The seven crew members of Expedition 67 are resuming their normal schedule of scientific and technical maintenance after the departure of the Starliner spacecraft to Boeing on Wednesday.
The inhabitants of the orbit focused on vein scanning, robotics and many other space explorations aboard the International Space Station today.
NASA and Boeing completed their Orbital Flight Test-2 mission on Wednesday. NASA flight engineers Kjell Lindgren and Bob Hines observed the crew’s arrival last week, conducted cargo and test operations inside the vehicle, then closed the hatch on Tuesday before finally seeing Starliner disembark from the front port. Harmony module at 14:36 EDT on Wednesday.
Lindgren began Thursday with a hearing assessment of the Acoustic Diagnostics experiment, then set up Astrobee robotic free flyers for the Kibo Robot Programming Challenge 3. Hines set up hardware that will measure blood flow to the brain to study cerebral autoregulation.
Both astronauts later joined NASA astronauts Jessica Watkins and ESA (European Space Agency) Samantha Christophoretti to scan the veins on Thursday. The quartet uses the Ultrasound 2 device to scan each other’s veins in the neck, shoulders and legs. Doctors on Earth observed real-time downlink biomedical scans to get an idea of how the astronaut’s bodies adapted to microgravity.
Watkins and Christophoretti began their day by collecting blood and urine samples, spinning them, and collecting the samples in a science freezer for future analysis. The duo then joined Lindgren in inspecting American spacesuits.
The three astronauts at the Roscosmos station also contributed to a series of space studies conducted today in the orbital laboratory. The trio, including Commander Oleg Artemiev, with flight engineers Denis Matveev and Sergei Korsakov, took turns researching ultrasonic techniques to improve the location of Earth’s landmarks for photography. Artemiev also completed a session that tracks his heart rate for 24 hours. Matveev helped Korsakov, attached to various sensors, while training a series of exercises to assess fitness.
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