Dragon cargo spacecraft safely back on Earth on the recovery ship.
Full of returning experiments, science samples, and items for further testing, the Dragon cargo spaceship undocked from the ISS on January 13. Surviving the fiery re-entry, the craft parachuted down to the Pacific Ocean and was recovered by SpaceX teams which will prepare the ship for returning to SpaceX and to NASA.
Astronaut Scott Tingle prepares for the year's first EVA.
January and February start off with EVAs on the International Space Station. On January 23, astronauts Mark Vande-Hei and Scott Tingle conducted EVA-47 to replace parts on the Robotic Arm. Once outside the airlock, the spacewalkers removed the spare part from a locker on the outside of the station and replaced the faulty part on the arm. Unfortunately there is a software issue with the activation of the part, which will result in a further spacewalk later in February.
Russian Cosmonauts Alexander Misurkin (R) and Anton Shkaplerov (L) prepare to exit the airlock for their EVA.
February 2nd saw the second EVA when cosmonauts Anton Shkaplerov and Alexander Misurka exited the PIRS module to perform maintenance work. This was Misurkin's fourth spacewalk. They successfully moved to the Zvesda module and replaced a faulty electronics box for a high-gain radio communications system. The bad parts were jettisoned towards a burn-up in the atmosphere. This station marked the 207th EVA for maintenance on the spacestation, including both American and Russian spacewalks. Typical for space agencies, this is also known as the Russian EVA-44 spacewalk. I'm not sure that I can comprehend how they keep track of these things when they have duplicate designations...
Cosmonauts moving about the Zvesda module.
The EVA concluded after 8 hours and 13 minutes, which makes it the longest Russian spacewalk. Coming up on the ISS: A Russian Progress Cargo ship will take off on Sunday Feb. 11, and another US EVA in this coming week.
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