Crew Rotation Preps Continue Amidst Human Research on Station
As one crew on Earth prepares to launch to the International Space Station another crew is getting ready to depart the orbital outpost. In the meantime, human research is underway as the Expedition 72 crew members continue exploring how their bodies are adapting to microgravity.
The SpaceX Dragon spacecraft atop the Falcon 9 rocket is counting down to a lift off targeted for no earlier than 1:17 p.m. EDT on Saturday, Sept. 28, weather permitting. Dragon will carry SpaceX Crew-9 members NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov to the space station for a five-month space research mission. Crew-9 will launch from Space Launch Complex-40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.
Back in space, three astronauts and one cosmonaut are nearing the end of their mission that began on March 5. The four SpaceX Crew-8 members Matthew Dominick, Mike Barratt, Jeanette Epps, and Alexander Grebenkin, joined each other on Wednesday and checked out the pressure suits and the communication gear they will wear as they descend to Earth inside Dragon after six-and-a-half months in space. Dominick and Barratt, Crew-8 commander and pilot, also reviewed the spacecraft's systems and procedures ahead of next month's undocking and landing.
Epps also joined Barratt and scanned his chest with the Ultrasound 2 device as doctors on the ground monitored for the CIPHER suite of 14 human research investigations. Electrodes on Barratt's chest also provided data helping scientists understand potential space-caused changes to his cardiovascular and muscular systems. NASA Flight Engineer Don Pettit, who has been aboard the orbiting lab since Sept. 11, pedaled on the Destiny laboratory module's exercise cycle while attached sensors and wearing breathing gear that measured his aerobic capacity.
Cosmonauts Alexey Ovchinin and Ivan Vagner wore virtual reality goggles that tracked their eye movements providing details about how a crew member's sense of balance adapts to the lack of gravity. The duo then worked throughout the day maintaining power systems and life support gear in the Roscosmos segment of the space station.
Station Commander Suni Williams took turns with NASA Flight Engineer Butch Wilmore on Wednesday training for upcoming cargo operations inside the arriving and departing SpaceX Dragon vehicles. The duo then split up as Williams swapped out combustion research gear and Wilmore collected microbe samples from lab module surfaces for incubation and analysis.
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