Half the residents of the International Space Station will take a spin around their orbital neighborhood in the Soyuz TMA-16M spacecraft in the early hours of Friday, Aug. 28. NASA Television coverage will begin at 2:45 a.m. EDT. Expedition 44 Commander Gennady Padalka of the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos) and Flight Engineers Scott Kelly …
42 Soyuz (42S) Relocation: 42S will be relocated from Mini Research Module (MRM) 2 Zenith to Service Module Aft tomorrow with the undock command scheduled for 2:11 am CDT. To support the relocation timeline the 42S crew sleep shifted 5.5 hours earlier today (11:00 am CDT, 16:00 GMT). The relocation is in preparation for 44S …
The six-person Expedition 44 space station crew is getting ready to expand to nine people next week. A docked Soyuz vehicle will be moved early Friday morning making room for a new Soyuz spacecraft carrying Sergei Volkov, a new Expedition 45 crew member, and two visiting crew members Andreas Mogensen and Aidyn Aimbetov. The orbital …
Human Research Program (HRP) Operations: Lindgren and Yui initiated their Flight Day 30 (FD30) Ocular Health performing vision tests, tonometry, blood pressure measurements, and answering a vision questionnaire. The Ocular Health protocol calls for a systematic gathering of physiological data to characterize the risk of microgravity-induced visual impairment/intracranial pressure in ISS crewmembers. Researchers believe that …
When I first saw the image for the August puzzler, I was struck by its beauty. The blue-green swirls look like they could be the brush strokes of an impressionist painting. Instead, this false-color scene was acquired by the Operational Land Imager (OLI) on Landsat 8. Without any land visible in the scene, I thought it […]
Commander Gennady Padalka will back the Soyuz TMA-16M spacecraft from its Poisk module docking port Friday morning. One-Year crew members Scott Kelly and Mikhail Kornienko will come along for the 25-minute ride and redock to the Zvezda service module port. The trio reviewed their procedures for the Soyuz relocation maneuver scheduled to begin Friday at …
HII Transfer Vehicle (HTV)5 Activities: Following yesterday’s successful capture and berthing, today the crew completed vestibule outfitting, opened the HTV hatch and installed Portable Fire Extinguishers, breathing apparatuses and handrails prior to ingressing the vehicle and completing 3-hours of cargo transfer. Later in the day the crew participated in a post-capture debrief with ground teams. …
The crew opened the hatches today to Japan’s fifth “Kounotori” resupply ship (HTV-5) and began unloading new supplies and science gear. The station residents also studied human research and reviewed changes to emergency procedures. The HTV-5 arrived Monday morning carrying cargo and science for the crew and external experiments to be attached to the Kibo …
HII Transfer Vehicle (HTV)5 Capture/Berthing: Yui and Lindgren captured HTV5 using the Space Station Remote Manipulator System (SSRMS) at 5:29 am CDT this morning. Next the Robotics Ground Controllers used the SSRMS to maneuver the HTV5 into position to support the inspection of the HTV5 Passive Common Berthing Mechanism (CBM) and then maneuvered the HTV5 …
The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) Kounotori 5 H-II Transfer Vehicle (HTV-5) was bolted into place on the International Space Station’s Earth-facing port of the Harmony module at 10:02 a.m. EDT. The spacecraft’s arrival will support the crew members’ research off the Earth to benefit the Earth. The HTV-5 is delivering more than 8,000 pounds …
