New Crew Sleeps as Cosmonauts Prep for Wednesday Spacewalk

The four Commercial Crew astronauts (front row from left) Shannon Walker, Victor Glover, Michael Hopkins and Soichi Noguchi are welcomed aboard the station. In the back row from left are, NASA astronaut Kate Rubins and cosmonauts Sergey Ryzhikov and Sergey Kud-Sverchkov.
The four Commercial Crew astronauts (front row from left) Shannon Walker, Victor Glover, Michael Hopkins and Soichi Noguchi are welcomed aboard the station. In the back row from left are, NASA astronaut Kate Rubins and cosmonauts Sergey Ryzhikov and Sergey Kud-Sverchkov.

The Expedition 64 crew expanded to seven members overnight after four Commercial Crew astronauts docked the SpaceX Crew Dragon to the International Space Station. Now two cosmonauts are gearing up for a spacewalk set to start Wednesday at 9:30 a.m. EST.

The newest station crew members are asleep today following a 27-hour-and-half trip from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center to the Harmony module’s forward-facing port. Commander Michael Hopkins and Pilot Victor Glover, alongside Mission Specialists Shannon Walker and Soichi Noguchi, docked on Monday at 11:01 p.m. The hatches were opened two hours later, and the quartet entered the station to begin a six-month research mission.

All seven crewmembers gathered in the Harmony module for a welcoming ceremony and congratulations from NASA and JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) mission officials. Afterward, safety briefings were given to the new quartet showing potential lab hazards, emergency equipment locations and escape routes.

This is the first long-duration crew comprised of seven members in space station history. The station has hosted up to 13 visitors before but only for a few days at a time during crew swap operations.

Today, NASA Flight Engineer Kate Rubins helped Commander Sergey Ryzhikov and Flight Engineer Sergey Kud-Sverchkov get ready for their first spacewalk. The Russian duo will spend about five-and-a-half hours servicing external station hardware and science experiments. Their prime task will be to prepare the station’s Russian segment for the new Nauka mini-research module due to arrive in 2021.

NASA TV coverage of the spacewalk will begin Wednesday at 8:30 a.m. This will be the first spacewalk for the duo and the first spacewalk staged from the Poisk module. The Pirs docking compartment is being decommissioned to make room for the Nauka module.



from Space Station https://ift.tt/3nAxiFk

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Crew Sets Up Advanced Science Gear, Loads Cargo Ship With Trash

Image
A glacier, pictured from the International Space Station, in the Laguna San Rafael National Park ends at the Rio Nevado in Aysén, Chile. The Expedition 63 crew started the workweek checking out hardware supporting life science, combustion research and ongoing Earth observations. A Russian cargo craft docked to the International Space Station is also being packed with old gear for disposal toward the end of the year. The multitude of microgravity research that takes place every day on the orbiting lab, requires regular maintenance and monitoring by the crew or scientists on the ground. The ongoing research supports innovative applications and insights benefitting Earth and space industries. Today, Commander Chris Cassidy serviced an advanced space microscope and swapped components supporting safe combustion investigations. Cassidy first configured the Light Microscopy Module , part of the Fluids Integrated Rack , which supports basic physics and biology research. Next, the veteran N
Read more

JAXA, NASA astronauts Capture Cygnus Resupply Ship

Image
The Northrop Grumman Cygnus resupply ship is pictured about 30 meters away from the space station approaching its capture point near the Canadarm2 robotic arm. Credit: NASA TV At 4:38 a.m. EST, Expedition 64  Flight Engineer Soichi Noguchi of the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency used the International Space Station’s robotic Canadarm2 to grapple the Northrop Grumman Cygnus spacecraft as Flight Engineer Michael Hopkins of NASA monitored Cygnus systems during its approach. Next, ground controllers will command the station’s arm to rotate and install Cygnus, dubbed the S.S.  Katherine Johnson , on the Earth-facing port of the station’s Unity module . NASA Television coverage of installation will begin at 6 a.m., and installation of the Cygnus spacecraft to the space station is expected to be completed later this morning. Cygnus will remain at the orbiting laboratory for a three-month stay. Watch live on the agency’s website or on the NASA app. Learn more about space station activi
Read more

Crew Examines Worms, Explores Space Manufacturing During Spacewalk Preps

Image
Three spaceships are pictured attached to the space station as the orbital complex flew 261 miles above the Bay of Bengal. Two NASA astronauts are getting their tools and spacesuits ready for Sunday’s spacewalk to ready the International Space Station for new solar arrays. Meanwhile, the rest of the Expedition 64 crew focused on a variety of space research on Thursday. NASA Flight Engineers Kate Rubins and Victor Glover are finalizing their preparations for a planned six-and-a-half hour spacewalk set to begin Sunday at 6 a.m. EST. NASA TV will begin its live spacewalk beginning at 4:30 a.m. Rubins and Glover configured spacewalk tools and checked U.S. spacesuits today before calling down to experts in Mission Control to report on their readiness. The duo today also continued reviewing the spacewalk procedures they will use to upgrade power channels that will soon support new solar arrays. Those solar arrays will be shipped on upcoming Space Dragon cargo missions for installation th
Read more