ISS Crew Prepares for Dragon Spacecraft Return
On Wednesday, the International Space Station (ISS) crew focused on packing research samples and station hardware for return to Earth. The seven-member Expedition 72 team also worked on maintaining science equipment and electronics across the orbital laboratory.
NASA astronauts have been loading completed science experiments and lab hardware into the Dragon spacecraft, preparing it for retrieval and analysis on Earth. NASA and SpaceX are now targeting Friday, December 6, for Dragon’s return, after postponing the originally planned Thursday splashdown due to high winds at the landing site off Florida’s coast.
Live coverage of Dragon’s undocking and departure will begin at 10:50 a.m. EST on NASA+, with the spacecraft set to autonomously undock from the Harmony module’s forward port at approximately 11:05 a.m. Viewers can access NASA’s coverage across multiple platforms, including social media.
Daily Tasks and Equipment Maintenance
NASA astronaut and station commander Suni Williams kicked off her day installing the sample-packed Space Automated Lab Incubator inside Dragon. NASA astronauts Nick Hague and Butch Wilmore continued her work loading and securing portable science freezers filled with research samples and powered lockers containing finalized experiments inside the Earthbound spacecraft.
Williams and Hague also had time to join each other in the Quest airlock replacing components and resizing a spacesuit ahead of a series of spacewalks planned for early next year. Wilmore spent all day Wednesday loading cargo from the station into Dragon.
Ongoing Research and Safety Preparations
NASA Flight Engineer Don Pettit started his day in the Kibo laboratory module configuring a small satellite orbital deployer that will soon be placed into the vacuum of space to release a series of CubeSats. Pettit, a four-time space station visitor, wrapped up his shift replacing experiment samples inside the Combustion Integrated Rack readying the research device for a spacecraft fire safety investigation.
Cross-Sectional Collaboration and Maintenance
Roscosmos Flight Engineer Aleksandr Gorbunov also worked on cargo duties but on the other side of the orbital outpost. Gorbunov unpacked some of the nearly three tons of cargo launched aboard the Progress 90 cargo craft on November 21 and docking to the Poisk module on November 23. The first-time space flyer completed his day inspecting and photographing air conditioning hardware in the Zvezda service module.
Cosmonauts Alexey Ovchinin and Ivan Vagner partnered together throughout the day Wednesday servicing a host of communications and electronics hardware in the orbital outpost’s Roscosmos segment. Ovchinin then moved on and checked the ventilation equipment inside the Zarya module. Vagner conducted a photo-inspection of windows inside Zvezda and then collected his hair samples for biological analysis.
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