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    Cosmonauts Prep for Spacewalk as Astronauts Work Science and Maintenance

    In one week the first spacewalk of 2022 is set begin at the International Space Station. Two Expedition 66 crew members are getting their spacesuits ready as the rest of the crew works research and maintenance. Station Commander Anton Shkaplerov and Flight Engineer Pyotr Dubrov are due to exit the Poisk module in their Russian …

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    ISS Daily Summary Report – 1/12/2022

    ISS Reboost: Today, the ISS performed a reboost using the aft 79 Progress thrusters. The purpose of this reboost is to set up the phasing conditions for the 80 Progress 34-Orbit rendezvous in February and begin to set up the phasing conditions for the 66 Soyuz landing and 67 Soyuz launch in March. The burn …

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    Webb Begins Its Months-Long Mirror Alignment

    Webb has begun the detailed process of fine-tuning its individual optics into one huge, precise telescope. Engineers first commanded actuators – 126 devices that will move and shape the primary mirror segments, and six devices that will position the secondary mirror – to verify that all are working as expected after launch. The team also …

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    Lucy Cruising Outbound; Testing Solar Array Options on Ground

    The Lucy spacecraft, launched on Oct. 16, 2021, is now over 30 million miles, or 48 million kilometers, from Earth and continues to operate safely in “outbound cruise” mode. Besides a solar array that didn’t latch after deployment — an issue the mission team is working to resolve— all spacecraft systems are normal. The arrays …

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    ISS Daily Summary Report – 1/11/2022

    Payloads: Behavioral Core Measures (BCM): The crew completed a Robotic On-Board Trainer (ROBoT) research session. The Standardized Behavioral Measures for Detecting Behavioral Health Risks during Exploration Missions (Behavioral Core Measures) experiment initially examined a suite of measurements to reliably assess the risk of adverse cognitive or behavioral conditions and psychiatric disorders during long-duration spaceflight, and …

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    Dragon, Spacewalk Preps Amidst Space Botany and Biology Research

    The space station is pictured from the SpaceX Crew Dragon Endeavour during a fly around on Nov. 8, 2021.

    The International Space Station is gearing up for the departure of a U.S. resupply ship and a Russian spacewalk next week. Meanwhile, the Expedition 66 crew is maintaining its pace of research exploring how microgravity affects variety of biological phenomena. The SpaceX Cargo Dragon vehicle has been docked to the Harmony module’s space-facing docking port …

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    ISS Daily Summary Report – 1/10/2022

    Payloads: Advanced Plant Experiment-07 (APEX-07): A harvest was performed for the plants that have been growing in petri plate experiment containers in the Veggie Facilities. This harvest follows approximately 12 days of plant growth for the Arabidopsis thaliana. APEX-07 examines how changes in gravity and other environmental factors associated with spaceflight affect plants at the …

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    Following the Next Steps in Webb’s Journey

    After two weeks of complex structural deployments, Webb has passed a major milestone and is now fully unfolded in space. For insight on what to expect in the months ahead and how to follow along, we hear from Alexandra Lockwood, project scientist for Webb science communications at the Space Telescope Science Institute: “Words can’t describe …

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    Crew Starts Week with Space Agriculture, Human Cells and Spacesuits

    Pictured from left, are the Soyuz MS-19 crew ship and the Nauka multipurpose laboratory module with the Prichal docking module attached.

    The Expedition 66 crew kicked off Monday promoting space agriculture and observing how the human cell adapts to weightlessness. Two cosmonauts are also gearing up for the first spacewalk of 2022 set to begin next week at the International Space Station. Growing plants in space is critical to keeping crews healthy as NASA and its …

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    Primary Mirror Wings Deployed, All Major Deployments Complete

    Today, at 1:17 p.m. EST, NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope completed all of its large-scale deployments with the extension and latching of its starboard primary mirror wing. Now that the telescope is structurally fully deployed – with the secondary mirror tripod and both primary mirror wings in place – the three-month process of aligning all …

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