Blogs

The three Expedition 50 crew members today are working on an oxygen generator and setting up gear to photograph the Earth and meteors. In Kazakhstan, the Soyuz spacecraft that will launch the next trio to the International Space Station is being processed at its launch facility. Commander Shane Kimbrough was back at work this morning …

Veg-03 Operations: The crew checked and photo documented the status of the plants in the Veggie facility, and evaluated the plant pillows to determine if additional watering is required.  The overall goal of Veg-03 is to further demonstrate proof-of concept for the Veggie plant growth chamber and the planting pillows using ‘Outredgeous’ Red Romaine lettuce.  …

The Expedition 50 trio orbiting on the International Space Station is conducting maintenance while getting ready for Earth observations and radiation exposure studies today. In Kazakhstan, three new crew members are waiting as their Soyuz rocket is prepared for launch. Commander Shane Kimbrough started work on the U.S. segment’s Oxygen Generation System (OGS), which will …

Sally Ride Earth Knowledge Acquired by Middle Schools (EarthKAM): The crew configured the camera, laptop and associated Sally Ride EarthKAM software at the Node 2 Nadir hatch window. Once configured, the EarthKAM team, in association with middle school students around the world, selected image targets which will be downlinked and used in the study of …

Human Research Program (HRP) Collections: The crew continued a urine collection session today and performed the first blood draw in support of the Biochemical Profile and Repository experiments. Collected samples are placed in Minus Eighty Degree Celsius Laboratory Freezer for ISS (MELFI) for return at a later date. The Biochemical Profile experiment tests blood and …

Orbital ATK (OA)-5 Cargo Operations:  Today, CDR continued transferring cargo from Cygnus to ISS. Afterwards, CDR participated in a cargo conference with ground specialists. At last report approximately 9.5 hours of cargo operations had been completed and an estimated 16 hours of operations remaining.  Human Research Program (HRP) Collections: CDR began 24-hour urine collections this …

A new set of Expedition 50 crew members is in Kazakhstan just two weeks away from a launch to the International Space Station. The three orbiting station inhabitants are in the second week of their four-month stay in space. Thomas Pesquet, Peggy Whitson and Oleg Novitskiy have tried on their spacesuits and checked out the …

Group Combustion Leak Check: CDR retrieved the Combustion Chamber from the Multi-Purpose Small Payload Rack (MSPR) Work Volume and installed a top plate on the Combustion Chamber.  The crew then installed a gas bottles and air supply lines to configure for a leak check.  Ground specialists are focusing the leak check on the Group Combustion …

The Mission Operations team, Science team and Science Computing Facility team participated in a week-in-the-life simulation from October 21-28, 2016. The simulation included mission planning, twice daily payload checks, weekly science team and planning meetings, and data processing and transfers. The simulation also involved handling ISS activities, including operations for a Soyuz docking and a […]