Space to Ground: Transitional Period: March 28, 2025

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 Dominique Crespo and I'm Chelsea Ballarte. There are times that life comes at you from all directions. One day you're in space and the next you're back on Earth... or in this case of one American astronaut you're preparing to launch to space and the International Space Station.

The space station is about to gain three new residents including NASA astronaut Jonny Kim. Kim along with his two cosminaut crew mates conducted final qualification training for their upcoming launch to the space station. Completing this training is one of the final milestones that Soyuz crew members experience before launch. Jonny and his crew mates are scheduled to lift off April 8th from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. When the trio arrives on station they'll be met by NASA's Crew-10 crew who arrived at the station earlier this month.

Speaking of Crew-10, they have hit the ground running performing science experiments. Sometimes even their own bodies are subject of scientific research. Data is often collected at the beginning middle and end of their space flights, and since Crew-10 just arrived, NASA astronaut Nichole Ayers has been doing exactly that. She's been sporting this headband in the name of science. It's for an experiment called T- Mini and it measures her core body temperature.

Data from the monitor will allow researchers to determine how environmental and physiological factors affect how the body regulates its temperature during space flight. Understanding these changes is important as humans venture farther out to the moon and even to Mars. Devices like T- Mini can help us monitor the health of astronauts on those long duration missions. Japanese astronaut Takuya Onishi also tested out some tech this week. He operated the JEM Internal Ball Camera 2.

It's a free-flying robot that can take photo and video. Astronauts are incredibly busy aboard the space station, so having the robot take photo and video could free the astronauts up to have more time for science. Now that Crew-10 is aboard the space station, NASA has announced its next upcoming commercial crew mission to the orbiting laboratory. NASA astronaut Zena Cardman will serve as the commander for the Crew-11 crew, with NASA's Mike Fincke serving as the pilot. The mission also includes two mission specialists, Kimiya Yui of the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency and Oleg Platonov of Roscosmos.

The Crew-11 mission will be Mike Fincke's fourth trip to space. He has previously flown twice on a Soyuz spacecraft , once on shuttle Endeavour, and soon the SpaceX Dragon. It'll be the first space flight for Zena Cardman. Returning from their long-duration science mission aboard the International Space Station, NASA's SpaceX Crew-9 splashed down off the coast of Florida after completing more than 150 science experiments, totaling more than 900 hours of research. NASA astronauts Nick Hague, Suni Williams, and Butch Wilmore completed investigations on plant growth and quality that could potentially help astronauts produce food in space and tested the potential of stem cell technology to address blood diseases, autoimmune disorders, and cancers.

They also conducted research on lighting systems to help astronauts maintain circadian rhythms, loaded the first wooden satellite for deployment to test sustainable materials, and took samples from the space station's exterior to study whether microorganisms can survive in space. Before we go here's a couple of upcoming events to look out for. On Monday NASA astronauts Nick Hague, Suni Williams, and Butch Wilmore will discuss their science mission during a post-flight news conference from the Johnson Space Center in Houston. Also on Monday NASA astronaut and Expedition 72 flight engineer Anne McClain will spend a few minutes talking with Fox 13 News in Seattle Washington. And on Thursday NASA astronaut and Expedition 72 flight engineer Don Pettit will have a discussion with astrophysicist Neil Degrasse Tyson on the "Star Talk" program.

You can see all of these events and more on NASA+ And for this week, that's Space to Ground. You can keep up with the crew on station as well as the science by following us on social media @Space_Station and @ISS_Research. Thank you so much for watching.

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