Cygnus area freighter. Credit score: NASA
A U.S. resupply ship is poised to blast off Saturday morning on a day-and-a-half-long journey to replenish the Worldwide House Station. Whereas two astronauts practice for its robotic seize, the remainder of the Expedition 66 crew centered on sustaining science hardware and orbital lab techniques.
Climate on the Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia is forecast to be 75% favorable for the launch of Northrop Grumman’s Cygnus area freighter on Saturday at 12:40 p.m. EST. NASA Flight Engineers Raja Chari and Kayla Barron will likely be on obligation Monday morning observing Cygnus’s arrival from the seven-windowed cupola. Chari will likely be on the robotics workstation commanding the Canadarm2 robotic arm to seize Cygnus on Monday at 4:35 a.m. when it reaches a distance of about 10 meters from the station. Barron will likely be monitoring the cargo craft’s techniques throughout its methodical strategy and rendezvous.
Astronauts Raja Chari and Kayla Barron practice on the robotics workstation for the seize of the Cygnus area freighter when it arrives on February 21, 2022. Credit score: NASA
Following the profitable seize of Cygnus, floor controllers will take over the controls of the Canadarm2 and remotely maneuver the car towards the Unity module. Cygnus will then be put in on Unity, the place the astronauts will open the hatches shortly afterward and start unloading over 8,300 kilos of station gear and new science experiments. NASA TV, on the company’s app and web site, will broadcast the launch reside starting Saturday at 12:15 p.m. with rendezvous and seize protection starting Monday at 3 a.m.
The crew’s remaining three astronauts and two cosmonauts serviced quite a lot of station gear, labored on area analysis, and unpacked a brand new Russian resupply ship.
NASA Flight Engineer Mark Vande Hei labored on the Kibo laboratory module’s water restoration system whereas NASA astronaut Thomas Marshburn changed elements contained in the COLBERT treadmill. Astronaut Matthias Maurer of ESA (European House Company) checked out wi-fi gear that downloads biomedical information then moved to radiation detection hardware.
Commander Anton Shkaplerov explored plasma physics that might inform future analysis strategies and spacecraft designs. Roscosmos Flight Engineer labored on Russian communications gear earlier than persevering with to unpack cargo from the newly arrived Progress 80 cargo craft.
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