Science Marches on: International Space Station update

Fifth spacewalk in three months

NASA astronauts Michael Hopkins and Victor Glover suited up for a spacewalk on 13 March 2021, with a task list that included mating connectors for Europe’s Bartolomeo platform. The spacewalking duo successfully mated three out of four connectors for the external research platform. This allowed ground teams to begin commissioning activities on 22 March, which were completed 30 March.

Mounted to the forward side of ESA’s Columbus laboratory and operated by Airbus, Bartolomeo provides opportunities for commercial research and technology demonstrations outside the International Space Station’s shell. It offers 11 payload slots and provides a data downlink capacity of 10 Gbit/s – enough to download a high-definition movie within 30 seconds.

Bartolomeo is suitable for many types of missions, including Earth observation, environmental and climate research, robotics, material sciences and astrophysics.

Kristall cleared for 11th campaign

Also on 22 March, current International Space Station commander Sergey Ryzhikov began the 11th science campaign for joint Roscosmos/ESA experiment Plasma Kristall-4 (PK-4). Following a monitor installation and check-out, Sergey completed two science runs using neon gas, performed a gas supply exchange to argon and exchanged a hard drive in preparation for upcoming runs.

PK-4 focuses on low temperature gaseous mixtures known as ‘complex plasmas’, made up of ions, electrons, inert gas and micro-particles. Due to the strong influence of gravity on the micro-particles, most experiments on complex plasmas are strongly distorted or even impossible on Earth.

Plasma for the PK-4 experiment is created with neon or argon gas in tubes that give particles an electrical charge. The experiment allows researchers across the world to better understand how objects melt, how waves spread in fluids and how currents change at the atomic level.

In fact, a team of scientists has already made use of the know-how gained from developing the experiment to build plasma devices that disinfect wounds at room temperature. This revolution in healthcare has many practical applications, from food hygiene to the treatment of skin diseases, water purification and even neutralisation of bad odours.

View from the ground

This update tends to focus on space-based activity, but March also saw our ground-based operations teams get together for a pre-launch tag-up ahead of ESA astronaut Thomas Pesquet’s Alpha mission.

Led by ESA’s Columbus Control Centre in Oberpfaffenhofen, Germany, these meetings are held to discuss the mission and run through all the particularities, key events and changes to protocol. For the first time ever, the meeting was done virtually due to COVID-19 restrictions.

With over 200 investigations planned for the Expedition 60, including 12 new European experiments, Thomas and the crew on the International Space Station will be busy. You can read about some of those new experiments in the newly released Alpha mission brochure and tune into ESA Web TV on 22 April for Thomas’ launch as part of Crew-2 on a SpaceX Crew Dragon.