Roscosmos decided to postpone the planned September 23, 2016 launch of the spacecraft “Soyuz MS – 02” for technical reasons after routine tests at the Baikonur Cosmodrome. The launch date of the spacecraft will be announced later.
Please visit the Roscosmos website for the latest information.
The Expedition 49 trio is looking at plant growth today after the successful deployment of eight nanosatellites Thursday. The crew also inspected a treadmill and trained to care for a sick or injured crew member.
NASA astronaut Kate Rubins swapped seeds in a cultivator for the Plant RNA Regulation experiment. Some seeds were stowed in a science freezer, the other seeds will be grown in the cultivator for a week to research how microgravity changes a plant’s gene expression. Observations may provide new insights on how to grow plants for food and oxygen on long-term spaceflights.
Japanese astronaut Takuya Onishi thoroughly inspected a treadmill inside the Tranquility module photographing its parts for analysis on the ground. Onishi also took a refresher course to stay up to date on medical procedures and gear in case of a crew illness or injury.
Commander Anatoly Ivanishin collected data from a radiation detection experiment and worked maintenance on a variety of Russian systems throughout Friday.
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The Expedition 49 trio orbiting Earth inside the International Space Station are less than two weeks away from welcoming three new crew members. As the station residents wait for the new arrivals, they continue conducting space science and maintaining station systems.
Commander Anatoly Ivanishin with Flight Engineers Kate Rubins and Takuya Onishi have been living in space for two months. They are awaiting reinforcements scheduled to join them two days after a Sept. 23 launch from Kazakhstan. Soyuz Commander Sergey Ryzhikov and Flight Engineers Shane Kimbrough and Andrey Borisenko are reviewing their flight plan and familiarizing themselves with the new Soyuz MS-02 spacecraft.
Back inside the space station, Commander Ivanishin started his day researching how crew activities affect the station structure and exploring how the circulatory system adapts to microgravity. Afterward, he setup a laptop computer and worked on more science and Russian maintenance tasks.
Onishi setup some simple experiments today to show how space affects the flight of a paper plane, a spinning ball and buoyancy among other phenomena. The results were videotaped for sharing to Asian audiences to promote the understanding of spaceflight.
Rubins installed a Phase Change Heat Exchanger into an experiment rack. The new Phase Change HX payload will test ways to regulate thermal conditions on future spacecraft.
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As one crew gets used to Earth’s gravity after 172 days in space, another crew is preparing to launch to the International Space Station in just over two weeks.
Expedition 48 Commander Jeff Williams arrived in the United States just 24 hours after landing Tuesday evening in Kazakhstan and completing his mission. His Expedition 48 crewmates Alexey Ovchinin and Oleg Skripochka, who were seated next to each other in the Soyuz TMA-20M spacecraft, have returned to their home space agency Roscosmos in Russia. Williams has completed one shuttle mission and his third station mission accumulating 534 days in space – a NASA astronaut record.
They will soon be replaced by another trio of Expedition 49-50 crew members who have arrived at their launch site at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. NASA astronaut Shane Kimbrough and cosmonauts Sergey Ryzhikov and Andrey Borisenko will launch Sept. 23 on a two-day trip to the space station. They are in final preparations for a mission scheduled to last until Feb. 25, 2017.
Back in space, the Expedition 48-49 crew consisting of Commander Anatoly Ivanishin and Flight Engineers Kate Rubins and Takuya Onishi are continuing science operations and maintenance of the orbital laboratory. Rubins continued more DNA sequencing work today and inspected emergency equipment. Onishi cleaned ventilation fans and measured air flow. Ivanishin worked on the Pilot-T experiment exploring how a crew member adapts to the working conditions of a long-term space mission.
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