While the Expedition 68 crew ensures the functionality of research devices in microgravity, spacewalk preparations are still ongoing aboard the International Space Station.
At the end of the week, flight engineers Nicole Mann from NASA and Koichi Wakata from the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) will embark on their first joint spacewalk. The astronauts reviewed the processes they would use to instal power improvements hardware that will prepare the orbiting lab for its next roll-out solar array on a future spacewalk for a couple of hours on Tuesday morning.
The two will start their space mission on Friday at 8:15 a.m. EST by switching their Extravehicular Mobility Units (EMUs), or spacesuits, to battery power. On the port side of the truss structure of the space station, Mann and Wakata are anticipated to spend around six and a half hours working outside in the vacuum of space.
Mann finished her day by withdrawing a tiny satellite deployer from the airlock of the Kibo laboratory module. Wakata spent the first part of the day teaching elementary school students on Earth about basic space physics experiments before calibrating parts inside the Combustion Integrated Rack.
Tuesday morning was dedicated to maintaining various scientific equipment and caring for study samples by NASA Flight Engineer Frank Rubio. Rubio began the day by nourishing samples and cleaning equipment for a study looking at ways to treat bone diseases both on and off the planet as part of the Destiny laboratory module. After that, Rubio spent the afternoon assembling networking and communication hardware inside the Columbus laboratory module.
Josh Cassada, a NASA astronaut, tended to tomato plants being grown for the Veg-05 space botany study. At the end of the day, Cassada assembled equipment and set up Kibo's Life Science Glovebox in preparation for impending procedures for the bone condition investigation.
Prokopyev and Petelin spent Tuesday performing repairs on the air and water tanks and transferring cargo inside two Progress resupply ships. Anna Kikina, a Roscosmos flight engineer, replaced electronics gear inside the Zarya module.
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