NASA Space Station Status Report 29 June, 2022 – Practicing Complicated Medical Procedures

Wednesday’s schedule on the International Space Station encompassed practicing complicated medical procedures in microgravity to preparing to take out the trash 260 miles above the Earth.
The Expedition 67 crew members also continued investigating a wide variety of space phenomena to improve life for humans on Earth and in space.

Future astronauts will need to work independently of mission controllers as they travel beyond low-Earth orbit to the Moon, Mars, and beyond. As a result, NASA Flight Engineers Kjell Lindgren and Bob Hines trained to diagnose and treat acute medical conditions without ground support today. Hines practiced ultrasound exams on Lindgren’s bladder and kidneys for the Autonomous Medical Officer Support demonstration, or AMOS. The study aims to help crews become more self-reliant and reduce mission risks as communication delays increase the farther a spacecraft ventures from Earth.

The orbiting lab’s four astronauts are also preparing to take out the trash this weekend requiring procedures more complicated than packing garbage on Earth. Astronauts Jessica Watkins of NASA and Samantha Cristoforetti of ESA (European Space Agency) finished loading trash containers in the NanoRacks Bishop airlock today. They were assisted by Lindgren and Hines as they closed the hatch to Bishop and depressurized the airlock. The trash container will be jettisoned towards Earth’s atmosphere for a fiery, but safe disposal on Saturday.

Station Commander Oleg Artemyev of Roscosmos studied ways future crew members might pilot spacecraft or control robots on planetary missions for a long-running Russian investigation. Flight Engineer Denis Matveev continued configuring nanosatellites for a future deployment and worked inside the ISS Progress 80 resupply ship on cargo operations. Cosmonaut Sergey Korsakov spent his day on electronics and computer maintenance before studying international crew dynamics and collecting radiation readings.

On-Orbit Status Report

Payloads:

Autonomous Medical Officer Support (AMOS): The crew set up the appropriate hardware, logged into the AMOS application, and performed several ultrasound science scans. As missions venture farther from Earth, astronauts need the capability to diagnose and treat acute medical conditions without ground support. The AMOS Software Demonstration, for which data collection is now complete, tests a software tool designed to help minimally trained or untrained users conduct complicated medical procedures, without assistance from Earth. For the study, the crew uses AMOS to perform ultrasound imaging of the bladder and kidneys, a plausible Mars mission medical scenario.

Sally Ride EarthKAM: The current 50 mm camera lens was exchanged for an 85 mm lens in the EarthKAM camera system. This is nominally performed about halfway through the experiment session and allows different aspects of the ground targets to be studied. As of the last report, EarthKAM Mission 79 had a total of 48 schools representing over 4500 students from 20 countries participating in the event. EarthKAM allows thousands of students to photograph and examine Earth from a space crew’s perspective. Using the Internet, the students control a special digital camera mounted on-board the ISS. This enables them to photograph the Earth’s coastlines, mountain ranges and other geographic items of interest from the unique vantage point of space. The EarthKAM team then posts these photographs on the Internet for viewing by the public and participating classrooms around the world.

Systems:

NanoRacks Bishop Airlock (NRAL) Trash Deploy Preparations: Today, in preparation for the planned NRAL Trash Deploy this weekend, the crew installed trash deployment hardware and loaded it with trash to create a large sphere. Crew completed a checkout of the trash bag to verify free movement for deployment. NRAL is the first-ever commercially owned and operated airlock on the ISS. It provides a variety of capabilities including jettisoning of payloads such as CubeSats, deployment of external payloads, support for small exterior payloads and locker-sized internal payloads, recovery of external on-orbit replaceable units (ORUs), and the ability to move hardware outside in support of extravehicular activities (EVAs) and remove trash from station. It is approximately five times larger than the JEM Airlock so it can accommodate more and larger payloads. NRAL’s capabilities support many different types of scientific investigations.

Completed Task List Activities:

None
Today’s Ground Activities:
All activities are complete unless otherwise noted.

NRAL Depressurization Support 1 using PMD [Deferred]
Crew Dragon Freedom Weekly Quiescent Checkout
AMOS Demonstration Ultrasound 2 Scan Operator
Space Station Computer (SSC) LGU Login
Look Ahead Plan

Thursday, June 30 (GMT 181)
Payloads:

Actiwatch HRF1 Setup
COSMIC USB Cycling
DOSIS LED Check
Intelligent Glass Optics (IGO) Sample Restore
Russian Experiment MELFI Insertion
WiCo-2 Measurements
XROOTS Fluid Recovery and Wick Open
Systems:

Lab and Node 3 Cable Management
Advanced Resistive Exercise Device (ARED) Quarterly Maintenance
Portable Emergency Provisions (PEPS) Inspection
CST-100 One-Time-Use Thumb Drive Reformat
Airlock Node 1 MTL Swap
Friday, July 1 (GMT 182)
Payloads:

BCM ROBoT
CAL Jumper Check
CEO Payload Ops
CIR/SoFIE Hardware Configure
ESA EPO Ops
FSL/SMD Sample Cell Inspection
MVP Hardware Wanted Poster
SCEM Gas Bottle Exchange and Valve Configuration
WORF Laptop CLS 14 Software Load
Systems:

SAW 1B Photo Survey
Node 1 and Node 2 Cable Management
Station Reorganization
Short Extravehicular Mobility Unit (SEMU) Launch Enclosure (SLE) Return Preparation
Treadmill 2 System (T2) Monthly Inspection
Saturday, July 2 (GMT 183)
Payloads:

No Utilization Activities
Systems:

Off Duty Day
Today’s Planned Activities:
All activities are complete unless otherwise noted.

AMOS Demonstration Historical Documentation Photography
AMOS Demonstration Ultrasound 2 Scan Operator
AMOS Demonstration Ultrasound 2 Scan Scanee
Astrobee Battery Swap and Stow
Contingency Water Container (CWC) Fill, Terminate, and Swap Wastewater Tank
EarthKAM Node 2 85MM Lens Change
Icebrick Removal from Merlin 5
MELFI Sample Transfer to Glacier
Mesh Bag Video Audit
Microgravity Science Glovebox Activation
NRAL NRAL Trash Bag Verify
NRAL Trash Deployer Install
NRAL Vestibule Config and Hatch Closure [Deferred]
NRAL Utility Outlet Panel Configuration
NRAL Trash Bag Loading
Pressure Management Device (PMD) Equipment Setup Part 1 & 2 for NRAL Depressurzation
PMD N3 Port MPEV open
Repack of ESA Concrete Mixers for return with SpX-25
RSE3 handover from USOS to RS