Departure Preps Underway as New Crew Steps up Science, Maintenance
Two crews are nearing the end of their stay aboard the International Space Station while the orbital residents continue ongoing microgravity research and lab maintenance.
Next week will see the departure of NASA astronaut Tracy C. Dyson and Roscosmos cosmonauts Oleg Kononenko and Nikolai Chub. The trio will undock the Soyuz MS-25 spacecraft from the Prichal docking module at 4:37 a.m. EDT on Sept. 23, soar into Earth's atmosphere, and parachute to a landing in Kazakhstan at 8 a.m. Dyson will be wrapping up a six-month mission while Kononenko and Chub will be completing just over a year of continuously orbiting Earth.
The homebound crewmates entered the Soyuz MS-25 today and practiced undocking and descent procedures. Dyson also continued packing personal items and other cargo for return to Earth. Kononenko and Chub tried on a lower body negative pressure suit suit that may help crews adjust quicker to Earth's gravity then tested controls and systems inside the Soyuz spacecraft.
A couple of weeks after the Soyuz crew's return to Earth, the four SpaceX Crew-8 members Matthew Dominick, Mike Barratt, Jeanette Epps, and Alexander Grebenkin will depart. Dominick's three crewmates Barratt, Epps, and Grebenkin, entered the SpaceX Dragon Endurance spacecraft docked to the Harmony module's forward port and reviewed operations and procedures. Dominick spent his day in the Destiny laboratory module completing work begun the day before and replaced components on an oxygen generator.
The orbital outpost's newest crew with NASA astronaut Don Pettit and Roscosmos cosmonauts Alexey Ovchinin and Ivan Vagner arrived at the station aboard the Soyuz MS-26 crew ship on Sept. 11. The trio has mostly completed its station familiarization activities and is stepping up daily science and maintenance tasks. Pettit worked Wednesday inside the Kibo laboratory module and loaded a CubeSat-packed deployer into Kibo's airlock. The CubeSats will be deployed into Earth orbit for a series of technology demonstrations. Ovchinin and Vagner continued exploring how their circulatory system is adapting to the weightless environment.
NASA Flight Engineers Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, who have been aboard the station since June 6, took turns Wednesday reviewing SpaceX Dragon spacecraft systems. Wilmore also tested the Sphere Camera-2 for its ability to take high-resolution imagery in space. Williams cleaned and inspected smoke detectors, reconfigured a radiation detector, then helped Dominick clean up after his oxygen generator work.
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