The Expedition 64 crew had a light duty day Thursday following a busy holiday season filled with space research and U.S. cargo ship departure preparations. Soon the astronauts will be ramping up for a set of International Space Station maintenance and upgrades spacewalks planned for January and February. Final science experiments are wrapping up this …
Payloads Veg-03: The crew opened wicks on each Veg-03 Plant Pillow. Organisms grow differently in space, from single-celled bacteria to plants and humans. But future long-duration space missions will require crew members to grow their own food, so understanding how plants respond to microgravity is an important step toward that goal. Veg-03 uses the Veggie …
Cygnus Departure: Cygnus was successfully released by the Space Station Remote Manipulator System (SSRMS) and departed the ISS today at 9:10 AM CT with the crew monitoring from the Cupola. The vehicle has several post-departure science objectives to complete prior to destructive re-entry on January 26. Payloads Cardinal Heart: The crew performed microscopy ops on …
At 10:10 a.m. EST, flight controllers on the ground sent commands to release the Northrop Grumman Cygnus spacecraft from the Canadarm2 robotic arm after earlier detaching Cygnus from the Earth-facing port of the Unity module. The Cygnus spacecraft successfully departed the International Space Station three months after arriving at the space station to deliver about …
NASA is targeting the final test in the Green Run series, the hot fire, for as early as Jan.17. The hot fire is the culmination of the Green Run test series, an eight-part test campaign that gradually brings the core stage of the Space Launch System (SLS) — the deep space rocket that will power the agency’s next-generation human Moon missions …
Payloads FLUIDICS: The crew performed the first of three FLUIDICS runs. The measurement of liquid displacement within a sphere in microgravity relates to a given kinematic representation of a spacecraft’s fuel tank. The FLUIDICS investigation evaluates the Center of Mass (CoM) position regarding a temperature gradient on a representation of a fuel tank. The observation …
The U.S. Cygnus space freighter has been packed and is “go” for its departure from the International Space Station on Wednesday morning. The Expedition 64 crew is also wrapping up variety of science experiments and loading a second U.S. cargo craft for its return to Earth next week. NASA Flight Engineer Victor Glover closed the …
Payloads Cardinal Heart: The crew performed a periodic cell culture media exchange in the various cell culture chambers. Cardinal Heart studies the effects of change in gravitational force on cardiovascular cells at the cellular and tissue level using engineered heart tissues (EHTs). Microgravity significantly affects heart tissues that perform work and exert an opposite force …
The seven-member Expedition 64 crew relaxed on New Year’s Day and went into the first weekend of 2021 researching space biology. The International Space Station residents are also packing a pair of U.S. resupply ships for departure this week and next. Three astronauts spent Saturday and Sunday studying how microgravity affects vision and bone tissue …
Payloads Space Studio KIBO: The crew performed the Kubo studio operations parts 1-4. The Space Frontier Studio KIBO is a broadcasting studio that is constructed and operated in the Japanese Experiment Module (JEM), also known as Kibo. The studio can livestream activities, interactive entertainment, and communication from space. The program can receive uplinked video and …
