Cosmonauts Make Ready for a Crowded ISS

TMA-16M maneuvers near the ISS.

 The crew of Expedition 44 continued their efforts to rearrange the spacecraft docked to the ISS on Friday. Soyuz commander Gennady Padalkin, along with year-long ISS residents Mikhail Kornienko and Scott Kelly, boarded the TMA-16M ship and undocked form the station late last night. In case something were to go wrong and prevent docking again, the three wore their flight spacesuits. They quickly thrusted over to the end of the Zvesda module, where they docked the spacecraft early in the morning hours. The movement of the spacecraft allows an open docking port on the Poisk module, where another crew will dock next week. When that craft arrives, there will temporarily be 9 crew members on the station.

Current arrangment of spacecraft docked at the ISS.

 

While the spacecraft shuffle continued, other crewmembers continued working on the HTV cargo module which recently arrived at the station after blasting off from Japan. 

Moving waste and trash into the emptied HTV-5 is much simpler with zero-G.