These days, Expedition 68 astronauts are cleaning up after 3 days of sophisticated bone repair studies, while preparing for an upcoming spacewalk. In addition, the three astronauts on board the International space Station (ISS) continued their Space physics as well as Earth imagery work, as well as maintained orbital lab systems.
Frank Rubio and josh Cassada are cleaning up biology research hardware plus completing sample processing following three full days of bone healing investigation on board NASA. Inside the Kibo lab module, the duo worked to service the samples and then packed them into science freezers. Samples from the mission are going to be loaded for return on a upcoming SpaceX Dragon mission, and then analyzed as well as compared to control samples taken in labs on Earth. The two astronauts in addition cleaned Kibo’s Life Science Glovebox along with its elements where intensive bone investigation work was taking place this week.
Cassada also worked Thursday on space agriculture, obtaining leaves from thale cress plants housed in the Advanced Plant Habitat for stowage as well as analysis on Earth. He afterwards cared for tomato plants developing inside the botany facility of Veggie room for the Veg-05 test. Both studies occur within the Columbus laboratory module.
Koichi Wakata, an astronaut with the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), looked at ways to permit on-demand generation of nutrients for astronauts on long-range missions to the Moon, Mars and beyond. The demonstration technology utilizes engineered yeast or microbes to ensure a safe and simple foods production setting in space and counterbalance the degradation of nutrition sown over long periods.
The next spacewalk is slated for February 2 to continue the upgrade of the power generation system in the orbiting laboratory. Two spacewalkers will exit the Quest airlock in their Extravehicular Mobility Units (emus) or Spacesuits to accomplish installing a modification system on the starboard truss structure. The hardware work will prepare the space station for its subsequent solar array. Spacesuit gloves as well as tethers have been inspected prior to the spacewalk.
Sergey Prokopyev continued Thursday more space physics test runs as he explored how clouds of highly charged particles or plasma crystals conduct themselves in microgravity. Dmitri Petelin, Roscosmos ‘flight Engineer, spent his time on life support maintenance before partnering up with cosmonaut Anna Kikina for ultrasound – eye scanning. Kikina continued her explorations of the Earth utilizing ultraviolet imaging hardware to obtain a map of the nighttime glow of the atmosphere.
