Four Expedition 75 crew members spent Tuesday packing up and preparing the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft they will ride home in for its upcoming departure. Air and water quality checks and Earth observations rounded out the schedule aboard the International Space Station.

The four members of NASA’s SpaceX Crew-12 mission are turning their attention toward returning to Earth as they approach the end of their stay in space. They launched aboard Dragon on Feb. 13 and docked to the orbital outpost’s Harmony module one day later. NASA astronauts Jessica Meir and Jack Hathaway will command and pilot Dragon respectively. Sophie Adenot of ESA (European Space Agency) and Andrey Fedyaev of Roscosmos will flank the NASA duo inside Dragon for the ride home that will begin a few days after NASA’s SpaceX Crew-13 mission arrival on Thursday, Oct. 1.

The foursome took turns throughout Tuesday packing personal items and other cargo inside the homebound Dragon. Three of the returning crewmates also called down to mission controllers and discussed their mission experiences during a standard debriefing conference. Meir also joined NASA flight engineer Anil Menon, who will stay aboard the station for a few more months, and configured Dragon’s seats and reorganized spacecraft emergency gear in advance of its undocking.

Hathaway later replaced a potable water dispenser in the Unity module then collected water samples for analysis. Adenot measured the airflow in her crew quarters in Harmony’s overhead compartment to ensure proper air circulation.

Fedyaev began his shift his transferring and filtering water between tanks in the Roscosmos modules to prevent contamination and ensure safe crew consumption. He wrapped up his shift with more departure preparations deleting his personal data from space station laptop computers and configuring them for Crew-13.

Flight engineers Pyotr Dubrov and Anna Kikina will continue their stay in space with Menon and stay focused on Roscosmos research and maintenance for the duration of their mission. The cosmonauts began their shift installing a gas analyzer in the Zvezda service module to measure air quality and composition to maintain a safe breathing environment. Dubrov then moved on and transferred water from tanks inside the docked Progress 96 cargo spacecraft into the orbital outpost. Kikina checked the performance of video recording hardware then installed automated Earth observation gear to photograph African and Asian landmarks during the crew’s sleep shift.

Learn more about station activities by following the space station blog, @space_station on X, as well as the ISS Facebook and ISS Instagram accounts.

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Source: NASA