hooked up to the Earth-facing CBM on the Concord node.
As of Friday, the house station has been constantly crewed for 25 years, 1 month and three days.
