Station Swaps Commanders and Keeps Up Research Before Crew Swap
Expedition 72 changed commanders today as a new crew prepares to launch to the International Space Station and four orbital residents get ready to return to Earth. Meanwhile, human research, fluid physics, and spacesuits wrapped up the end of the week aboard the orbital outpost.
NASA astronaut Suni Williams handed over command of the space station to Roscosmos cosmonaut Alexey Ovchinin during the change of command ceremony today. Williams remarked during the event, “Just wanted to say thank you to everybody around the world, all the control centers, friends and family who are out there, all our trainers, all of the folks who have gotten us ready to come here and fly in space.”
Williams now turns her attention to her return to Earth with fellow crewmates Nick Hague and Butch Wilmore from NASA and Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov. The homebound SpaceX Crew-9 members will wait for the launch and arrival of the SpaceX Crew-10 mission targeted for March 12 and 13 before returning to Earth after a handover period.
The Crew-10 members Anne McClain and Nichole Ayers of NASA, Takuya Onishi of JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency), and Kirill Peskov of Roscosmos will officially become Expedition 72 crew members when they open the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft hatch and enter the orbiting lab. Ovchinin will stay in space until mid-April with Flight Engineers Don Pettit of NASA and Ivan Vagner of Roscosmos.
Advanced microgravity science continued on Friday as the astronauts and cosmonauts studied the effects of exercising in space, space-caused bone loss, futuristic piloting techniques, and more at the end of the week.
Hague began his day collecting his blood samples for processing and later analysis. The specimens will be examined as part of a study exploring bone loss during space missions and bone recovery after returning to Earth’s gravity. Next, Hague pedaled on an exercise cycle while attached to electrodes and sensors measuring how weightlessness affects his aerobic fitness.
Pettit installed physics research hardware inside the Microgravity Science Glovebox to observe how fluids behave in weightlessness. The experiment gear located in the Destiny laboratory module will explore using temperature fields to separate viruses from biological fluids and promote disease detection and space materials development.
Wilmore spent most of his day swapping radio gear on a pair of spacesuits in the Quest airlock before packing his personal items ahead of his upcoming departure. Williams took a test measuring how living in space affects her cognitive abilities, inspected the Harmony module’s forward hatch, then replaced orbital plumbing components in the Tranquility module.
Gorbunov tried on a specialized suit, with assistance from Vagner, that may prevent fluids from accumulating in a crew member’s upper body caused by living in weightlessness. The lower body negative pressure suit is being tested for its ability to pull fluid from the upper body counteracting space-caused head and eye pressure. Ovchinin spent his day on science exploring how future crews may pilot spacecraft and robots, blood circulation in microgravity, and hybrid life support systems.
Learn more about station activities by following the space station blog, @space_station and @ISS_Research on X, as well as the ISS Facebook and ISS Instagram accounts.
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