New Expedition 72 NASA Crew Images | International Space Station

New Expedition 72 NASA Crew Images | International Space Station

NASA astronauts Don Pettit and Suni Williams, Expedition 72 flight engineer and commander respectively, pose for a fun holiday season portrait while speaking on a ham radio inside the International Space Station's Columbus laboratory module.

NASA astronaut and Expedition 72 Commander Suni Williams poses for a fun holiday season portrait while speaking on a ham radio inside the International Space Station's Columbus laboratory module.

NASA astronaut and Expedition 72 Flight Engineer Nick Hague processes radiation-resistant samples of Arthrospira C micro-algae and stows them in an incubator for analysis inside the International Space Station's Columbus laboratory module. The samples will be exposed to different light intensities to observe how they affect the micro-algae’s cell growth and oxygen production. Results may advance the development of spacecraft life support systems and fresh food production in space.

NASA astronaut and Expedition 72 Commander Suni Williams smiles for a portrait inside the International Space Station's Zvezda service module during dinner time.

NASA astronauts (from left) Don Pettit and Butch Wilmore, both Expedition 72 flight engineers, pack external research hardware removed from the Kibo laboratory module's airlock. The hardware housed a variety of samples exposed to the vacuum of space such as polymers, photovoltaic devices, and more. The samples will be returned to Earth and examined to understand how space radiation, the extreme thermal environment, micrometeoroids, and more affect materials possibly benefitting the space industry.

Expedition 72 Commander Suni Williams and Flight Engineer Don Pettit, both NASA astronauts, pose for a portrait in front of the Advanced Plant Habitat located inside the International Space Station's Kibo laboratory module. The Plant Habitat provides a large, enclosed, environmentally controlled chamber designed to support commercial and fundamental plant research in microgravity.

NASA astronaut and Expedition 72 Flight Engineer Don Pettit takes a break and poses for a portrait aboard the International Space Station's Destiny laboratory module.

NASA astronaut and Expedition 72 Flight Engineer Butch Wilmore swaps sample cassettes inside the Advanced Space Experiment Processor-4 (ADSEP-4) located aboard the International Space Station's Kibo laboratory module. The ADSEP-4 is a portable research facility that supports multiple types of science experiments on the orbital outpost and also interfaces with the SpaceX Dragon and Northrop Grumman Cygnus cargo spacecraft.

The science-packed SpaceX Dragon cargo spacecraft will wait another week before departing the International Space Station as mission managers monitor weather conditions at the splashdown sites. Meanwhile, the seven-member Expedition 72 crew geared up for a spacewalk planned later in December and serviced an array of science hardware and exercise equipment.

Expedition 72 Updates:
https://blogs.nasa.gov/spacestation/

Expedition 72 Crew
Station Commander: Suni Williams
Roscosmos (Russia): Alexey Ovchinin, Ivan Vagner, Aleksandr Gorbunov
NASA: Butch Wilmore, Don Pettit, Nick Hague

An international partnership of space agencies provides and operates the elements of the International Space Station (ISS). The principals are the space agencies of the United States, Russia, Europe, Japan, and Canada.

Learn more about the important research being operated on Station:
https://www.nasa.gov/iss-science 
For more information about STEM on Station:
https://www.nasa.gov/stemonstation
Science, Technology, Engineering, Math (STEM)

Image Credit: NASA's Johnson Space Center (JSC)

Image Dates: Nov. 15-29, 2024

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