Roscosmos Evaluations Science and cargo operations keep the crew busy on the Soyuz and Progress vehicles.

Engineers at the Roscosmos Mission Control Center are still investigating a coolant leak from the Progress 82 cargo spacecraft discovered on February 11. Since October 2022, the cargo spacecraft has been docked to the station's Poisk module. Using the Canadarm-2, NASA has been assisting Roscosmos in collecting imagery of the Progress 82.

The date of the uncrewed Soyuz MS-23 replacement spacecraft's launch to the International Space Station is being reconsidered. The Soyuz MS-23 spacecraft was scheduled to launch to the International Space Station on February 19 to replace the Soyuz MS-22 spacecraft, which had its own external coolant loop leak in December. NASA astronaut Frank Rubio and Roscosmos cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitri Petelin arrived at the space station in October aboard the Soyuz MS-22 spacecraft and are now scheduled to return to Earth later this year aboard the Soyuz MS-23 spacecraft.

Roscosmos engineers are still looking into the cause of coolant loss on both the Progress 82 and the Soyuz MS-22 spacecraft. The crew is carrying on with normal space station operations and scientific research.

The Expedition 68 crew of seven residents was hard at work midweek aboard the space station. The orbital septet completed a variety of space science, cargo operations, and laboratory maintenance tasks.

Configuration of the International Space Station. The space station currently has five spaceships docked, including the Cygnus space freighter, the SpaceX Crew Dragon Endurance, Russia's Soyuz MS-22 crew ship, and the Progress 82 and 83 resupply ships.

On Wednesday, station scientists investigated a wide range of microgravity's effects on humans and physics in order to better understand the long-term implications of living and working in space. NASA and its international partners are continuing to plan missions to the Moon, Mars, and beyond that will necessitate astronauts surviving with less assistance from flight controllers and visiting cargo missions.

NASA Flight Engineer Josh Cassada strapped himself to a specialized device and lay down inside the Columbus laboratory module on wednesday. He then used a controller to respond to pre-programmed stimuli while a computer and video cameras recorded his actions. The data will be used by researchers to better understand how astronauts regulate their grip force and move their arms when manipulating objects in microgravity.

Cassada also shared a periodic health exam with fellow flight engineers Nicole Mann of NASA and Koichi Wakata of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) on Wednesday. The trio measured vital signs such as temperature, blood pressure, pulse, and respiratory rate in the Destiny laboratory module. The data was recorded using wearable sensors on a computer tablet and then downloaded to doctors on Earth. Wakata also continued to load the Cygnus space freighter with trash and obsolete hardware in preparation for its departure.

For a space fire investigation, Rubio replaced hardware components and experiment samples inside the Combustion Integrated Rack. This study investigates fuel temperatures in microgravity and how they affect the flammability of materials. The findings could help advance fire suppression techniques for both space missions and terrestrial facilities.

The three cosmonauts on the orbital outpost continued to conduct research and maintenance operations. Prokopyev investigated how a future crew member might control a spacecraft or a robot on planetary missions. Petelin investigated how to keep biological research sterile in space, as well as how international crews and mission controllers can communicate more effectively. Finally, Flight Engineer Anna Kikina spent her day working on electronics and battery maintenance before setting up a student-controlled Earth observation camera.