With the arrival of a visiting crew nonetheless delayed, science and upkeep work on board the Worldwide House Station continued to fill the Expedition 73 crew’s week, together with time for Earth observations and an interview for a podcast.
Orbital commentary
Is it a inexperienced aurora with pink stripes, or a white aurora with inexperienced stripes? That, apparently, grew to become the query on the Worldwide House Station, at the very least for Expedition 73 flight engineer and NASA astronaut Anne McClain.
“So, once I took this aurora , at first I believed that my settings weren’t appropriate as a result of the aurora appeared white. I believed possibly the ISO was off, or I picked the incorrect lens. Seems, what I believed was white is definitely gentle pink, and this led me down a path of studying,” wrote McClain on Tuesday (June 17) in a social media replace from orbit.
As McClain came upon, the colour of aurora depends upon a number of various factors, together with the molecule hitting Earth’s ambiance, the character of the influence itself, the density of the ambiance on the level the collision happens and the altitude of the influence.
“Inexperienced is the most typical aurora shade, and it happens when the electrons hit oxygen molecules between 60-150 miles [100-240 kilometers] altitude,” wrote McClain. “If the photo voltaic particles hit oxygen however at the next altitude, above 150 miles [240 kilometers], the resultant shade is crimson. This solely occurs underneath intense photo voltaic storm exercise due to the decrease density of atomic oxygen at larger altitudes.”
And as McClain found, the aurora she recorded “was very pink-hued!”
Science standing
Among the many analysis that was performed aboard the house station this week was:
REALM — Expedition 73 flight engineer and NASA astronaut Jonny Kim put in tags across the house station as a part of the RFID-Enabled Autonomous Logistics Administration demonstration. REALM makes use of a free-flying robotic named Astrobee to trace tagged gear and cargo, probably making it faster and simpler for crew members to seek out the gadgets they want after they want them.
Bio-Monitor — Kim additionally spent two days this week persevering with a take a look at with a Canadian-built vest that permits information assortment concerning the physiological standing of the wearer, together with coronary heart charge, blood strain, and physique temperature. Kim assessed the consolation of the equipment in the course of the 48 hours he wore it.
Ring Sheared Drop — Fellow NASA astronaut and flight engineer Nichole Ayers continued her work from final week by altering out protein samples and including new take a look at cells to an experiment testing floor rigidity as a strategy to include liquids and observe proteins with out the liquid making contact with the containers’ in any other case stable partitions.
Sergey Ryzhikov and Alexey Zubritskiy, flight engineers with the Russian house company Roscosmos, used acoustic sensors affixed to their necks as a part of a respiratory examine primarily based on the sounds they make when exhaling.
Station retaining
The crew additionally devoted time to sustaining the house station’s methods, together with:
Window inspections — Working contained in the U.S. Laboratory “Future,” McClain examined and photo-documented the situation of every of the module’s home windows. Later, she did the identical contained in the station’s Cupola, inspecting every of its seven home windows.
Expedition 73 commander Takuya Onishi additionally labored on home windows, however inside JAXA’s (Japan Aerospace Exploration Company) Kibo module, together with the glass portholes within the Electrostatic Levitation Furnace, which is used to show suspended samples to excessive temperatures.
Cranks, handles and seals — Onishi spent a part of this week cleansing the seals on the hatches between every of the U.S. working phase modules, in addition to eradicating dust and mud from the handles on every hatch.
Conferences — Onishi, McClain, Ayers and Kim spoke with Joe Acaba, chief of NASA’s astronaut workplace, in addition to their expedition’s lead flight director to go over their upcoming activites and plans for the station.
Ryzhikov and Zubritskiy additionally searched the Zvezda service module for added stowage house. Along with Kirill Peskov, the three Russian cosmonauts additionally labored on cleansing and caring for 2 Orlan spacesuits for use on future spacewalks.
Astronaut exercise
On Tuesday (June 17), Ayers took half in a podcast interview for the U.S. Air Power, Academy Affiliation of Graduates. A newly promoted lieutenant colonel within the Air Power, Ayers described seeing Earth for the primary time in house.
“It was one of the vital superb issues I’ve ever seen,” she mentioned. “After which seeing Earth from the Cupola and the lab window right here, you do not see nation or state strains on Earth. It isn’t like every state has a distinct stable shade. There may be simply geography and simply terrain, so that you get to be taught the world another time when it comes to colours and textures and geography and water.”
Ayers mentioned she has come to see our planet as being “so fragile.”
“It has actually made me need to take higher care of this Earth and I once I get house, I need to do issues just a bit bit higher and take that additional step,” mentioned Ayers.
Waylaid guests
A second week glided by with out the anticipated and now delayed arrival of Axiom House’s fourth visiting crew.
Per the final replace from NASA on Thursday (June 19), a brand new focused launch date for the Ax-4 crew is predicted “within the coming days.” NASA is taking the extra time to research a leak restore on the Russian aspect of the house station.
Axiom House’s Ax-4 commander Peggy Whitson, a retired NASA astronaut, stays able to launch with ISRO (Indian House Analysis Organisation) astronaut Shubhanshu Shukla, ESA (European House Company) undertaking astronaut Sławosz Uznański-Wiśniewski of Poland and Tibor Kapu of Hungary.
By the numbers
As of Friday (June 20), there are 7 folks aboard the Worldwide House Station: commander Takuya Onishi of JAXA, Anne McClain, Nichole Ayers and Jonny Kim of NASA and Kirill Peskov, Sergey Ryzhikov and Alexey Zubritsky of Roscosmos, all flight engineers.
There are two docked crew spacecraft: SpaceX’s Dragon “Endurance” hooked up to the ahead port of the Concord module, and Roscosmos’ Soyuz MS-27 hooked up to the Earth-facing port of the Prichal node.
There are additionally two docked cargo spacecraft: Roscosmos’ Progess MS-29 (90P) hooked up to the space-facing port of the Poisk module and Progress MS-30 (91P) hooked up to the aft port of the Zvezda service module.
As of Friday, the house station has been constantly crewed for 24 years, 7 months and 19 days.
