Two spacewalkers and their assistants are winding down today following two spacewalks in less than a week. There was also a harvest today aboard the International Space Station as the Expedition 64 crew learns about space agriculture.
NASA astronauts Michael Hopkins and Victor Glover completed their second spacewalk together on Monday wrapping up a years-long effort to upgrade the station’s power system. They relaxed Tuesday morning before spending the afternoon on a spacewalk conference and space botany.
The duo joined astronauts Kate Rubins of NASA and Soichi Noguchi of JAXA and called down to spacewalk engineers after lunchtime today. The quartet briefed the specialists on any concerns or issues they had during the Jan. 27 and Feb. 1 spacewalks.
Hopkins spent the rest of the afternoon harvesting plants growing inside the Columbus laboratory module’s Veggie facility. Afterward, he joined his astronaut crewmates including Flight Engineer Shannon Walker and snacked on the freshly picked pak choi, wasabi mustard, kale, and red romaine for a taste test.
In the station’s Russian segment, Commander Sergey Ryzhikov worked on computers, life science hardware and Zarya module maintenance. Flight Engineer Sergey Kud-Sverchkov worked on orbital plumbing tasks and radiation checks then work on a pair of Earth observation experiments.
Wow….this sounds amazing,. I’m starting to think about what seeds I’m going to be sowing next month and the idea of you guys eating produce you’ve grown in space is simply amazing…. loving all the pictures and updates. Thank you
Nice work on the spacewalk – is the new battery performing as expected?
The battery was checked out during the spacewalk and reported to be in a good configuration.
When will these astronauts return from space and where will they land.
Kate Rubins, Sergey Ryzhikov and Sergey Kud-Sverchkov will return to Earth aboard the Soyuz MS-17 spacecraft on April 17. SpaceX Crew-1 astronauts Michael Hopkins, Victor Glover, Shannon Walker and Soichi Noguchi are due to return to Earth in late April or early May aboard the Crew Dragon vehicle.
How is growing food in space going? any progress?
The crew is learning how to grow crops in space by a variety methods to ensure astronauts can sustain themselves on longer space missions farther from the Earth. The newest Plant Water Management experiment is exploring a hydroponics method to support agriculture off the planet Earth. More info here… https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/explorer/Investigation.html?#id=7884