Thursday marked another day of station upkeep aboard the International Space Station (ISS). The Expedition 70 crew spent most of the day on spacesuit and station maintenance, auditing equipment, and wrapping up experiments started earlier this week.
Spacesuit Maintenance and Contamination Control
In the morning, NASA Flight Engineer Jasmin Moghbeli was joined by ESA (European Space Agency) Commander Andreas Mogensen to perform a loop scrub on spacesuits that will be used during upcoming spacewalks this year. Moghbeli then reconfigured the hardware to initiate iodination, which is performed to remove contaminants from transfer loops.
Diverse Tasks and Mental Health Care
Mogensen had a busy rest of the day, completing a VR Mental Care session, which demonstrates the use of virtual reality for mental relaxation. He then moved on to station upkeep—restocking the battery pantry and completing monthly maintenance on the orbital lab’s treadmill—before rounding out the day with a hearing assessment.
Sound Measurements and Plumbing Maintenance
NASA Flight Engineer Loral O’Hara began the day setting up a microphone to be worn on her shoulder to take sound measurements around the station and then completed some orbital plumbing tasks, removing and replacing the filter in the waste and hygiene compartment.
Biological Research and Robotics Setup
Earlier in the week, JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) Flight Engineer Satoshi Furukawa hydrated and incubated production packs for the BioNutrients-1 investigation. On Thursday, Furukawa retrieved the samples to inspect and photograph, which will help researchers better understand on-demand production of human nutrients over long-duration missions. He then wrapped up his day installing the Robotics Work Station for upcoming research.
Ongoing Inventory and Experimentation
All three cosmonauts aboard the station continued audit and inventory tasks that started earlier this week. Flight Engineer Oleg Kononenko inventoried the Rassvet module, while Flight Engineer Nikolai Chub audited medical kits and Flight Engineer Konstantin Borisov audited light units throughout Roscosmos segments. Borisov also ran a Pilot-T session, an ongoing experiment to practice piloting techniques, while Chub replaced the carbon monoxide sensor in the Zarya module.
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