Eye Health, Cargo Packing Ahead of Dragon Relocation

The SpaceX Dragon Freedom spacecraft approaches the International Space Station for a docking on Sept. 29, 2024.

Protecting eyesight to keep crews healthy and packing cargo for an upcoming mission were the main tasks for the Expedition 72 crew aboard the International Space Station on Tuesday.

Body fluids behave differently in weightlessness resulting in an upward flow toward an astronaut's head. This condition creates pressure on a crew member's eyes causing changes in eye structure and vision. Commander Suni Williams and Flight Engineer Butch Wilmore, both NASA astronauts, tested a specialized thigh cuff throughout the day that may prevent the headward fluid shifts. Researchers are monitoring these fluid shifts to learn how to safeguard eye health as NASA and its international partners plan longer missions farther out into space.

Back on Earth, the next resupply mission to the orbital outpost is getting ready for launch next week aboard the SpaceX Dragon cargo spacecraft. NASA Flight Engineers Don Pettit and Nick Hague geared up on Tuesday for the arrival of Dragon and its shipment of new science experiments and station hardware. Pettit began packing and staging cargo that will be stowed inside Dragon after its arrival then returned to Earth for retrieval. Hague trained to use the tools that will monitor the automated approach and rendezvous of Dragon.

However, before the cargo mission blasts off toward the space station, Hague will lead Williams, Wilmore, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov on a short ride aboard the SpaceX Dragon Freedom spacecraft to a new docking port. The quartet will board Dragon on Sunday, Nov. 3, undock from the Harmony module's forward port at 6:35 a.m. EDT, then maneuver the spacecraft to Harmony's space-facing port for a docking at 7:18 a.m. The relocation opens up the forward port for the Dragon cargo mission.

After a training session at the beginning of his shift on the Destiny laboratory module's exercise cycle, Gorbunov installed and activated hardware to observe Earth's nighttime atmosphere in near-ultraviolet wavelengths. His fellow cosmonauts Alexey Ovchinin and Ivan Vagner partnered together on maintenance and inspection duties in the aft end of the Zvezda service module.

Learn more about station activities by following the space station blog, @space_station and @ISS_Research on X, as well as the ISS Facebook and ISS Instagram accounts.

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