Station Conducts Human Research as Orbit Is Boosted

The Expedition 74 crew spent Thursday on relaxation, exercise and biomedical studies while the station’s orbit was raised after the docked Progress 93 cargo craft fired its thrusters on Wednesday. The burn lasted 10 minutes, 55 seconds and increased the station’s perigee by 2 miles, placing it in an orbit of 269.2 x 255 statute miles.

Flight Engineers Jessica Meir and Sophie Adenot began the day with the RelaxPro study, completing a questionnaire on stress and emotions and collecting saliva samples to assess stress and immunity while testing non-invasive relaxation and meditation techniques.

In the afternoon they prepared hardware for the ARED Kinematics exercise study in the Tranquility module, positioning and calibrating four cameras, setting up a video monitor, and configuring a computer to record workouts as researchers study forces on muscles and bones in microgravity.

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