Station Trio Prepping for June 24 Homecoming

ISS — Expedition 59 Mission patch.

June 10, 2019

Three Expedition 59 crewmembers are getting ready to end their stay at the International Space Station after six and a half months in space. Meanwhile, mission scientists continue exploring how microgravity impacts the human body.

Flight Engineers Anne McClain and David Saint-Jacques will flank Commander Oleg Kononenko inside the Soyuz MS-11 spacecraft when they return to Earth on June 24. McClain videotaped herself in virtual reality talking about her first space mission today using a 360-degree camera in Japan’s Kibo laboratory module. The trio have been in space since Dec. 3.

Image above: The six-member Expedition 59 crew poses for a portrait inside Northrop Grumman’s Cygnus commercial space freighter dubbed the S.S. Roger B. Chaffee. Clockwise from bottom are cosmonauts Alexey Ovchinin and Oleg Kononenko; NASA astronauts Christina Koch and Nick Hague; Canadian Space Agency astronaut David Saint-Jacques and NASA astronaut Anne McClain. Image Credit: NASA.

Saint-Jacques and Kononenko began gathering items to take back home inside their Soyuz crew ship. The duo collected personal items such as shoes and clothes as well as tools and trash that will be soon be stowed aboard the Soyuz for the ride to Earth.

Saint-Jacques also researched ways to supplement crew nutrition during future long-term space missions, such as missions to the Moon and Mars. Food stowed for long periods can lose nutritional value. The BioNutrients-1 study is exploring manufacturing nutritional compounds in space to maintain healthy crews for successful missions.

International Space Station (ISS). Animation Credit: NASA

NASA astronauts Christina Koch and Nick Hague started Monday morning by drawing blood samples and spinning them in a centrifuge before stowing them in science freezer. Doctors on the ground will analyze the samples to detect critical changes to a crewmember’s physiology while living in space. The pair also participated in visual acuity tests using an eye chart in the afternoon.

Related links:

Expedition 59: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/expeditions/expedition59/index.html

360-degree camera: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/explorer/Investigation.html?#id=7877

Kibo laboratory module: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/structure/elements/japan-kibo-laboratory

BioNutrients-1: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/explorer/Investigation.html?#id=7400

Space Station Research and Technology: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/index.html

International Space Station (ISS): https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/main/index.html

Image (mentioned), Animation (mentioned), Text, Credits: NASA/Mark Garcia.

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