Northrop Grumman’s Cygnus cargo craft has arrived at its new residence for the subsequent six months and the Worldwide House Station residents have begun unloading a few of its 8,200 kilos of science and provides.
NASA Flight Engineer Matthew Dominick captured Cygnus with the Canadarm2 robotic arm at 3:11 a.m. EDT on Tuesday following its automated method and rendezvous. The maneuver marked the 50th free-flying seize for Canadarm2. Simply over two hours later mission controllers on Earth remotely commanded the Canadarm2 and put in Cygnus to the Unity module’s Earth-facing port the place it is going to keep till January. Cygnus started its journey to the orbital outpost with a launch atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Florida at 11:02 a.m. EDT on Sunday.
Dominick later joined NASA Flight Engineer Jeanette Epps and carried out cable connections and leak checks earlier than opening Cygnus’ hatch and getting into the house freighter for the primary time. Subsequent, the remainder of the NASA astronauts together with Tracy C. Dyson, Mike Barratt, Suni Williams, and Butch Wilmore began offloading analysis samples stowed in Cygnus and preserved in transportable science freezers and double coldbags. These samples had been then positioned inside station science freezers in preparation for upcoming analysis. The orbital residents will quickly be exploring liquid and gasoline flows, centripetal pressure, DNA restore mechanisms, mobile enlargement, and extra.
Throughout a break within the cargo actions Dominick arrange images gear within the cupola and took footage of the Moon to measure sunshine mirrored from the Earth. Dyson labored within the Future laboratory module and linked a microscope to an superior analysis incubator to assist house biology investigations.
The orbital lab’s three cosmonauts representing Roscosmos stayed centered on their science and upkeep schedule all through Tuesday. Commander Oleg Kononenko started his morning establishing carbon dioxide displays and putting in Earth commentary {hardware}. In the course of the afternoon, the five-time station customer studied futuristic planetary piloting methods on a pc. Flight Engineer Alexander Grebenkin hooked up sensors to himself measuring his coronary heart exercise throughout an hour-and-a-half lengthy leisure session. Subsequent, he jogged on a treadmill for a health take a look at earlier than ending his day with pc upkeep within the Nauka science module. Flight Engineer Nikolai Chub labored all through the day servicing {hardware} batteries and train gear.
Study extra about station actions by following the house station weblog, @space_station and @ISS_Research on X, in addition to the ISS Fb and ISS Instagram accounts.
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