Expedition 69 Crew Undertakes Various Tasks on the International Space Station

NASA astronaut and Expedition 69 Flight Engineer Stephen Bowen recently installed student-made hardware near the Destiny laboratory module’s Microgravity Science Glovebox. The hardware was designed to improve the stability of the cameras that are used for tracking targets and capturing videos and images within the International Space Station.

In preparation for a upcoming cargo shipment, the Expedition 69 Crew spent a productive Friday focusing on robotics training, stowage practice, and payload movements. Woody Hoburg (a NASA astronaut) began his workday by collecting more samples for Standard Measures investigation. He then cleaned out the stowage inside the Tranquility Module.

Sultan Alneyadi of United Arab Emirates, (UAE), a flight engineer, joined Hoburg in the NanoRacks Bishop Airlock to assist with unstowing the NanoRacks External Platform. Hoburg also repaired ethernet cables in the Astrobee docking stations of the Japanese Experiment Modules (JEM). He and NASA Flight Engineer Frank Rubio performed a second robotics training session in the afternoon to prepare for the rendezvous with and capture of Cygnus, the cargo spacecraft.

Rubio captured the NanoRacks External Platform and moved it into the JEM. Stephen Bowen, Rubio and him also stowed the Multi-Purpose Experiment Platform that was removed from the Kibo’s airlock. Rubio then performed a visual and video inspection of the airlock.

Stephen Bowen, having troubleshooted Glovebox Freezer yesterday, examined and checked connections one more time. He replaced hardware on the BioFabrication facility, a 3D-printer that is designed to test the feasibility of printing tissues like organs in microgravity.

Bowen then set up Kubik 5, 6, and 7 hardware in the Columbus Laboratory module. These hardware setups were designed for automatic, self-contained microgravity studies within the orbital laboratories. Bowen spent the last part of his workday troubleshooting a fluid physics facility called the Fluids Integrated Rack.

Roscosmos Commander Sergey Prokopyev operated the 3D Printer in the Zvezda Service Module. Andrey Fedyaev performed computer maintenance and cleaned smoke alarms in the Zarya service module. Dmitri Dmitri Dmitri Dmitri Dmitri Dmitri Dmitri Dmitri DMITRI DMITRI DMITRI DMITRI DMITRI DMITRI DMITRI DMITRI DMITRI DMITRI DMITRI DMITRI DMITRI DMITRI DMITRI DMITRI DMITRI DMITRI DMITRI DMITRI DMITRI DMITRI DMIT

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