The Expedition 44 crew members continued a wide variety of science
experiments Friday as a pair of cosmonauts prepared for a spacewalk
Monday morning. On the ground, a new Soyuz crew is preparing for their
mission to swap a pair of station residents in September.
One-Year crew member Scott Kelly set up free-floating microsatellites for the long-running SPHERES-Slosh
experiment which observes how liquids such as rocket fuel behave in
space. New station residents Kjell Lindgren and Kimiya Yui explored
vision changes in space as they scanned each other’s eyes with an
ultrasound and measured their blood pressure for the Ocular Health study.
Spacewalkers Gennady Padalka and Mikhail Kornienko tested their
spacesuits Friday. The cosmonauts will spend 6-1/2 hours upgrading
hardware, retrieving an external experiment and photographing the
exterior condition of the Russian modules.
In Russia, three new Soyuz crew members completed a series of mission
simulations ahead of their departure to the Baikonur Cosmodrome launch
site in Kazakhstan. Veteran cosmonaut Sergei Volkov will command the
Soyuz TMA-18M spacecraft when he launches Sept. 2 with fellow crew
members Andres Mogensen and Aidyn Aimbetov. Volkov will swap places with
Padalka who will return to Earth Sept. 12 with Mogensen and Aimbetov.
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