Space to Ground: The Bell Lap: Feb. 16, 2024

NASA's Space to Ground is your weekly update on what's happening aboard the International Space Station.

What is said in the film

Welcome to space to ground, I’m chelsey ballarte. It’s been a busy week aboard the international space station. One cargo spacecraft departed and another is set to make its delivery this weekend. The astronauts continued their work on science experiments, all while getting ready to return to earth in just a few weeks. It seems like a lot, but the crew still had time to celebrate valentine’s day in space.

The week kicked off with the departure of a resupply spacecraft. Six months ago, the progress 85 cargo spacecraft arrived at the space station, delivering food and supplies to the crew. With its mission complete, the spacecraft undocked from the station monday night, burning up harmlessly in the atmosphere over the pacific ocean just three hours later. This opened up a spot on the zvesda service module for a new arrival. The space station crew won’t have to wait long for another spacecraft to take its place.

On wednesday, the progress 87 spacecraft made a valentine’s day launch, lifting off at 10:25 p. m. Eastern time. It launched atop a soyuz rocket from the baikonur cosmodrome in kazakhstan. Progress 87 is delivering food, fuel, and supplies to the space station.

However, it has not arrived at the space station just yet. Progress 87 will finish its two-day journey on saturday, february 17. You can watch live as the spacecraft makes its final approach and docks to the space station starting at 12:30 a. m. Eastern on nasa+, youtube, or anywhere you stream nasa tv.

The space station crew got to celebrate valentine’s day this week. The astronauts have the ability to call and video chat with their families, and sometimes cargo spacecraft deliver chocolate and other candies for them to enjoy. Some of our photography-savvy astronauts have even spent some time looking out the window and finding some heart-shaped locations to snap a picture of down below. But another activity that gets their hearts pumping is helping to collect cardiovascular data. Researchers are still assessing the effects of space travel on the heart, but an investigation from the canadian space agency called space health aims to learn more.

In this study, astronauts wear a bio-monitor for real-time monitoring of cardiovascular health before, during, and after their spaceflight. This system could be used to mitigate risks on future long duration missions and provide further protection for first responders on the ground. Space health is just one of many studies that have used the microgravity environment to study the heart. By understanding heart changes in astronauts, the research could also help find ways to prevent and treat heart diseases on earth. The crew-7 crew has contributed to hundreds of experiments during their time in space, but in just a few weeks, their mission will come to an end.

But before they return to earth, all four crewmembers will participate in a news conference on wednesday, february to answer your questions, live from space, about their mission. If you want to ask a question to someone who has spent the past seven months in space, head over to social media and submit your question using #asknasa. That’s it for space to ground this week, thanks for watching.

Where this page came from

This page was imported from [NASA](https://images.nasa.gov/details/jcs2024m000010_Space to Ground_510_240216). NASA material is generally not copyrighted and is in the public domain.

Nobody has written it yet — it is the source material at a new address, which is why search engines are asked to skip it and why no one earns from it. It is up for grabs: take it on, and it is yours to rewrite and to earn from.