Cygnus Launching Today as Crew Works Eye-Brain Study and Spacewalk Preps
The Cygnus space freighter sits atop its Antares rocket from Northrop Grumman counting down to a launch today from NASA?s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia. Packed aboard Cygnus are over 8,200 pounds of science experiments, crew supplies, spacewalk gear, hardware, and computer equipment. Antares will fire its engines at 8:31 p.m. EDT today launching the Cygnus cargo craft into Earth orbit. Just over nine minutes later Cygnus will separate from its booster. It will then deploy its solar arrays just over two hours after that beginning a two-and-a-half-day trip to the International Space Station. Expedition 69 will be awaiting Cygnus as NASA Flight Engineer Woody Hoburg prepares to capture the U.S. resupply ship with the Canadarm2 robotic arm at 5:55 a.m. on Friday. NASA Flight Engineer Frank Rubio will be on backup duty monitoring Cygnus? approach and rendezvous. Mission controllers on the ground will remotely take control of the Canadarm2 after Cygnus? capture on Friday and install it to the Unity module?s Earth-facing port about two hours later. Cygnus is scheduled to end its stay at the orbital lab at the end of October. Hoburg and Rubio brushed up on their robotics skills mid-Tuesday practicing Cygnus capture techniques on a computer then reviewed Cygnus? approach and rendezvous timeline. Rubio also serviced temperature and humidity control hardware in the Kibo laboratory module. Hoburg attached electrodes around NASA Flight Engineer Stephen Bowen?s eyes to measure any space-caused eye, brain, and blood vessel changes. UAE (United Arab Emirates) astronaut Sultan Alneyadi spent most of his day on maintenance tasks. He configured demonstration hardware in Kibo that will help scientists conduct space experiments from Earth. Afterward, Alneyadi installed visual inspection hardware to observe the internal performance of life support gear located in the Tranquility module. Finally, the UAE?s first long-term station resident photographed Hoburg and Bowen during their biomedical activities. NASA and SpaceX now are targeting 5:23 a.m. EDT Monday, Aug. 21, for the launch of the agency?s Crew-7 mission to the International Space Station. The adjusted date allows additional time for launch site processing at Launch Complex 39A at NASA?s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. If needed, a backup opportunity is available at 3:49 a.m. on Friday, Aug. 25. Two cosmonauts are once again preparing for another spacewalk for more work outside the station?s Roscosmos segment. Commander Sergey Prokopyev and Flight Engineer Dmitri Petelin began gathering tools and reviewing procedures today to install micrometeoroid orbital debris shields and relocate hardware during a spacewalk planned for Aug. 9. Flight Engineer Andrey Fedyaev is training for his role when he will be at the controls of the European robotic arm assisting the spacewalking duo.
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