MELFI and ANITA on ISS: UAE astronaut Sultan Al Neyadi’s new experiences in space

MELFI and ANITA on ISS: UAE astronaut Sultan Al Neyadi’s new experiences in space

Dubai: UAE astronaut Sultan Al Neyadi has added new chapters in his historic space mission by working on an ultra cold lab freezer and a compact gas analyser aboard the International Space Station (ISS). According to a NASA update, the Expedition 68 crew, including Al Neyadi’s SpaceX Crew-6, focused on cargo operations, science experiments, and maintenance tasks after a SpaceX Commercial Resupply Service Dragon docked to the ISS at 7.31am EDT (4.31pm in the UAE) on Thursday. The SpaceX CRS-27 Dragon successfully docked to the forward-facing port of the station’s Harmony module, delivering more than 6,200 pounds of research, hardware, and supplies. The scientific experiments and technology demonstrations carried by the uncrewed Dragon spacecraft examine how the heart changes in space, test a student-designed camera mount, compare surfaces that control biofilm formation, and more. After the Dragon docked into ISS, Al Neyadi along with NASA Flight Engineers Frank Rubio, Stephen Bowen and Woody Hoburg spent time unloading cargo from the spacecraft, NASA said. “Al Neyadi and Rubio were specifically tasked with unpacking double-cold bags for transporting samples into the station’s Minus Eighty-Degree Laboratory Freezer for ISS (MELFI).” The MELFI is a cold storage unit that maintains experiment samples at ultra-cold