Record-breaking NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson and her Expedition 52 crewmates, Flight Engineer Jack Fischer of NASA and Commander Fyodor Yurchikhin of the Russian space agency Roscosmos, are scheduled to depart the International Space Station and return to Earth Saturday, Sept. 2. NASA Television and the agency’s website will provide complete coverage of their departure and …
All components of the United Launch Alliance Delta IV Heavy rocket that will launch NASA’s Parker Solar Probe have arrived for prelaunch processing at Florida’s Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.
Special Daily Summary during JSC Closure August 28th – September 1st 50S Crew Departure Preparations. In preparation for their return to Earth this weekend, the 50S Crew cleaned their Crew Quarters, stowed returning items within the Soyuz and conducted a descent drill to review undocking procedures and timelines. 50S undock is scheduled for Saturday, September …
Lung Tissue: The crew took samples and fixed media in Tissue Bags. They then inserted the bags in a Minus Eighty Degree Celsius Laboratory Freezer for ISS (MELFI). The Lung Tissue investigation uses the microgravity environment of space to test strategies for growing new lung tissue. Using the latest bioengineering techniques, the Lung Tissue experiment …
Miniature Exercise Device (MED-2): The crew set up cameras in Node 3 and Cupola to capture video from multiple views of the Advanced Resistive Exercise Device (ARED) and MED-2 hardware, applied body markers, performed exercises and transferred video for downlink. The microgravity environment of space weakens muscle and bone, so orbiting crew members spend significant …
A pair of Expedition 52 astronauts checked out new, smaller exercise gear today. The crew also worked on a variety of human research while a new cosmic ray detector has begun scanning outer space. The space station’s two newest astronauts, Paolo Nespoli and Randy Bresnik, joined forces today to measure the effectiveness of the new …
Multi-Omics-Mouse: The crew performed routine maintenance on the Multi-Omics-Mouse Cage Units that are being maintained in microgravity, exchanging waste collection equipment and odor filters. Several studies have reported space flight effects on the human immune system, but the relationship between microbiota and immune dysfunction during flight remains unclear. In the Multi-Omics-Mouse investigation, food with and …
CREAM (Cosmic Ray Energetics and Mass): Last night the CREAM external payload was removed from the SpX-12 trunk by the Space Station Remote Manipulator System (SSRMS) and handed off to the Japanese Experiment Module Remote Manipulator System (JEMRMS), which then installed it on Exposed Facility Unit-2 (EFU-2) on the JEM Exposed Facility (JEF). Ground controllers …
Overnight, robotics controllers extracted a new astrophysics experiment from the trunk of the SpaceX Dragon cargo craft. The Canadarm2 will hand off the new astronomy gear to the Japanese robotic arm which will then install it outside the Kibo laboratory module. Dubbed CREAM, short for Cosmic Ray Energetics and Mass Investigation, it will observe a …
Solar Eclipse Viewing: The crew removed scratch panes from Cupola windows #4 and #6 and cleaned the window #3 scratch pane. The crew then took both HD video and still images of the moon’s umbra on Earth from the Cupola. They also obtained images of both the sun and the moon. In addition, the P1 …
