Blogs

NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson handed over command of the International Space Station to Russian cosmonaut Fyodor Yurchikhin in a traditional Change of Command ceremony, which began at 11:50 a.m. EDT. Expedition 52 will officially begin under Yurchikhin’s command when the Soyuz spacecraft carrying Expedition 51 Flight Engineers Oleg Novitskiy of Roscosmos and Thomas Pesquet of …

Passive Thermal Testbed:  The crew removed the Electro-Wetting Drawer and replaced it with the Heat Pipe Drawer for the Passive Thermal Testbed investigation. The PTT demonstrates the in-space performance of three advanced thermal management technologies, an important step toward improving these technologies for use on future space exploration missions. The investigation leverages the fluid cooling …

The Expedition 51 crew members are awaiting a new space shipment and getting ready for new science experiments. The crew is also preparing for the departure of a pair of International Space Station flight engineers. The Falcon 9 rocket that will launch the SpaceX Dragon cargo craft to space is resting at its launch pad …

The International Space Station is preparing this week for the departure of two Expedition 51 crew members and the arrival of the SpaceX Dragon. Expedition 52 will begin Friday morning when two Expedition 51 crew members depart the station inside the Soyuz MS-03 spacecraft. Cosmonaut Oleg Novitskiy and astronaut Thomas Pesquet will return to Earth …

Human Research Program (HRP): A 49S crewmember collected Return minus 15 days (R-15) blood and urine samples for Vascular Echo, Biochem Profile, and Marrow investigations as well as air samples for Marrow and ultrasound measurements for Vascular Echo.  The Vascular Echo investigation examines changes in blood vessels and the heart while crew members are in …

Cardio Ox Ultrasound:  A 50S crewmember completed their Flight Day (FD) 180 ultrasound, blood pressure and Electrocardiogram (ECG) measurements for the Cardio Ox investigation.  With scanning assistance from a Crew Medical Officer (CMO) and ground remote guidance specialists, the crew donned ECG electrodes and marked the Carotid and Brachial arteries for scanning.  By collecting ultrasound …

NanoRack Cubesat Deployer (NRCSD) #12 Cubesat Deploys:  The remaining 8 of 17 NRCSD #12 CubeSats were successfully deployed from the ISS today. All are a subset of the QB50 constellation of CubeSats provided by countries from around the world. The constellation studies the upper reaches of the Earth’s atmosphere over a period of 1 to …

More CubeSats were ejected from the International Space Station this week to explore the Earth’s upper atmosphere. Meanwhile, the Expedition 51 crew trained for a crew departure and cargo craft arrival. NanoRacks, a private company with facilities on the space station, deployed a total of 17 CubeSats over two days this week from a satellite …

The Expedition 51 crew trained today for the next SpaceX Dragon mission due early next month. The five crew members also explored how microgravity affects their bodies to help scientists keep astronauts healthy in space. The next Dragon mission, SpaceX CRS-11, is scheduled to launch June 1 to deliver new space science gear to the …

Grasp Commissioning:  To complete commissioning for the Grasp investigation hardware, Pesquet performed tasks in a seated position. Grasp is intended to provide insight into how the central nervous system integrates information from different sensory modalities encoded in different reference frames to coordinate movements of the hand with objects in the environment.  Performed on the ISS, …