The seven astronauts and cosmonauts that comprise the second half of the International Space Station’s Expedition 73 crew focused this week on a new shipment of supplies and conducting the time-sensitive science that arrived along with the cargo. They also prepared for an upcoming re-boost of the orbital complex’s altitude in orbit.
Orbital observation
Before becoming an astronaut, Jonny Kim was a Navy SEAL and a medical doctor. Now aboard the International Space Station, he has revealed he was a gamer, too, and able to put some his boyhood skills to good use.
“Growing up, I played a lot of video games — and while I still enjoy gaming with my kids, time is scarcer these days,” wrote Kim in a social media post on Wednesday (Aug. 27). “This demo brought me right back, blending elements of real-time strategy, RPGs, and first-person play into something very real.”
Working with the Surface Avatar team at the European Space Agency (ESA), Kim was able to test how teleoperations could be of use to future missions on the moon and Mars.
“A joystick and advanced robotic arm controller let me mimic finger and wrist movements with precision. A heads-up display kept me informed with battery levels, location data, and quick access to either an AI assistant or ground teams,” he wrote. “I could enlarge a mini-map to see each robot’s perspective, like a ‘fog of war’ in strategy games, and send parallel commands to different units. With the fine arm controls, I could enter into the perspective of a humanoid robot to manipulate the environment, whether moving science samples or shifting a rock that blocked the way.”
Kim said his favorite demo was with a rover that had a smaller, deployable unit that could get into tight areas, such as caves — “a feature that felt straight out of a game but with real scientific potential.”
“It was not just a technology demonstration, but a glimpse into how play, imagination and innovation intersect to shape the future of exploration,” Kim wrote.
Science status
Among the research that was conducted by the Expedition 73 crew aboard the space station this week was:
MVP Cell-07 — Having arrived aboard a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft on Monday (Aug. 25), one of the space station’s newest science experiments quickly got the attention of Expedition 73 flight engineer Zena Cardman with NASA. She set up the Maturation of Vascularized Liver Tissue Construct in Zero Gravity experiment in a portable microgravity glovebag to begin studying how the blood vessels in 3D-printed liver tissue reacts to being weightless.
Ultrasound 2 — Kimiya Yui of JAXA and Mike Fincke of NASA worked together to test a possible countermeasure to the redistirbution of liquids from the feet to the head in microgravity. Fincke wore a specially designed thigh cuff, while Yui recorded the data from electrodes applied to Fincke’s chest.
Station keeping
The Expedition 73 crewmates also took part in activities to maintain the space station’s systems and prepare for future research.
CRS-33 — NASA astronaut Jonny Kim worked on unloading some of the 5,000 pounds (2,300 kilograms) of supplies delivered on a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft on Monday (Aug. 25). Fellow flight engineers Mike Fincke and Kimiya Yui removed and restowed frozen science samples from Dragon to the freezers on the space station.
NASA engineers at Mission Control in Houston also took remote control of the space station’s Candarm2 robotic arm to remove and inspect a reboost kit that was launched in the unpressurized trunk of SpaceX’s CRS-33 Dragon. The hardware will later be used to maintain and raise the orbital complex’s altitude.
Astronaut activity
“Boop! We have a new Dragon at the bow of our International Space Station,” wrote Expedition 73 flight engineer Zena Cardman of NASA in a social media post on Tuesday (Aug. 26).
The commercial space capsule arrived at the orbiting laboratory on Monday with more than 5,000 pounds (2,300 kilograms) of supplies on board.
“We’ve been hard at work unpacking ever since. Welcome, SpaceX CRS-33!” wrote Cardman.
By the numbers
As of Friday (Aug. 15), there are 7 people aboard the International Space Station: Expedition 73 commander Sergey Ryzhikov of Roscosmos; fellow cosmonauts Alexey Zubritsky and Oleg Platonov; Jonny Kim, Zena Cardman and Mike Fincke of NASA; and Kimiya Yui of JAXA, all flight engineers.
There are two docked crew spacecraft: SpaceX’s Dragon “Endeavour” attached to the zenith port of the Harmony module and Roscosmos’ Soyuz MS-27 attached to the Earth-facing port of the Prichal node.
There are three docked cargo spacecraft: Roscosmos’ Progress MS-30 (91P) attached to the aft port of the Zvezda service module, and Progress MS-31 (92P) docked to the space-facing port of the Poisk module. SpaceX’s CRS-33 Dragon spacecraft is docked to the forward port of Harmony Node 2.
As of Friday, the space station has been continuously crewed for 24 years and 9 months and 27 days.
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