NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams have held back to back calls with Boeing teams on Earth this week as they continue to work and relax on the International Space Station (ISS). The agency is slated to decide later this week whether the pair will return to Earth on Boeing's Starliner this year or on SpaceX's Crew Dragon in 2025. As part of their work on the station, the crew worked on the station's MARES exercise rack and collected water samples for analysis.
NASA Astronauts Hold Back To Back Conference Calls With Boeing In Crucial Week That Will Decide Their Fate
NASA shared the latest details about the crew's work on the station through two updates made on Monday and Tuesday. In them, the agency outlined that Wilmore and Williams had spent significant time talking with Boeing's flight controllers on the ground. It shared that on the Monday call, the two conducted an "hourlong crew conference" with Boeing flight controllers after they had spent the day working on different tasks on the ISS.
These tasks saw Williams work with the station's Muscle Atrophy Research and Exercise System or MARES. This tool was sent to the ISS in 2010, and since then, it has helped NASA and astronauts on the station understand the impact of spaceflight on the human body and help maintain the crew's health in space.
Since the crew spends their time, which often stretches into months, on the ISS in microgravity, their bones and muscles tend to weaken due to a lack of force that is typically exerted to counter gravity on Earth. This leads to atrophy and makes exercise essential for them to maintain peak physical fitness for their health and to conduct research and other tasks in space.
After their talk with ground teams on Monday, the crew had another follow up on Tuesday, as per NASA. This was also their mini day off, as Wilmore only spent a little time continuing his life support duties on the station before talking with Boeing's flight controllers at the end of his shift. He was joined by Williams for this talk, who "relaxed all day on Tuesday," according to NASA.
Wednesday was a busy day for both of them, according to details shared by the space agency moments back. Today, Wilmore worked with NASA astronaut Mathew Dominick to ensure CubeSats, which will soon be deployed from the station, were in the right configuration for their launch. As part of their work, they ensured the satellites were securely attached in their launch cases before "they installed the deployer onto a multipurpose experiment platform and loaded it inside Kibo’s airlock " from where they will be deployed.
Williams worked with NASA astronaut Jeanette Epps to uninstall and reinstall the Metal 3D printer on the ISS. During their work, they carried out maintenance operations and worked with an experimental sample printed with steel.
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