Space Stations

NASA Space Station Status Report 25 August, 2022 – SpaceX Crew-5 Launch Date Set

By SpaceRef Editor

Status Report

SpaceRef

August 26, 2022

Filed under Expedition 67, ISS, ISS On-orbit status, NASA, SpaceX Crew-4, SpaceX Crew-5

NASA Space Station Status Report 25 August, 2022 – SpaceX Crew-5 Launch Date Set — The SpaceX Crew-5 prepares for their mission.

NASA

NASA and SpaceX have announced the date for the upcoming Crew-5 launch to the International Space Station. The space station is also orbiting higher today to prepare for next month’s Soyuz crew vehicle swap.

The fifth crewed operational mission aboard a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft has been given a launch date of Oct. 3 from Florida’s Kennedy Space Center. The four SpaceX Crew-5 crewmates, Commander Nicole Mann, Pilot Josh Cassada, and Mission Specialists Koichi Wakata and Anna Kikina will dock Dragon Endurance to the forward port on the station’s Harmony module about 24 hours later.

Several days after that, the four SpaceX Crew-4 astronauts will enter the Dragon Freedom crew ship and undock from Harmony’s space-facing port for a parachute-assisted splashdown off the coast of Florida. Freedom Commander Kjell Lindgren, Pilot Bob Hines, with Mission Specialists Jessica Watkins and Samantha Cristoforetti, have been living and working on the orbital lab as Expedition 67 Flight Engineers since April 27.

The space station received an orbital boost on Wednesday night when Russia’s ISS Progress 81 cargo craft, docked to the Zvezda service module’s aft port, fired its engines for just over six minutes in preparation for a pair of Soyuz crew ships coming and going in late September. NASA astronaut Frank Rubio will take a ride to the station with cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitri Petelin aboard the Soyuz MS-22 crew ship when they launch from the Baikonur Cosmodrome on Sept. 21.

Later in September, Soyuz Commander Oleg Artemyev with Expedition 67 Flight Engineers Denis Matveev and Sergey Korsakov will return back to Earth inside the Soyuz MS-21 spacecraft. The trio joined the Expedition 67 crew on March 18 following a short trip to the station’s Prichal docking module that began with a launch from Baikonur.

Meanwhile, space research benefitting humans living on and off the Earth is still ongoing aboard the orbital lab. Lindgren, Hines, Watkins, and Cristoforetti were back inside the Kibo laboratory module today exploring how skin heals in microgravity. The quartet, using the Life Science Glovebox, is observing space-caused molecular processes that may inform advanced wound treatments and therapies for astronauts and Earthlings.

Artemyev and Matveev continued researching on Thursday how weightlessness affects the human digestive system. Once again, the duo performed ultrasound scans following their breakfast period to learn more about the digestion process to improve crew health and treat Earth-bound conditions. Korsakov participated in an ear, nose, and throat study in the morning, then moved on to learn how international crews and mission controllers can communicate more effectively.

On-Orbit Status Report

ISS Reboost: Today, the ISS performed a reboost using the Aft Progress 81P R&D thrusters. This reboost was the second of three reboosts to set up proper constraints for 68S 2-orbit rendezvous on September 21 and 67S landing on September 29. The burn duration was 5 minutes 33 seconds with a Delta-V of 0.68 m/s.

Payloads:

Actiwatch Plus (AWP): The crew removed their Actiwatches, verified they were still in the correct data collection mode, and then stowed them. The data on the watches will be transferred at a later time. The Actiwatch is a waterproof, non-intrusive, sleep-wake activity monitor worn on the wrist of a crewmember. It contains a miniature uniaxial accelerometer that produces a signal as the subject moves. The data is stored in non-volatile memory within the Actiwatch until they are downloaded for analysis.

Systems:

COL Payload Laptop Power Swap and LAN Connection: The crew changed the power chain of ZBook ‘COL_Payload_Laptop 1’ and connected the European Physiology Module (EPM) Laptop LAN Cable to the laptop.

Completed Task List Activities: