Ultrasound heart and vein scans dominated the research activities aboard the International Space Station on Thursday helping doctors monitor and protect astronaut cardiovascular health. The Expedition 73 crew also serviced spacesuit gear, conducted lab hardware inspections, and kept up its Earth observation tasks.
The orbital outpost’s Ultrasound 2 device is regularly used to observe what is happening inside an astronaut’s body while living and working microgravity. The crew biomedical operations let doctors on the ground view the heart and vein scans in real time and observe how the cardiovascular system adjusts to weightlessness. The data helps researchers keep orbiting crews healthy and prepare new crews for long duration missions.
NASA Flight Engineer Jonny Kim operated the Ultrasound 2 device in the Columbus laboratory module on Thursday and scanned NASA Flight Engineer Zena Cardman’s arteries for the CIPHER human research investigation. The scans may help researchers identify the cardiovascular risks of living in space, such as hardening arteries or changes in blood pressure, for months or years at a time and develop countermeasures to keep spaceflight crews healthy.
Kim also measured the blood pressure and scanned the veins of JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) astronaut Kimiya Yui who wore a specialized thigh cuff that may reverse fluids pooling toward an astronaut’s head caused by a lack of gravity. The duo was inside Columbus testing the effectiveness of the biomedical device and its ability to pull the fluids toward an astronaut’s feet potentially reducing the commonly reported space-related head and eye pressure. Results may help protect astronaut vision and eye structure as NASA and its international partners plan crew missions to the Moon, Mars, and beyond.
Roscosmos Flight Engineer Oleg Platonov also explored how microgravity affects the circulatory system studying the cells that line the interior of the blood vessels and how blood flows into tiny vessels. Platonov then continued his weeklong Earth observation studies first downloading imagery of the Central Asia region captured automatically during the crew’s sleep shift. Then he set up another automatic overnight Earth photography session to capture landmarks including Asian and Australian islands and coastal areas.
NASA Flight Engineer Mike Fincke spent his entire shift inside the Quest airlock servicing high-definition camera hardware worn on spacesuit helmets. Fincke removed and replaced thermal tape on the helmet cameras to protect them from the extreme environment of outer space during experienced during spacewalks.
Station Commander Sergey Ryzhikov and Roscosmos Flight Engineer Alexey Zubritsky spent their shift inside the orbital outpost’s Roscosmos segment working on lab maintenance and inspections. The duo swapped out a variety of life support gear, refilled an oxygen generator, and inspected electronics systems.
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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