The primary priorities for the Expedition 72 crew on board the ISS on Tuesday were preparing cargo for a future voyage and safeguarding astronauts’ eyesight to maintain their health.

Microgravity Eye Health

Body fluids rise toward an astronaut’s head in the weightless atmosphere of space. This fluid movement puts pressure on the eyes, which may have an impact on vision and eye anatomy. NASA astronauts Commander Suni Williams and Flight Engineer Butch Wilmore tried a modified thigh cuff that stops these headward fluid movements in order to combat this. As NASA and its international partners prepare for lengthier journeys farther into space, researchers are keeping a careful eye on these changes to create strategies to safeguard eye health.

Getting Ready for Resupply

On Earth, the SpaceX Dragon cargo spaceship is preparing for the next resupply mission to the space station, which is scheduled to launch next week. NASA Flight Engineers Nick Hague and Don Pettit got ready for Dragon’s arrival, which will include a delivery of new station hardware and scientific equipment. After docking and then returning to Earth, Pettit started packing and arranging the goods that would be stored aboard Dragon. Hague received training on how to use instruments that will monitor Dragon’s autonomous approach and docking procedure.

Spacecraft Docking and Manoeuvre

However, Hague will take Williams, Wilmore, and Roscosmos astronaut Aleksandr Gorbunov on a brief ride onboard the SpaceX Dragon Freedom spacecraft to a new docking site prior to the supply mission blasting out toward the space station. On Sunday, November 3, the four will board Dragon. They will undock from the forward port of the Harmony module at 6:35 a.m. EDT and then navigate the spaceship to Harmony’s space-facing port for a docking at 7:18 a.m. The Dragon cargo mission’s forward port is made available by the relocation.

Earth Observations and Maintenance at Night

Gorbunov installed and turned on equipment to observe Earth’s nighttime atmosphere in near-ultraviolet wavelengths following a training session on the exercise cycle of the Destiny laboratory module at the start of his shift. Ivan Vagner and Alexey Ovchinin, two of his fellow cosmonauts, collaborated on inspection and maintenance tasks in the Zvezda service module’s aft end.

On Friday night, SpaceX successfully completed its 99th flight of the year with a Starlink mission from Cape Canaveral, Florida.

At 7:31 p.m. Eastern time, a Falcon 9 carrying 20 Starlink satellites blasted out from Canaveral’s Space Launch Complex 40.

The Just Read the Instructions droneship’s first-stage rocket completed a downrange recovery touchdown in the Atlantic on its seventeenth flight.

It was the 71st flight from the Space Coast in 2024, just one less than the record-breaking 72 launches in 2023. United Launch Alliance has launched the remaining ones, while SpaceX has flown all but five of those.

There have only been two Falcon Heavy missions this year, with the remainder being Falcon 9 launches.

Along with the other 18 from KSC, this was the 53rd launch from Cape Canaveral.

Together with the two Falcon Heavy missions, SpaceX has performed 33 missions from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California this year, for a total of 97 Falcon 9 launches, including this one.

From its Starbase test site in Boca Chica, Texas, it has also launched three test flights of its in-development Starship and Super Heavy rocket, all of which have reached orbit.

Adding to the success of the March and June missions, last Sunday’s launch included the first on-target controlled landing of the second stage in the Indian Ocean and the first land capture of the Super Heavy booster back at the launch tower.

In 2023, SpaceX completed 98 operational missions, including 91 Falcon 9 and 5 Falcon Heavy missions. The company also attempted two Starship test flights, both of which ended explosively before reaching orbit, though one of them managed to reach space for a brief period of time before being destroyed by its flight termination system.

Officials from the business stated at the beginning of 2024 that it could reach 144 launches for the year, or 12 launches per month. However, weather and the three different groundings of its Falcon 9 rocket due to various problems have caused some obstacles to that pace.

This launch is only the sixth of October thus far. It flew nine times in September, eleven times in August, six times in July, ten times in June, thirteen times in May, twelve times in April, eleven times in March, nine times in February, and ten times in January.

Most of them have been for Starlink, which has launched over 7,100 versions since the first functional versions were sent up in 2019.

This marked SpaceX’s 67th Starlink launch in 2024.

According to a summary of the SpaceX mission, it was the booster’s seventeenth launch and landing.

Meanwhile, the Starlink satellites were still being transported to low Earth orbit by the upper stage of the Falcon 9. If all goes as planned, it will deploy them there approximately 64 minutes after liftoff.SpaceX launched a new set of Starlink broadband satellites into orbit this evening, October 18.

At 7:31 p.m. EDT (2331 GMT) tonight, a Falcon 9 rocket carrying 20 Starlink spacecraft—13 of which were equipped with direct-to-cell capability—blasted out from Florida’s Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.

About 8.5 minutes after takeoff, the first stage of the Falcon 9 returned to Earth as scheduled, landing on the SpaceX drone ship “Just Read the Instructions” in the Atlantic Ocean.

According to astronomer and satellite tracker Jonathan McDowell, the new group will join the massive and constantly expanding Starlink megaconstellation, which presently comprises of over 6,400 active spacecraft. Of those satellites, about 230 are direct-to-cell vehicles.

Two-thirds of SpaceX’s 96 Falcon 9 flights flown in 2024 have been devoted to expanding the Starlink network. This year, the corporation has also launched three test flights of its Starship megarocket and two Falcon Heavy missions.