Blogs

Cygnus Cargo Operations:  The crew was originally scheduled to ingress the Cygnus vehicle this morning, however the crew got ahead of the timeline and ingressed on Sunday, October 23rd.  Today the crew performed Cygnus cargo transfer operations off the tasklist during the time that was allocated for ingress. Airway Monitory Reconfiguration: Following Tuesday’s successful Airway …

One spacecraft is being packed and readied for the return of three humans to Earth while a cargo craft is being unloaded and settling in for a one-month stay. The Expedition 49 trio of Commander Anatoly Ivanishin and Flight Engineers Kate Rubins and Takuya Onishi are packing gear and preparing for their return to Earth …

Meteor Operations: FE-6 exchanged the hard drive then removed and replaced the grating in the Meteor Camera located in the Window Observational Research Facility (WORF). The Meteor payload is a visible spectroscopy instrument with the primary purpose of observing meteors in Earth orbit. Meteor uses image analysis to provide information on the physical and chemical …

Three Expedition 49 crew members are winding down their stay in space this week, as a new trio gets used to its new home on orbit. While all six International Space Station residents are in the midst of a crew transition, they are still continuing advanced space research and orbital lab maintenance. Commander Anatoly Ivanishin …

Veg-03 Initiation: FE-3 configured and installed the Vegetable Production System (Veggie) on the Maintenance Work Area (MWA) and then installed six Small Plant Pillows to hold the ‘Outredgeous’ red romaine lettuce plants.  Ground teams plan to grow the lettuce plants for two months, with four harvests planned.  The overall goal of Veg-03 is to further …

When Orion returns from deep space missions and lands in the ocean, a team will be responsible for safely returning the capsule and crew back to land. NASA’s Ground Systems Development and Operations Program and U.S. Navy personnel are preparing to conduct a water recovery test, called Underway Recovery Test 5 (URT-5), this week, using a …

The newly-expanded Expedition 49 crew is getting ready to grow lettuce to learn how to grow fresh food in space. Meanwhile, the International Space Station is getting ready for another crew swap. New station crew member Shane Kimbrough is installing hardware and plant pillows for the Veg-03 plant growth experiment. The study is a validation …

The first half of the B-level work platforms, B south, for NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) rocket, arrived by heavy-load transport truck at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Oct. 21. The B platforms are the ninth of 10 levels of new platforms for High Bay 3 in the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB). …

Bigelow Expandable Activity Module (BEAM) Ingress and Sampling: FE-6 stowed the Advanced Resistive Exercise Device (ARED) then opened Node3 Aft hatch to ingress the BEAM.  Once inside, the crew collected Microbial Air Sampler (MAS) and Surface Sample Kit (SSK) microbial and surface samples and deployed the Radiation Area Monitors (RAMs) delivered on 48Soyuz (48S).  The …

Cygnus Rendezvous and Capture:  This morning the crew monitored the Cygnus approach from the Cupola Robotic Workstation and successfully captured Cygnus using the Space Station Remote Manipulator System (SSRMS) at 6:28 am CDT.  The Ground Robotics team maneuvered Cygnus into position to inspect the Passive Common Berthing Mechanism (CBM), and berthed Cygnus onto the Node-1 …