Two NASA astronauts took a half-a-day off on Friday following a spacewalk the day before today then cleaned up spacesuit gear and held a convention with specialists on the bottom. In the meantime, science continued aboard the Worldwide Area Station because the Expedition 72 crew studied area physics and biology.
Flight Engineer Nick Hague and Commander Suni Williams labored six hours within the vacuum of area on Thursday servicing astrophysics {hardware} and changing orientation and navigation parts. The duo relaxed just a few hours on Friday earlier than packing gear faraway from the skin of the station and recharging spacesuit water tanks and lithium-ion batteries.
Williams additionally labored with NASA Flight Engineer Don Pettit within the Quest airlock stowing a fee gyro meeting and planar reflector that she had eliminated and changed the day earlier than on the skin of the orbital outpost. The speed gyro meeting, which supplies information on the area station’s orientation, and the planar reflector, which supplies navigational information, will each be returned to Earth for examination.
NASA Flight Engineer Butch Wilmore assisted Williams and recharged water tanks and the lithium-ion batteries that energy the spacesuits throughout spacewalks. The day earlier than, Wilmore photographed the spacesuit gloves following the completion of the spacewalk for inspection by engineers in Mission Management. On the finish of his shift on Friday, Wilmore joined Pettit, Williams, and Hague and held a normal debriefing session with mission controllers and mentioned their experiences earlier than, throughout, and after Thursday’s spacewalk.
Hague and Wilmore additionally had time for science as they swapped physics {hardware} contained in the Future laboratory module. The superior analysis gear helps a physics furnace that operates in Future’s Microgravity Science Glovebox for an experiment that’s exploring semiconductor crystal manufacturing in area.
Roscosmos Flight Engineers Alexey Ovchinin and Ivan Vagner as soon as once more joined one another and explored how microgravity impacts blood move to the human circulatory system’s tiniest vessels. The pair connected sensors to their brow, fingers, and toes offering information researchers finding out how blood circulates to crew member’s limbs in area. Cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov inventoried {hardware} within the Zarya and Zvezda modules then activated Earth commentary gear that displays man-made and pure catastrophe in quite a lot of wavelengths.
Be taught extra about station actions by following the area station weblog, @space_station and @ISS_Research on X, in addition to the ISS Fb and ISS Instagram accounts.
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