presented by DC Roofing
BREVARD COUNTY, FLORIDA – The moon lights up the cloud-covered Pacific Ocean while stars glitter in the background above Earth’s airglow.
For some crew members, Tuesday was a day of light work aboard the International Space Station, while the rest of the orbiting residents researched biotechnology and fluid physics while maintaining life support systems.
On Earth, a new cargo ship is ready to deliver supplies to the orbiting outpost, after another supply ship launched late Monday.
Studying stem cells in microgravity eliminates the challenges of growing and proliferating cells in Earth’s gravitational environment. However, the results of space-based stem cell research can have far-reaching benefits on Earth, including more advanced cell manufacturing processes and improved human health.
NASA Flight Engineer Tracy C. Dyson today researched how to grow stem cells in space by handling samples in the Kibo laboratory module’s Life Science Glovebox. She then viewed the stem cell samples using the state-of-the-art Kermit microscope, which can be operated remotely by a station crew member or by scientists on the ground. NASA astronauts Matthew Dominick and Jeanette Epps spent a few minutes during their light workday helping Dyson work in the glovebox and set up the microscope.
Butch Wilmore, NASA’s Boeing Crew Flight Test commander, spent the day checking water systems and replacing components of the thermal control hardware. First, he collected drinking water samples, processed them and then analyzed them using the total organic compound analyzer. Wilmore then worked in the Tranquility module, replacing equipment that cools the equipment and dissipates heat.
NASA astronauts Mike Barratt and Suni Williams also didn’t have a big schedule on Tuesday. The duo regularly swapped their orbital spacecraft equipment and trained in the use of modern life support systems.
A Roscosmos Progress 89 cargo spacecraft is scheduled to launch from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 11:20 p.m. EDT on Wednesday. It will take a day or two to get to the orbital station, where cosmonauts Oleg Kononenko and Nikolai Chub will oversee the automated approach and docking scheduled for 1:56 a.m. Saturday.
Progress 89 will dock at the aft port of the Zvezda service module, which was released at 10 p.m. Monday after the Progress 87 spacecraft undocked and completed its six-month resupply mission.
Kononenko began transferring water from the docked Progress 88 cargo ship to the station’s water tanks on Tuesday. He then joined a video session with Chub to answer questions from media in his home country. Chub had previously spent the day studying how magnetic and electric fields affect fluids in microgravity.
Flight engineer Alexander Grebenkin began his day by downloading data capturing the interaction of international crews and mission controllers.
Grebenkin then pointed a digital camera at Earth and used hyperspectroscopy to take photographs to study the effects of natural and man-made disasters.
