The Expedition 68 mission has officially begun on the International Space Station (ISS) with seven astronauts living and working together, the crew swap is not over, and the countdown to the upcoming launch of the four SpaceX Crew-5 members to the orbiting laboratory is already underway.
ESA (European Space Agency) commander Samantha Cristoforetti (Samantha Cristoforetti) will lead the station’s operations for the next approximately two weeks until she and other crew members Kjell Lindgren (Kjell Lindgren), Bob Hines (Bob Hines) and Jessica -(Jessica Watkins) returned to Earth aboard the SpaceX Dragon Freedom crew ship. The foursome has been on the space station since April 27. They spent the day Friday checking their pressure suits, packing their personal belongings and reviewing departure and landing procedures.
Expedition 67 flight engineers (from left) Jessica Watkins, Bob Hines and Frank Rubio, three NASA astronauts, pose for a photo inside the International Space Station’s “Window on the World.
The station’s crew is awaiting a replacement from SpaceX Crew-5, which is currently scheduled to launch no earlier than noon EDT Wednesday, Oct. 5. Koichi Wakata and Anna Kikina of the Russian space agency Roscosmos, will arrive at the station a day after the launch aboard Endeavour’s Dragon spacecraft. They will spend a few days acclimating to life in orbit before Christofreddy and her three Freedom crewmembers will end their mission and return to Earth.
Meanwhile, NASA’s first-time space flier Frank Rubio is in his second week as a flight engineer on the orbiting laboratory, having arrived Sept. 21 with fellow flight engineers Sergei Prokopiev and Dmitry Petrin, both cosmonauts from the Russian space agency, on board the Soyuz MS-22 crew ship. 22 crew ship arrived at the space station.
Rubio conducted smart glass optics research this weekend, exploring how artificial intelligence can be used to adapt material fabrication, such as fiber optic materials, to the vacuum of space. He exchanged and observed glass fiber samples pulled inside a microgravity science glove box. Petrin and Prokopiev collaborated with Petrin on a study exploring how microgravity affects the heart and blood vessels.
