Three crew members representing the United
States, Russia and Japan are on their way to the International Space Station
after launching from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 9:36 p.m. EDT
Wednesday, July 6 (7:36 a.m. Baikonur time, July 7).
Kate Rubins of NASA, Soyuz Commander Anatoly
Ivanishin of the Russian space agency Roscosmos and Takuya Onishi of the
Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency are traveling in an upgraded Soyuz
spacecraft. They’ll spend two days -- and 34 Earth orbits – testing modified
systems before docking to the space station’s Rassvet module at 12:12 a.m.
EDT Saturday, July 9.
NASA TV coverage of docking will begin at
11:30 p.m. Friday, July 8. Hatches are scheduled to open about 2:50 a.m.
Saturday, July 9, with NASA TV coverage starting at 2:30 a.m.
The arrival of Rubins, Ivanishin and Onishi
returns the station's crew complement to six. The three will join Expedition
48 Commander Jeff Williams of NASA and Flight Engineers Oleg Skripochka and
Alexey Ovchinin of Roscosmos. The Expedition
48 crew members will spend four months conducting more than 250 science
investigations in fields such as biology, Earth science, human research,
physical sciences, and technology development.
Rubins, who holds a bachelor’s degree in
molecular biology and a doctorate in cancer biology, Ivanishin and Onishi are
scheduled to remain aboard the station until late October. Williams,
Skripochka and Ovchinin will return to Earth in September.
Expedition 48 crew members are expected to
receive and install the station’s first international
docking adapter, which will accommodate future arrivals of U.S.
commercial crew spacecraft. Scheduled for delivery on SpaceX’s ninth
commercial resupply mission (CRS-9) to the station, the new docking port
features built-in systems for automated docking and uniform measurements.
That means any spacecraft may use the adapters in the future – from NASA’s
new crewed and uncrewed spacecraft, developed in partnership with private
industry, to international spacecraft yet to be designed. The work by private
companies to take on low-Earth orbit missions is expected to free up NASA's
resources for future crewed missions into deep space, including the agency’s
Journey to Mars, with the Orion crew capsule launching on the Space Launch
System rocket.
Investigations arriving on SpaceX
CRS-9 in July will test capabilities for sequencing DNA in space,
regulating temperatures aboard spacecraft, understanding bone loss, and
tracking ships around the world. Other investigations will study how to
protect computers from radiation in space and test an efficient,
three-dimensional solar cell.
The crew members also are scheduled to
receive Orbital ATK’s sixth commercial resupply mission and two Russian
Progress resupply flights delivering several tons of food, fuel, supplies and
research. A Japanese cargo craft will deliver new lithium-ion batteries to
replace the nickel-hydrogen batteries currently used on the station to store
electrical energy generated by the station’s solar arrays.
For more than 15 years, humans have been
living continuously aboard the International Space Station to advance scientific
knowledge and demonstrate new technologies, making research breakthroughs not
possible on Earth that also will enable long-duration human and robotic
exploration into deep space. A truly global endeavor, more than 200 people
from 18 countries have visited the unique microgravity laboratory that has
hosted more than 1,900 research investigations from researchers in more than
95 countries.
Check out the full NASA TV schedule and
video streaming information at:
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