Expedition 73 opened the hatch to the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft shortly after its arrival on Monday and has begun unloading advanced science experiments to continue benefitting humans living on and off the Earth. The International Space Station residents also prepared for next month’s Dragon reboost and kept up lab maintenance and Earth observations.
NASA Flight Engineer Mike Fincke opened Dragon’s hatch following a series of pressure and leak checks about an hour-and-a-half after it docked to the Harmony module’s forward port at 7:05 a.m. EDT on Monday. Shortly afterward, he was followed inside by NASA Flight Engineers Jonny Kim and Zena Cardman along with JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) Flight Engineer Kimiya Yui unpacking time sensitive research samples and installing them inside station science freezers for preservation and upcoming analysis.
The station’s newest investigation, MVP Cell-07, or Maturation of Vascularized Liver Tissue Construct in Zero Gravity, was unloaded from Dragon on Monday and is now underway aboard the orbital outpost. Cardman set up a portable glovebag in Harmony’s maintenance work area and installed experiment modules containing liver tissue into an artificial gravity generator. The biotechnology investigation will explore how bioprinted, or engineered, liver tissues containing blood vessels behave in microgravity. Results may improve long term health for astronauts and improve quality of life for patients on Earth.
Kim continued unpacking some of the several thousand pounds of crew supplies and lab hardware Dragon delivered on Monday. Fincke and Yui also removed portable science freezers containing research samples inside Dragon and installed them inside station science freezers. The trio later joined Cardman at the end of their shift and reviewed plans for Dragon’s upcoming reboost of the space station’s orbit in September. Dragon will fire its reboost kit, an independent propellant system using two Draco engines, to demonstrate its ability to maintain the orbital outpost’s altitude.
Working in the Roscosmos segment of the orbiting lab, station Commander Sergey Ryzhikov spent his day swapping out computer networking gear while Flight Engineer Alexey Zubritsky activated Earth observation gear and cleaned life support gear. Flight Engineer Oleg Platonov collected radiation measurements, worked on orbital plumbing tasks, and also activated automated Earth imaging gear for an overnight photography session of the Asian continent.
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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