Blogs

September is gearing up to be a very busy month aboard the International Space Station. The six Expedition 56 crew members are headlong in the first week of the month switching roles and juggling a wide variety of critical tasks. Flight Engineer Ricky Arnold of NASA has been swapping roles today as space scientist and …

You can now track the position and speed of Parker Solar Probe on the web.

Airway Monitoring: Today the crew performed preparatory activities for the GMT 250 Airway Monitoring US Airlock Session. These activities include review of big picture words, hardware location, etc. The Airway Monitoring investigation aims to determine in detail the pulmonary nitric oxide turnover in weightlessness and in combined weightless, hypobaric and hypoxic environments as well as …

The Expedition 56 crew members conducted maintenance work on a variety of advanced science gear today to ensure ongoing space research aboard the International Space Station. The crew also continued a pair of exercise studies and trained to capture a Japanese cargo craft before tonight’s orbital reboost of the station. Commander Drew Feustel spent Wednesday …

Parker Solar Probe continues to bring its instruments and secondary systems online — slightly ahead of schedule — as it speeds away from Earth.

Binary Colloidal Alloy Test – Cohesive Sediment (BCAT-CS): On Sunday, the crew checked the camera alignment and focus by viewing the latest BCAT images on a laptop.  TheBCAT-CS investigation studies the forces between particles that cluster together by using sediments of quartz and clay particles.  Conducting the research in the microgravity environment of the ISS …

A rocket carrying Japan’s seventh H-II Transfer Vehicle (HTV-7) is poised to launch next Monday on a cargo delivery mission to the International Space Station. The Expedition 56 crew members trained for the HTV-7’s arrival, conducted eye checks and prepared for a pair of spacewalks. On Sept. 10, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) is …

Out-of-Spec ISS Cabin Pressure Decrease: Following the initial leak repair yesterday, the ISS was repressurized to nominal pressure using Progress assets.  Today, the Russian crew performed additional activities for the leak repair.  There was still a small leak path which the crew sealed as they continued with the repair. An additional level of repair will …

The Expedition 56 crew resumed a regular schedule of work Friday on the International Space Station after spending the day Thursday locating and repairing a leak in the upper section of one of the two Russian Soyuz vehicles attached to the complex. With the station’s cabin pressure holding steady, most of the crew pressed ahead …

Out-of-Spec ISS Cabin Pressure Decrease: Last night, the ISS cabin pressure started dropping at the rate of one mmHg/hr. This morning the crew performed leak isolation steps via a series of hatch closures and determined the leak was in the Soyuz 55S habitation module [БО]; a pressure check of the 55S descent module was nominal. Further …