Tech Installs and Maintenance for Crew Ahead of Cargo Launch – NASA Blogs

Expedition 70 Flight Engineers (from left) Jasmin Moghbeli and Loral OHara, both from NASA, pose for a portrait inside the Destiny laboratory module.

Equipment installs and station maintenance topped the in-orbit schedule aboard the International Space Station on Tuesday. The Expedition 70 crew members expanded on work that began yesterday while completing some maintenance around station as they await the arrival of an upcoming cargo craft.

The Progress 87 cargo craft is scheduled tolaunchfrom the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 10:25 p.m. EST on Wednesday, Feb. 14.Loaded with nearly three tons of food, fuel, and supplies, Progress will dock to the station around 1:12 a.m. Saturday, Feb. 17.

As one cargo resupply ship readies for launch, two cosmonautsOleg Kononenko and Nikolai Chubwere on duty last night, Feb. 12, to monitor the departure of the Progress 85 cargo craft. Progress undocked from the orbital lab at 9:09 p.m. before it reentered Earths atmosphere three hours later and harmlessly burned up over the Pacific Ocean.

Kononenko and Chub had a light duty day afterward, focusing on cargo audits and preparations for future experiments.

Meanwhile, ESA (European Space Agency) Commander Andreas Mogensen spent the bulk of his day working in the Nanoracks Bishop Airlock. He installed the Nanoracks-GITAI S2 modular robotic arm, which demonstrates the design, build, and operations of extravehicular robotic systems. This tech demonstration aims to aid in the development of robots for in-space assembly and manufacturing, supporting future commercial lunar missions.

NASA astronaut Jasmin Moghbeli spent her day on a few different tasks, collecting blood pressure data for the Vascular Aging investigation, stowing the Bio-Monitor garment and headband she donned yesterday, and collecting atmosphere samples throughout the station.

NASA astronaut Loral OHara assisted Mogensen with the Nanoracks-GITAI S2 install before photographing Plant-Microbe Interactions in Space (APEX-10) petri plates, which launched aboard Northrop Grummans 20th commercial resupply mission to the station. The new investigation examines whether beneficial microbes can mitigate some of the negative effects the space environment can have on plant growth and development.

In the Kibo Laboratory, JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) Flight Engineer Satoshi Furukawa spent his day recording space demonstrations suggested by students for JAXAs Try Zero-Gravity educational activity. Students can vote for and suggest tasks for JAXA astronauts to carry out on station, such as putting in eye drops, performing push-ups on the ceiling, and more, to allow the youth to interact with station residents and learn about living and working in microgravity.

In the Roscosmos segment, Flight Engineer Konstantin Borisov completed some orbital maintenance tasks and ran a distillation cycle on the Roscosmos water management system.

Learn more about station activities by following the space station blog, @space_station and @ISS_Research on X, as well as the ISS Facebook and ISS Instagram accounts.

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Tech Installs and Maintenance for Crew Ahead of Cargo Launch - NASA Blogs

China releases footage of Earth taken from space station – CGTN

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China Manned Space Agencyreleased footage of the Earth taken from the ChinaSpace Station on January 4. The footage shows the scenery of the planet, including the Caspian Sea and China's Xizang Autonomous Region. The space station features a basic three-module configuration consisting of the core module, Tianhe, and two lab modules, Wentian and Mengtian.

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China releases footage of Earth taken from space station - CGTN

Dawn Breaks Over Earth: A Spectacular Sunrise Seen From the Space Station – SciTechDaily

Astronaut photograph of the Sun rising above Earths horizon captured from the International Space Station on September 29, 2023.

Astronauts aboard the International Space Station are uniquely positioned to capture striking photos of the Sun and Earth.

As the International Space Station orbited over the southern Indian Ocean, an astronaut looked eastward and captured this photo of the Sun rising above Earths horizon.

This edge-on photo of Earths limb reveals several atmospheric layers. The lowest layer, known as the troposphere, appears orange and red as these wavelengths of light are scattered by particles of dust, smoke, and smog. Directly above the troposphere is the stratosphere. This blue layer is usually cloud-free and extends as much as 50 kilometers (30 miles) above Earths surface. The region directly above the stratosphere is known as the mesosphere.

The Sunthe focal point in this imageis front and center in NASAs Heliophysics Big Year. This big year celebration began with the annular solar eclipse in October 2023 and continues with a total solar eclipse in April 2024. It concludes with the Parker Solar Probes closest approach to the Sun in December 2024.

The total solar eclipse in April 2024 will pass over Mexico, the United States, and Canada. In addition to putting on an impressive show, the eclipse offers research opportunities including the chance for scientists to study the Suns effect on Earths ionosphere. This is the region spanning from about 80600 kilometers (50400 miles) above Earths surface, overlapping with the top of the atmosphere and the beginning of space. It is where the space station and other satellites in low Earth orbit hang out, and where radio and GPS signals bounce around.

During a solar eclipse, astronauts on the space station can sometimes see the Moons shadow passing over Earth. Views of sunrises are much more common, with astronauts witnessing as many as 16 sunrises every 24 hours.

Astronaut photograph ISS070-E-1178 was acquired on September 29, 2023, with a Nikon D5 digital camera using a focal length of 170 millimeters. The image was provided by the ISS Crew Earth Observations Facility and the Earth Science and Remote Sensing Unit at Johnson Space Center. The image was taken by a member of the Expedition 70 crew. It has been cropped and enhanced to improve contrast, and lens artifacts have been removed. The International Space Station Program supports the laboratory as part of the ISS National Lab to help astronauts take pictures of Earth that will be of the greatest value to scientists and the public and to make those images freely available on the Internet.

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Dawn Breaks Over Earth: A Spectacular Sunrise Seen From the Space Station - SciTechDaily