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The Worldwide House Station is now within the waning days of Expedition 72 and is making ready to start Expedition 73. The crew presently assigned to the U.S. Orbital Phase on the Station has accomplished its handover, with Crew-9 returning to Earth on March 18 and Crew-10 arriving simply days earlier.
The Station can also be being ready for a crew handover in April on the Russian Phase and an imminent departure of a cargo ship. The visiting automobile complement has modified a number of occasions since 2025 started, and extra modifications loom in April after a pair of upcoming launches.
Crew handovers
After the Boeing Crew Flight Take a look at astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams have been integrated into the Crew-9 mission following the departure of Starliner Calypso with out them, they spent an additional six months aboard the Station to convey their time in area to 9 months. Wilmore and Williams served an everyday ISS rotation on Crew-9 together with mission commander Nick Hague and Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov.
Crew-9 astronauts (from left to proper) Suni Williams, Aleksandr Gorbunov, Nick Hague, and Butch Wilmore aboard ISS. (Credit score: NASA)
Crew-10, carrying 4 crew members aboard Crew Dragon Endurance, launched to the Worldwide House Station (ISS) from the Kennedy House Middle on March 14 after a scrub on March 12 as a consequence of a floor help gear concern. The crew, consisting of NASA’s Anne McClain and Nichole Ayers together with JAXA’s Takuya Onishi and Roscosmos’ Kirill Peskov, docked on the Concord module’s ahead port on the Station at 04:04 UTC on Sunday, March 16.
Crew handovers on the U.S. Orbital Phase (USOS) usually final for a number of days because the departing crew assists the arrival crew with transitioning to Station actions and operations. The handover between Crew-9 and Crew-10 was shorter than common as NASA moved up Crew-9’s return by a number of days as a consequence of an unfavorable climate forecast for the tip of the week. One other issue within the determination was to preserve consumables as a consequence of a possible delay in an upcoming Cygnus cargo flight.
The Crew-9 astronauts boarded Crew Dragon Freedom, docked to the zenith port on the Concord node module, and closed the hatch between Freedom and the ISS at 03:05 UTC on Tuesday, March 18. Two hours later, at 05:05 UTC, Freedom undocked from Concord and left the Station.
Crew-9 safely splashed down off the coast of Tallahassee, Florida, at 5:57 PM EDT (21:57 UTC) on March 18 and was recovered by SpaceX’s restoration ship Megan. All 4 astronauts have been taken aboard the ship for post-flight medical examination earlier than leaving the ship to return to Houston and Russia.
After Crew-9’s return to Earth, NASA revealed that the company is wanting into the opportunity of a 3rd uncrewed check flight for Boeing’s Starliner and needed Starliner to be a “crew-capable” spacecraft.
The Crew-9, Crew-10, and Soyuz MS-26 crews simply after Crew-10’s arrival at ISS. (Credit score: NASA)
Now that the crew handover on the USOS is full, the Station is again to its common seven crew members. NASA’s Don Pettit, together with Roscosmos Soyuz MS-26 crew commander Aleksey Ovchinin and flight engineer Ivan Vagner, are spending their previous few weeks aboard the Station earlier than the Russian phase’s upcoming crew handover in April.
Soyuz MS-27 is scheduled to launch to the Station from Website 31/6 on the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Tuesday, April 8, at 05:47 UTC. Roscosmos crew commander Sergey Ryzhikov, flight engineer Alexey Zubritsky, and NASA’s Jonny Kim might be onboard. Ryzhikov will fly on his third flight whereas Zubritsky and Kim are making their first journey to area. The MS-27 crew will keep aboard the Station for round eight months.
The Soyuz MS-27 crew in entrance of the Soyuz MS-26 rocket in 2024. (Credit score: NASA/Invoice Ingalls)
The Soyuz spacecraft will dock to the Prichal module situated on the finish of the Nauka science module on the Russian phase, and the Soyuz MS-26 and MS-27 crews will conduct their handover actions to transition the brand new crew to Station actions. Soyuz MS-26 is scheduled to undock from the Station and return to Earth on April 20. After Soyuz MS-26’s undocking, Expedition 72 will finish, and Expedition 73 will start.
Suni Williams served as ISS commander from September 2024 till March 7, when she handed these duties to Aleksey Ovchinin throughout a change of command ceremony. Ovchinin will hand over command of the Station to Takuya Onishi on April 20, and Expedition 73 will start with Onishi because the third Japanese astronaut to command the ISS.
Upcoming cargo missions
The primary ISS cargo flight of 2025 launched on Feb. 27 at 21:24 UTC, when Progress MS-30 lifted off from Website 31/6 in Baikonur. The Progress cargo automobile introduced round 2,599 kg of meals, gasoline, and provides to the Station, docking on the Zvezda module’s aft port. Progress MS-30 joins Progress MS-29, docked on the Poisk module, and Soyuz MS-26, docked to the Rassvet module, because the visiting automobiles on the Russian phase.
Progress MS-28 seen after undocking from the Zvezda module on Feb. 25. (Credit score: NASA)
Earlier than Progress MS-30’s arrival, Progress MS-28 was loaded with trash earlier than undocking on Feb. 25. The MS-28 spacecraft carried out a harmful re-entry into Earth’s ambiance, and its departure cleared the best way for MS-30 to dock on the aft finish of Zvezda.
Progress MS-30 carried out an ISS orbit correction on Monday, March 17, to arrange for Soyuz MS-27’s arrival and the departure of Soyuz MS-26. Progress ships docked to the Zvezda aft module are used for periodic reboosts, and Cygnus and Cargo Dragon spacecraft can now additionally carry out reboost maneuvers to forestall the Station’s orbit from decaying as a consequence of small quantities of atmospheric drag.
ISS visiting automobiles as of March 18, 2025. (Credit score: NASA)
The NG-21 Cygnus S.S. Francis R. “Dick” Scobee stays berthed to the Unity module’s nadir Widespread Berthing Mechanism on the USOS. Nevertheless, its time in orbit is coming to a detailed, and it will likely be loaded with trash earlier than being unberthed from the Station by the Canadarm2 on Friday, March 21, at 11:35 UTC. Cygnus will carry out a harmful re-entry into Earth’s ambiance afterward.
The following Cygnus launch, NG-22, is scheduled for launch no sooner than June. Nevertheless, there are some questions on when the launch would possibly happen as a consequence of injury sustained by the delivery container. The pressurized cargo module of the Cygnus was encased inside the container when transported to the launch web site in Florida. The cargo module is now being inspected. That is the second delay for NG-22, because it was delayed from February as a consequence of an avionics concern.
As a result of questions surrounding NG-22’s readiness for launch, some experiments have been faraway from the subsequent cargo ship to fly to ISS in favor of further consumables, together with meals and different necessities. CRS-32 is scheduled to fly aboard a SpaceX Cargo Dragon from the Kennedy House Middle on April 21 at 4:00 AM EDT.
ISS actions
After January’s spacewalk actions, the Station crew has been busy with its common experiments and upkeep duties. In February, a navigation experiment generally known as the Navigation and Communication Testbed (NAVCOM) was put in within the European House Company’s Columbus laboratory module.
It’s hoped that NAVCOM might be a extra correct different to the International Navigation Satellite tv for pc System constellations and transmit exact navigation information throughout the Earth-Moon system.
Nick Hague processing samples of micro-algae as a part of an experiment to supply recent meals on lengthy spaceflights. (Credit score: NASA)
One other spotlight of the science carried out through the latter a part of Expedition 72 is the BioFabrication Facility (BFF), additionally within the Columbus module. The BFF is a 3D bioprinter being examined for its capacity to print organic tissues in area, and 3D bioprinting may ultimately be used to print complete organic organs.
A full vary of organic, biomedical, supplies science, agricultural, robotics, and expertise experiments have been labored on throughout Expedition 72, and this work will proceed throughout Expedition 73. Samples from these experiments are periodically despatched again to Earth aboard spacecraft like Cargo Dragon.
No spacewalks are presently scheduled for both the USOS or Russian phase. Nevertheless, a future EVA on the USOS is predicted to arrange the Station’s truss for the set up of further iROSA photo voltaic panels to reinforce the ISS’s energy manufacturing capabilities. Upkeep work on spacesuits was carried out in February in preparation for a spacewalk someday within the spring.
(Lead picture: Picture of Crew Dragon Freedom, the USOS, and Suni Williams on a spacewalk. Credit score: NASA)
