A portion of the Expedition 73 crew as well as the Axiom Mission 4 (Ax-4) quartet had a light duty day on Wednesday. There was still time aboard the International Space Station for a variety of research activities and preparations for an upcoming crew swap.
NASA Flight Engineers Anne McClain and Nichole Ayers relaxed for half-a-day on Wednesday following a week-and-a-half of supporting their Ax-4 visitors. McClain began her shift collecting her saliva samples for analysis while Ayers recorded her cardiovascular and respiratory data. Next, McClain deactivated a Kubik incubator following several days of blood and saliva processing. Ayers documented her reactions on a computer to an experimental lighting system that helps astronauts maintain their circadian rhythms in space.
NASA Flight Engineer Jonny Kim had a mostly off-duty day taking timeout for his daily exercise routine working out on the Tranquility module’s advanced resistive exercise device and pedaling on the Destiny laboratory module’s exercise cycle.
Kim, at the end of his shift joined McClain, Ayers, and station Commander Takuya Onishi of JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) and called down to Earth and talked to the four SpaceX Crew-11 members as they count down to their mission to the orbital outpost. NASA astronauts Zena Cardman and Mike Fincke along with JAXA astronaut Kimiya Yui and Roscosmos cosmonaut Oleg Platonov are preparing to launch aboard the SpaceX Dragon crew spacecraft at the end of July to begin a seven-month space research mission. Program managers and the Crew-11 quartet will discuss the upcoming mission during a pair of news conferences set to begin a 12 p.m. EDT Thursday on YouTube.
Onishi stayed busy on Wednesday spending the first part of his shift setting up communications gear in the Kibo laboratory module preparing for an upcoming conference with Japanese high school students. After lunch, Onishi completed several days of blood and saliva sample work removing the specimens from incubation, spinning them in a centrifuge, then stowing them in a science freezer for preservation and later analysis. Scientists will analyze the biological samples to learn how space affects cellular immunity and potentially treat space-caused immunity symptoms.
The four Ax-4 private astronauts cleared their schedule on Wednesday for a break after several days of continuous research duties since they arrived on June 26 aboard the SpaceX Dragon. However, there was time for processing cyanobacteria samples to test recycling carbon dioxide and nitrogen on spacecraft. The astronauts also exercised using specialized bands of different tensions for a variety of upper and lower body exercises to stretch, activate muscles, and minimize back pain in the space environment.
The three flight engineers from Roscosmos had a full day on Wednesday staying busy with human research, life support maintenance, and cargo transfers. Veteran cosmonaut Sergey Ryzhikov on his third spaceflight kicked off his day checking out the Zarya module’s thermal control system. He then joined cosmonaut Alexey Zubritskiy for a blood pressure study then swapped out a lens on a student-controlled Earth observation camera. Zubritskiy tested new tablet computers delivered recently aboard the Progress 92 cargo craft. Cosmonaut Kirill Peskov began his shift downloading recently captured Earth imagery then spent the rest of his day collecting carbon dioxide measurements and on orbital plumbing tasks.
Learn more about station activities by following the space station blog, @space_station on X, as well as the ISS Facebook and ISS Instagram accounts.
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