The Expedition 73 crew briefly grew to 11 members final Saturday (Aug. 2) however then rapidly receded again to seven with the departure on Friday (Aug. 8) of SpaceX’s four-person Crew-10 mission. Most of this week was spent familiarizing the brand new arrivals with their house for the subsequent six to eight months and making ready for the departure of Endurance, Crew-10’s Dragon capsule.
Orbital statement
“Need to go to the moon and even Mars? I do!”
That was the sentiment expressed by Mike Fincke, who arrived on the Worldwide House Station with SpaceX’s Crew-11 mission final Saturday (Aug. 2). A veteran area traveller — that is his fourth time on the ISS — Fincke rapidly settled into his orbital house and commenced making ready for the day that he and others can go farther away from Earth.
“I contributed to the science that may assist people thrive within the photo voltaic system. Right now was my first blood draw!” Fincke wrote on social media on Thursday (Aug. 7), captioning this picture of him holding up his contribution. “The samples at the moment are frozen and will probably be studied on Earth. Extra samples are in my future.”
Science standing
Among the many analysis that was performed by the Expedition 73 crew aboard the area station this week was:
Muscle Stimulation — Earlier than departing for house, flight engineer Nichole Ayers took another flip utilizing electrical pulses to stimulate her leg muscular tissues in an try to discover a strategy to increase every day train as a safety towards bone and muscle loss. Fellow NASA astronaut Jonny Kim assisted Ayers in sending the indicators and accumulating the information returned.
Drain Mind 2.0 — Newly arrived flight engineers Mike Fincke of NASA and Kimiya Yui of JAXA picked up the place prior crew members left off, now changing into the topic of an experiment to measure how blood flows from the center to her mind in microgravity. Each astronauts wore electrodes on their necks and chests to gather knowledge on the modifications to their our bodies on account of blood pooling nearing their heads.
Cosmonauts Sergey Ryzhikov and Alexey Zubritsky additionally studied their blood circulation, specializing in the circulate from their hearts to the arms and arms. The info they collected will assist docs enhance their understanding and develop higher countermeasures to the stresses the vascular system experiences throughout long-duration spaceflight.
Station retaining
A lot of the Expedition 73 crew’s time this week was dedicated to the latest arrival of SpaceX’s Crew-11 astronauts and cosmonauts and the departure of the Crew-10 members.
Fiber optics — Crew-10 commander Anne McClain labored along with Crew-11 commander Zena Cardman contained in the European House Company’s (ESA) Columbus lab to arrange the tools wanted to fabricate optical fibers. The standard of the cable generated in microgravity surpasses what might be produced on Earth.
Astronaut exercise
Earlier than they left the area station, NASA astronauts Anne McClain and Nichole Ayers, JAXA astronaut Takuya Onishi and Roscosmos cosmonaut Kirill Peskov — the 4 members of SpaceX’s Crew-10 mission — gathered with their colleagues of the previous 5 months and newly arrived replacements to bid farewell on Tuesday (Aug. 5). Additionally they transferred command of Expedition 73 from Onishi to Sergey Ryzhikov of Roscosmos.
“You might be in good arms, so I’m certain the second half of Expedition 73 will probably be even higher,” mentioned Onishi, addressing the members of SpaceX’s Crew-11, Zena Cardman and Fincke of NASA, JAXA’s Kimiya Yui and Oleg Platonov of Roscosmos. “Crew 10 is now leaving, however the science will proceed right here as a result of this place is an outpost for human beings to advance our know-how and to discover farther.”
By the numbers
As of Friday (Aug. 8), there are 7 individuals aboard the Worldwide House Station: Expedition 73 commander Sergey Ryzhikov of Roscosmos; fellow cosmonauts Alexey Zubritsky and Oleg Platonov; Jonny Kim, Zena Cardman and Mike Fincke of NASA; and Kimiya Yui of JAXA, all flight engineers.
There are two docked crew spacecraft: SpaceX’s Dragon “Endeavour” connected to the zenith port of the Concord module and Roscosmos’ Soyuz MS-27 connected to the Earth-facing port of the Prichal node.
There are two docked cargo spacecraft: Roscosmos’ Progress MS-30 (91P) connected to the aft port of the Zvezda service module, and Progress MS-31 (92P) docked to the space-facing port of the Poisk module.
As of Friday, the area station has been repeatedly crewed for 24 years and 9 months and 6 days.
