NASA Space Station Status Report 25 August 2022 – SpaceX Crew-5 Launch Date Set...
NASA and SpaceX have announced the date for the upcoming Crew-5 launch to the International Space Station. The space station is also orbiting higher today to prepare for next month’s Soyuz crew vehicle swap.
The fifth crewed operational mission aboard a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft has been given a launch date of Oct. 3 from Florida’s Kennedy Space Center. The four SpaceX Crew-5 crewmates, Commander Nicole Mann, Pilot Josh Cassada, and Mission Specialists Koichi Wakata and Anna Kikina will dock Dragon Endurance to the forward port on the station’s Harmony module about 24 hours later.
Several days after that, the four SpaceX Crew-4 astronauts will enter the Dragon Freedom crew ship and undock from Harmony’s space-facing port for a parachute-assisted splashdown off the coast of Florida.
Freedom Commander Kjell Lindgren, and Pilot Bob Hines, with Mission Specialists Jessica Watkins and Samantha Cristoforetti, have been living and working in the orbital lab as Expedition 67 Flight Engineers since April 27.
The space station received an orbital boost on Wednesday night
when Russia’s ISS Progress 81 cargo craft, docked to the Zvezda
service module’s aft port, fired its engines for just over six minutes in
preparation for a pair of Soyuz crew ships coming and going in late September.
NASA astronaut Frank Rubio will take a ride to the station with
cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitri Petelin aboard the
Soyuz MS-22 crew ship when they launch from the Baikonur Cosmodrome on Sept.
21.
Later in September, Soyuz Commander Oleg
Artemyev with Expedition 67 Flight Engineers Denis
Matveev and Sergey Korsakov will return back to Earth inside the
Soyuz MS-21 spacecraft. The trio joined the Expedition 67 crew on March 18 following a
short trip to the station’s Prichal docking module that began with a
launch from Baikonur.
Meanwhile, space research benefitting humans living on and off
the Earth is still ongoing aboard the orbital lab. Lindgren, Hines, Watkins,
and Cristoforetti were back inside the Kibo laboratory module today
exploring how skin heals in microgravity. The quartet, using
the Life Science Glovebox, is observing space-caused molecular processes
that may inform advanced wound treatments and therapies for astronauts and
Earthlings.
Artemyev and
Matveev continued researching on Thursday how weightlessness affects the
human digestive system. Once again, the duo performed ultrasound scans
following their breakfast period to learn more about the digestion process to
improve crew health and treat Earth-bound conditions. Korsakov participated in
an ear, nose, and throat study in the morning, then moved on to learn how
international crews and mission controllers can communicate more effectively.
ISS
Reboost: Today, the ISS performed a reboost using the Aft Progress 81P
R&D thrusters. This reboost was the second of three reboosts to set up
proper constraints for 68S 2-orbit rendezvous on September 21 and 67S landing
on September 29. The burn duration was 5 minutes 33 seconds with a Delta-V of
0.68 m/s.
Payloads:
Actiwatch Plus (AWP): The crew removed their Actiwatches, verified they were still in the correct data collection mode, and then stowed them. The data on the watches will be transferred at a later time. The Actiwatch is a waterproof, non-intrusive, sleep-wake activity monitor worn on the wrist covered in non-volatile memory within the Actiwatch until they are down crewmembers.
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