Astronauts Relax After Transfer Off United. State. Cargo Ships

 

One U.S. crew ship and three Russian spaceships remain parked at the International space platform after the departure of two U.S. space freighters this month. Most of the Excursion 64 crew is relaxing today while a couple of cosmonauts specialize in Russian maintenance and science.

 

Five astronauts, four from NASA and one from JAXA are taking it easy aboard the orbiting lab today. The quintet began the New Year loading a pair of U.S. cargo ships to conclude their cargo missions but every week apart. This followed a busy December filled with space research to profit humans living on and off the world.

 

Northrop Grumman’s Cygnus cargo craft left the station first on Jan. 6 following its release from the Canadarm2 robotic arm. Cygnus will orbit Earth until Jan. 26 for flight tests and at all controlled science experiments before its flaming, but safe descent above the South Pacific.

 

The SpaceX Cargo Dragon resupply ship undocked on Tuesday from the Agreement module’s space-facing international cutting connecter, a primary for a U.S. commercial cargo spacecraft. it'll splashdown Wednesday night within the Gulf of Mexico carrying science experiments and station hardware for retrieval and analysis.

 

JAXA air crewman Sochi Noguchi did start Wednesday collecting his urine samples for a Russian biomedical study before taking the remainder of Wednesday off. Station Commander Sergey Ryzhikov and aircrewman Sergey Kud-Sverchkov of Roscosmos also participated within the study that seeks to know how the physical body adapts to weightlessness.

 

Ryzhikov then enthused on to Russian spacelab happenings packing the Progress 76 cargo craft and charging batteries inside the Soyuz MS-17 crew ship. Kud-Sverchkov worked on life support gear and deployed radiation detectors within the station’s Russian segment.