The Expedition 69 crew members began the week conducting a variety of space research and preparing for upcoming spacewalks. Cargo activities are also picking up this week aboard the International Space Station as a U.S. space freighter nears its departure and return to Earth.
The SpaceX Dragon cargo craft is nearing the end of its mission after docking to the Harmony module’s forward port on March 16. NASA Flight Engineer Stephen Bowen and Woody Hoburg partnered together throughout Monday loading finalized science experiments and used station hardware inside Dragon for analysis on Earth. Bowen spent the majority of his day with the cargo packing while Hoburg assisted him then cleaned and inspected Dragon’s docking system. Dragon is due to leave the station and splash down off the coast of Florida at the end of the week.
UAE (United Arab Emirates) astronaut Sultan Alneyadi split his day on a pair of life science experiments first studying botany then the human heart. He started his day inside the Kibo laboratory module cleaning the Advanced Plant Habitat and stowing seed samples in a science freezer for a study that explored space-caused genetic changes in plants. In the afternoon, he was in the U.S. Destiny laboratory module looking at heart tissue samples in a microscope to observe microgravity-induced changes in heart cells and learn how to prevent cardiac disorders on Earth and in space.
NASA Flight Engineer Frank Rubio spent his day primarily servicing science hardware and inspecting emergency gear. He first installed research gear inside Kibo’s airlock that will soon be exposed to the vacuum of space. Next, he spent the afternoon checking portable fire extinguishers, oxygen bottles, and breathing masks throughout the U.S. segment on the orbital outpost.
Meanwhile, preparations for a series of spacewalks from Roscosmos are ongoing this week at the space station. Commander Sergey Prokopyev and Flight Engineer Dmitri Petelin are studying the procedures they will use to move a radiator and an experiment airlock from the Rassvet module to Nauka multipurpose laboratory module over a set of spacewalks set to begin in mid-April. Flight Engineer Andrey Fedyaev will assist the duo monitoring their excursions, operating the European robotic arm, and helping them in and out of their Orlan spacesuits.
Learn more about station activities by following the space station blog, @space_station and @ISS_Research on Twitter, as well as the ISS Facebook and ISS Instagram accounts.
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