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After 196 days dwelling and dealing in Earth’s orbit aboard the Worldwide House Station, NASA astronaut Chris Cassidy returned from his third house mission Wednesday, Oct. 21, with cosmonauts Ivan Vagner and Anatoly Ivanishin of the Russian house company Roscosmos.
The crew departed the station at 7:32 p.m. EDT Wednesday and landed simply south of the city of Dzhezkazgan, Kazakhstan, at 10:54 p.m. (eight:54 a.m. Kazakhstan time). They may endure preliminary medical checks on the touchdown website, after which break up as much as return dwelling. Cassidy will board a NASA aircraft again to Houston, whereas Vagner and Ivanishin will fly dwelling to Star Metropolis, Russia.
Throughout this newest mission, Cassidy served as commander of Expedition 63 and welcomed SpaceX Demo-2 crew members Robert Behnken and Douglas Hurley of NASA – the primary astronauts to launch to the house station on an American spacecraft from American soil for the reason that retirement of the house shuttle in 2011.
Cassidy and Behnken accomplished 4 spacewalks, totaling 23 hours and 37 minutes, to improve station batteries. The ultimate spacewalk was the 10th for each astronauts, making them two of solely 4 solely U.S. astronauts to finish 10 spacewalks. Cassidy now has spent a complete of 378 days in house, the fifth highest amongst U.S. astronauts.
Whereas on station, he contributed to lots of of experiments, together with a examine of the affect of gravity on electrolytic fuel evolution, which seems to be at bubbles created utilizing electrolysis. Gravity is a key consider creating buoyancy for bubbles, so microgravity makes it potential to single out bubble progress and examine its impact in processes. Utilizing this technique to higher perceive how bubbles develop may enhance gadgets like medication supply via small, bandage-like pores and skin patches.
Cassidy additionally labored with Astrobee, cube-shaped, free-flying robots which will in the future help astronauts with routine duties, and performed analysis for the Onco-Selectors experiment, which leverages microgravity to determine focused most cancers therapies.
When Cassidy, Ivanishin, and Vagner departed the house station, Expedition 64 formally started on station, with Roscosmos cosmonaut Sergey Ryzhikov serving as station commander and NASA’s Kate Rubins and Roscosmos’ Sergey Kud-Sverchkov serving as flight engineers.
In November, the Expedition 64 crew is scheduled to welcome NASA’s SpaceX Crew-1 – NASA astronauts Michael Hopkins, Victor Glover, and Shannon Walker, and Japanese Aerospace Exploration Company astronaut Soichi Noguchi. Crew-1 would be the first long-duration mission to fly as a part of NASA’s Industrial Crew Program and mark the return of America’s functionality to usually launch astronauts from U.S. soil.
For almost 20 years, the Worldwide House Station has been inhabited constantly by astronauts testing applied sciences, conducting analysis, and creating the talents wanted to discover farther from Earth, together with to the Moon and Mars. As a world endeavor, 241 individuals from 19 international locations have visited the distinctive microgravity vacation spot that has hosted greater than three,000 scientific and academic investigations from researchers in 108 international locations and areas.
