The Expedition 75 crew aboard the International Space Station carried out blood vessel bioprinting, spacesuit preparations, robotic arm training and Earth photography on Thursday, supporting scientific research and an upcoming spacewalk.
NASA flight engineer Luke Delaney operated the station’s BioFabrication Facility inside the Columbus laboratory module to begin printing blood vessels using vascular cells. He retrieved the cells from a science freezer, thawed them and mixed them with biological printing material before loading the mixture into the bioprinter.
NASA flight engineer Anil Menon later preserved and nourished the printed tissues inside the facility for cultivation. The experiment contributes to research into bioprinting biological tissues in space.
Spacesuit Checks Ahead of Spacewalk
Menon and NASA astronaut Jessica Watkins assisted Canadian Space Agency astronaut Josh Kutryk as he practised putting on a spacesuit inside the station’s Quest airlock simulator. The checks assessed fit, comfort and system functionality, while accounting for physical changes such as spinal elongation that can occur in microgravity.
Menon and Kutryk are scheduled to conduct a spacewalk on October 29 to install a roll-out solar array on the station’s port-side truss structure.
Delaney also trained to operate the Canadarm2 robotic arm, which will assist the spacewalkers during the installation. He and Watkins are expected to help the astronauts with their spacesuits and provide support during the planned six-hour-and-45-minute excursion.
Robotics Training and Earth Photography
Roscosmos flight engineer Sergey Teteryatnikov practised operating the European robotic arm attached to the Nauka science module. He subsequently configured and activated Earth-observation equipment to photograph landmarks in Asia and South America using visible and near-infrared wavelengths during the crew’s sleep period.
Roscosmos flight engineer Anna Kikina photographed lakes in eastern Africa through a window in the Zvezda service module and assisted Teteryatnikov with configuring the Earth-observation camera.
Meanwhile, station commander Pyotr Dubrov of Roscosmos handled plumbing tasks inside Zvezda before photographing fellow crew members at work aboard the orbital laboratory.
The day’s activities combined biological research, preparations for station maintenance and Earth-observation work, reflecting the range of scientific and operational tasks undertaken by the Expedition 75 crew.
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