April 2024 – Space Station

On-Orbit Training and Health Research Occupy Schedule on Tuesday

Expedition 71 Flight Engineer and NASA astronaut Mike Barratt tests portable breathing gear aboard the International Space Station's Destiny laboratory module. — Expedition 71 Flight Engineer and NASA astronaut Mike Barratt tests portable breathing gear aboard the International Space Station’s Destiny laboratory module.

A suite of on-orbit training topped Tuesday’s schedule aboard the International Space Station as the Expedition 71 crew gets ready for a spacecraft relocation on Thursday and a crew arrival next week. Four crew members also spent some time conducting ongoing health research to help scientists on Earth better understand the effects of spaceflight on the human body.

In the morning, NASA Flight Engineers Mike Barratt and Jeanette Epps assisted one another with ultrasound scans of veins in their necks, shoulders, clavicles, and back of the knees. The duo was then joined by their other Crew-8 crewmates, Flight Engineers Matthew Dominick of NASA and Alexander Grebenkin of Roscosmos, to review procedures and complete training for the upcoming relocation of their SpaceX Dragon spacecraft.

The quartet will suit up Thursday, May 2 and enter Dragon for an undocking from the forward port of the Harmony module at 7:45 a.m. EDT. They will then take a short ride aboard Dragon before redocking to the zenith port of Harmony around 8:28 a.m.

This relocation will make room for the Starliner spacecraft as part of NASA’s Boeing Crew Flight Test, scheduled to launch Monday, May 6 at 10:34 p.m. Starliner will carry NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams to the station for a docking around 12:48 a.m. Wednesday, May 8. The duo will join the Expedition 71 crew in low Earth orbit for about a week before returning home.

After lunch, the Crew-8 cadre was joined by astronaut Tracy C. Dyson of NASA, space station Commander Oleg Kononenko, and Flight Engineer Nikolai Chub of Roscosmos to complete a fire training session in the event an emergency were to occur aboard station. The septet then spent some time discussing the training and holding a conference with ground teams.

In the evening, Dominick set up tomography hardware and assisted Dyson with an eye exam. Dyson then shut down and stowed the hardware, wrapping up a round of health exams for the week.

On Earth, a SpaceX Dragon cargo spacecraft, which spent about a month docked to the orbiting laboratory, splashed down off the coast of Florida at 1:38 a.m. Tuesday, April 30, returning more than 4,100 pounds of supplies and scientific experiments back to researchers.

Learn more about station activities by following the space station blog, @space_station and @ISS_Research on X, as well as the ISS Facebook and ISS Instagram accounts.

Get weekly updates from NASA Johnson Space Center at: https://roundupreads.jsc.nasa.gov/

Get the latest from NASA delivered every week. Subscribe here: www.nasa.gov/subscribe

Dragon Spacecraft Splashes Down Completing Resupply Mission

The SpaceX Dragon Cargo spacecraft approaches the International Space Station's Harmony module for a docking on March 23, 2024. Credit: NASA TV — The SpaceX Dragon Cargo spacecraft approaches the International Space Station’s Harmony module for a docking on March 23, 2024. Credit: NASA TV

SpaceX’s uncrewed Dragon cargo spacecraft splashed down at 1:38 a.m. EDT Tuesday off the coast of Tampa, Florida, marking the return of the company’s 30th contracted cargo resupply mission to the International Space Station for NASA. The spacecraft carried more than 4,100 pounds of valuable scientific experiments and other cargo back to Earth.

Next, four SpaceX Crew-8 members will board the Dragon crew spacecraft on Thursday and undock the vehicle from the forward port of the station’s Harmony module and redock to Harmony’s zenith port. NASA TV coverage will begin on Thursday at 7:30 a.m. Undocking is scheduled at 7:45 a.m. with redocking scheduled at 8:28 a.m.

That will clear the forward port of Harmony for the arrival of the Boeing Starliner spacecraft with Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams aboard on the Crew Flight Test (CFT) mission. They are scheduled to launch at 10:34 pm on Monday, May 6, night atop an Atlas 5 rocket from Launch Complex 41 at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Fla..

Learn more about station activities by following the space station blog, @space_station and @ISS_Research on X, as well as the ISS Facebook and ISS Instagram accounts.

Get weekly video highlights at: https://roundupreads.jsc.nasa.gov/videoupdate/

Get the latest from NASA delivered every week. Subscribe here: www.nasa.gov/subscribe

Crew Starts Week With Maintenance, Science Prep, and Health Exams

Expedition 71 Flight Engineer and NASA astronaut MIke Barratt is pictured relaxing aboard the International Space Station'. — Expedition 71 Flight Engineer and NASA astronaut Mike Barratt is pictured relaxing aboard the International Space Station.

Five spacecraft are parked at the International Space Station following yesterday’s undocking of a cargo craft. Aboard the orbiting complex, the Expedition 71 crew is looking ahead to a Dragon relocation mid-week and the arrival of two new crew members next week. On Monday, the septet spent the day conducting routine maintenance, prepping for upcoming science activities, and performing health exams.

A Dragon cargo spacecraft is currently orbiting Earth preparing to splash down off the coast of Florida at approximately 1:38 a.m. EDT Tuesday, April 30. Dragon, which spent about a month docked to the station, departed at 1:10 p.m. Sunday, April 28, and is carrying more than 4,100 pounds of supplies and scientific experiments back to researchers on Earth.

Aboard station, four orbital residents—NASA astronauts Jeanette Epps, Matthew Dominick, Mike Barratt, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Alexander Grebenkin—are preparing to relocate their SpaceX Dragon spacecraft on Thursday, May 2 to the zenith port of the Harmony module. This relocation will make room for the Starliner spacecraft as part of NASA’s Boeing Crew Flight Test, scheduled to launch Monday, May 6. Starliner will carry NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams to the station for about a one week stay.

While mission preparations are underway, Dominick set up hardware to perform an eye exam on Epps and measure her blood pressure using a new thigh cuff. The hardware examines whether cuffs on the legs change the way fluid moves around the body. The microgravity environment often causes fluids to shift toward the head, which can result in changes to vision and eye structure. Scientists are exploring whether the new hardware could be useful for astronauts to wear in the future as a normal part of spaceflight.

In the Destiny laboratory module, Barratt swapped out cartridges inside the Materials Science Laboratory and prepared it for an upcoming sample run. The facility is used to investigate the behavior of different types of materials at high temperatures in microgravity. Meanwhile, NASA Flight Engineer Tracy C. Dyson changed out two water resupply tanks in the water storage system, then moved on to perform routine maintenance on the station’s Advanced Resistive Exercise Device, or ARED.

Over in the Roscosmos segment, Grebenkin practiced his piloting techniques during a Pilot-T session. His crewmates, Commander Oleg Kononenko and Flight Engineer Nikolai Chub, stowed tools they used during a four-hour and 36-minute spacewalk on Thursday, April 25.

Learn more about station activities by following the space station blog, @space_station and @ISS_Research on X, as well as the ISS Facebook and ISS Instagram accounts.

Get weekly updates from NASA Johnson Space Center at: https://roundupreads.jsc.nasa.gov/

Get the latest from NASA delivered every week. Subscribe here: www.nasa.gov/subscribe

Dragon Undocks from Station for Return to Earth

April 28, 2024: International Space Station Configuration. Five spaceships are parked at the space station including the SpaceX Dragon crew spacecraft Endeavour, Northrop Grumman’s Cygnus space freighter, the Soyuz MS-25 crew ship, and the Progress 86 and 87 resupply ships.

Following commands from ground controllers at SpaceX in Hawthorne, California, Dragon undocked at 1:10 p.m. EDT from the forward port of the station’s Harmony module. At the time of undocking, the station was flying at an altitude about 260 miles above Earth.

After re-entering Earth’s atmosphere, the spacecraft will make a parachute-assisted splashdown off the coast of Florida at 1:38 a.m. Tuesday, April 30. NASA will not broadcast the splashdown, but updates will be posted on the agency’s space station blog.

Dragon arrived at the space station as SpaceX’s 30th commercial resupply services mission for NASA, delivering about 6,000 pounds of research investigations, crew supplies, and station hardware. It was launched March 21 on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.

Learn more about station activities by following the space station blog, @space_station and @ISS_Research on X, as well as the ISS Facebook and ISS Instagram accounts.

Get weekly video highlights at: https://roundupreads.jsc.nasa.gov/videoupdate/

Get the latest from NASA delivered every week. Subscribe here: www.nasa.gov/subscribe

Dragon Spacecraft Departing Station Live on NASA TV

The SpaceX Dragon cargo spacecraft approaches the space station for a docking to the Harmony module's space-facing port on March 23, 2024. — The SpaceX Dragon cargo spacecraft approaches the space station for a docking to the Harmony module’s space-facing port on March 23, 2024.

NASA’s live coverage of the departure of SpaceX’s uncrewed Dragon cargo spacecraft from the International Space Station is underway on NASA+, NASA Television, the NASA app, YouTube, and the agency’s website. Learn how to stream NASA TV through a variety of platforms including social media.

Following commands from ground controllers at SpaceX in Hawthorne, California, Dragon will undock at 1:10 p.m. EDT from the forward port of the station’s Harmony module and fire its thrusters to move a safe distance away from the station.

Learn more about station activities by following the space station blog, @space_station and @ISS_Research on X, as well as the ISS Facebook and ISS Instagram accounts.

Get weekly video highlights at: https://roundupreads.jsc.nasa.gov/videoupdate/

Get the latest from NASA delivered every week. Subscribe here: www.nasa.gov/subscribe

Crew Works Dragon, Biotech, and Spacewalk Cleanups

Astronauts Tracy C. Dyson and Matthew Dominick collect research samples preserved inside science freezers for transferring inside the SpaceX Dragon cargo spacecraft.

The Expedition 71 crew members continue packing the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft and preparing for its return to Earth this weekend. Meanwhile, the cosmonauts cleaned up following a successful spacewalk at the International Space Station on Thursday.

Mission managers are monitoring weather conditions off the coast of Florida and are now targeting no earlier than 12:05 p.m. EDT on Sunday for the undocking of the SpaceX Dragon cargo spacecraft. The NASA astronauts have spent the week packing Dragon with completed science experiments and research samples that will be analyzed in laboratories on Earth. On Friday, Flight Engineers Tracy C. Dyson and Matthew Dominick securely transferred into Dragon mice treated with a genetic therapy that may prevent space-caused vision issues. Scientists on the ground will evaluate the space rodents and compare them to a control group on the ground.

NASA Flight Engineer Jeanette Epps swabbed placards the crew had been touching at regular intervals and collected microbe samples for the Antimicrobial Coatings experiment. The samples were placed in transfer tubes for stowage on Dragon and analysis on Earth. Special coatings on surfaces are being tested for their ability to inhibit microbial growth and prevent bacteria contamination in space and Earth systems protecting astronauts and Earthlings.

NASA Flight Engineer Mike Barratt spent Friday on a pair of biotechnology experiments to boost health on and off the Earth. He started his day preparing bacteria samples for DNA sequencing. Researchers seek to identify antibiotic resistant organisms, how microgravity affects their evolution, and protect space crews. Barratt then spent the afternoon processing cardiac tissue samples printed in the BioFabrication Facility, a 3D bioprinter. Results may allow crews to print meals and medicines and doctors on Earth to manufacture organs for patient surgeries.

The orbital lab’s three cosmonauts slept in on Friday following a four-hour and 36-minute spacewalk to install hardware and science experiments on the station’s Roscosmos segment. This was the second spacewalk that Commander Oleg Kononenko and Flight Engineer Nikolai Chub had conducted together. The duo woke up late on Friday and began cleaning and removing components from their Orlan spacesuits. Flight Engineer Alexander Grebenkin, who assisted the spacewalkers on Thursday, retrieved radiation sensors from the spacesuits and documented the recorded data.

The space station is orbiting higher today after the Progress 87 resupply ship, docked to the Zvezda service module’s aft port, fired its engines for nearly seven minutes on Thursday night. The orbital reboost puts the orbital outpost at the correct altitude for the arrival of the next cargo craft from Roscosmos, the Progress 88, due in late May.

Learn more about station activities by following the space station blog, @space_station and @ISS_Research on X, as well as the ISS Facebook and ISS Instagram accounts.

Get weekly video highlights at: https://roundupreads.jsc.nasa.gov/videoupdate/

Get the latest from NASA delivered every week. Subscribe here: www.nasa.gov/subscribe

NASA Astronauts Complete Key Rehearsal Before Boeing Crew Flight Test

From left to right, NASA astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore pose for photos at the Launch and Landing Facility at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida following their arrival for the agency’s Boeing Crew Flight Test. Photo credit: NASA/Frank Michaux

Launch preparations are moving full steam ahead to send two NASA astronauts aboard Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft for the first time to the International Space Station. NASA, Boeing, and ULA (United Launch Alliance) recently completed a start-to-finish mission dress rehearsal on April 26, for the upcoming Crew Flight Test.

The mission will launch NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore, commander, and Suni Williams, pilot, on Boeing’s Starliner on a ULA Atlas V rocket from Space Launch Complex-41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. Liftoff is scheduled for 10:34 p.m. EDT, Monday, May 6.

During the dress rehearsal, Wilmore and Williams completed a series of launch day milestones including suiting up, working in a flight deck simulator, and operating the same software that will be used during the launch. After loading out Building at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida and convoyed to the Vertical Integration Facility at nearby Cape Canaveral to run through countdown procedures with the integrated Atlas V rocket and Starliner stack.

The crew will spend about a week at the orbiting laboratory before the crew capsule returns to Earth, making a parachute and airbag-assisted landing in the southwestern United States.

After successful completion of the mission, NASA will begin the final process of certifying Starliner and its systems for crew rotation missions to the space station. The Starliner capsule, with a diameter of 15 feet (4.56m) and the capability to steer automatically or manually, will carry four astronauts, or a mix of crew and cargo, for NASA missions to low Earth orbit.

Learn more about NASA’s Boeing Crew Flight Test by following the mission blog, the commercial crew blog, @commercial_crew on X, and commercial crew on Facebook.

NASA Flight Test Readiness Review Concludes, Teleconference to Follow

Mission managers with NASA, Boeing, and United Launch Alliance gather on Thursday, April 25, 2024, at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida to complete a Flight Test Readiness Review for NASA’s Boeing Crew Flight Test. Photo credit: NASA/Mike Chambers

NASA concluded its Flight Test Readiness Review for the agency’s Boeing Crew Flight Test and teams are proceeding toward a planned launch at 10:34 p.m. EDT on Monday, May 6, to the International Space Station. The mission will transport NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams to and from the space station of the first flight with crew to certify the Starliner and its system for regular crew rotation missions.

At 4:30 p.m., NASA will host a media teleconference (no less than one hour following completion of the readiness review) with the following participants:

Jim Free, NASA associate administrator
Ken Bowersox, associate administrator, NASA’s Space Operations Mission Directorate
Steve Stich, manager, NASA’s Commercial Crew Program
Dana Weigel, manager, NASA’s International Space Station Program
Mark Nappi, vice president and manager, Boeing Commercial Crew Program
Emily Nelson, NASA chief flight director

The media teleconference will air live on the agency’s website.

Next up is a mission dress rehearsal on Friday, April 26, for NASA, Boeing, and ULA (United Launch Alliance). Wilmore and Williams, commander and pilot, will mimic launch day operations. The astronauts load in their spacesuits, walk out of the Neil A. Armstrong Operations and Checkout Building, and get into Boeing’s Astrovan to travel to the spacecraft. Teams will practice countdown scenarios, prep Starliner’s crew module for flight, close the hatch, and conduct readiness polls of managers and engineers.

Wilmore and Williams are the first to launch aboard Boeing’s Starliner on an Atlas V rocket. The astronauts will spend about a week at the orbiting laboratory before the crew capsule makes a parachute and airbag-assisted landing in the southwestern United States.

After successful completion of the mission, NASA will begin the final process of certifying Starliner and its systems for crewed rotation missions to the space station. The Starliner capsule, with a diameter of 15 feet (4.56m) and the capability to steer automatically or manually, will carry four astronauts, or a mix of crew and cargo, for NASA missions to low Earth orbit.

Learn more about NASA’s Boeing Crew Flight Test by following the mission blog, the commercial crew blog, @commercial_crew on X, and commercial crew on Facebook.

Cosmonauts Complete Spacewalk to Install Hardware, Science

Spacewalkers Oleg Kononenko and Nikolai are pictured shortly after their spacewalk began on Thursday, April 25, 2024, for hardware and science installation work. Credit: NASA TV

Roscosmos cosmonauts Oleg Kononenko and Nikolai Chub concluded their spacewalk April 25 at 3:33 p.m. EDT after four hours and 36 minutes.

Kononenko and Chub completed their major objectives, which included completing the deployment of one panel on a synthetic radar communications system on the Russian segment of the complex and installing equipment and experiments to analyze the level of corrosion on station surfaces and modules.

This was the seventh spacewalk in Kononenko’s career, and the second for Chub. It is the 270th spacewalk for space station assembly, maintenance, and upgrades.

Learn more about station activities by following the space station blog, @space_station and @ISS_Research on X, as well as the ISS Facebook and ISS Instagram accounts.

Get weekly video highlights at: https://roundupreads.jsc.nasa.gov/videoupdate/

Get the latest from NASA delivered every week. Subscribe here: www.nasa.gov/subscribe

Dreams Become Reality for NASA’s Boeing Flight Test Crew

NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams hug after arriving at the Launch and Landing Facility at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Thursday, April 25, 2024. Photo credit: NASA/Chris Stevens

Momentum is building for NASA’s Boeing Crew Flight Test launch, scheduled for Monday, May 6, 2024.

NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams arrived in a T-38 jet April 25 at the Launch and Landing Facility at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida after a short flight from Ellington Field near NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston.

NASA leaders welcomed Wilmore and Williams and held a short news conference.

“Our hearts and souls are in this spacecraft and a little part of us will be lifting off with Butch and Suni,” said NASA’s Commercial Crew Program Deputy Manager Dana Hutcherson, who has been with the program for 13 years.

Wilmore and Williams are targeting 10:34 p.m. EDT Monday, May 6, for launch aboard Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft and ULA’s (United Launch Alliance) Atlas V rocket from Space Launch Complex-41 at nearby Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. This will be the first crewed flight of Starliner for NASA’s Commercial Crew Program.

Click below to watch the earlier broadcast of the welcome ceremony.