Three Expedition 74 crew members are nearing the end of their stay aboard the International Space Station handing over mission responsibilities and packing up cargo for return to Earth. Science hardware, lab maintenance, and spacesuits kept the rest of the crew busy aboard the orbital outpost.
NASA astronaut Chris Williams and Roscosmos cosmonauts Sergey Kud-Sverchkov and Sergei Mikaev will ride back to Earth inside the Soyuz MS-28 spacecraft to land in Kazakhstan at 6:26 a.m. (3:26 p.m. local time) on Sunday, July 26, completing an eight-month space research mission. They are spending the rest of the week packing cargo inside the Soyuz while helping their replacements get up to speed with space station operations and systems. The Expedition 74 mission will end and Expedition 75 will officially begin when the homebound trio undocks from the Rassvet module inside their Soyuz spacecraft at 3:02 a.m. on Sunday.
NASA flight engineer Anil Menon and Roscosmos flight engineers Pyotr Dubrov and Ana Kikina are in the second week of their planned eight-and-a-half-month mission. They are using their new skills to conduct space research while still familiarizing themselves with living and working in space. Menon setup a pair of research incubators and connected them to the Columbus laboratory module’s power supply. Dubrov and Kikina collected and processed their blood samples, then stowed the specimens inside a Roscosmos science freezer for later analysis.
Flight engineers Jack Hathaway of NASA and Sophie Adenot of ESA (European Space Agency) partnered together at the end of their shift on Wednesday and checked out procedures and spacesuits in the Quest airlock. Hathaway also replaced orbital plumbing components in the Tranquility module. Adenot videotaped herself working out on the new European Enhanced Exploration Exercise Device to inform future workout techniques on missions to the Moon, Mars, and beyond.
NASA flight engineer Jessica Meir inspected crew quarters acoustic blankets, organized food packages stowed inside the Unity module, and tested the operation of plumbing hardware. Roscosmos flight engineer Andrey Fedyaev strapped a series of cuffs around his arm, wrist, and fingers to measure how blood flows through his microcirculatory system in microgravity then worked on life support maintenance the rest of his shift.
Learn more about station activities by following the space station blog, @space_station on X, as well as the ISS Facebook and ISS Instagram accounts.
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