Crew-12 Returns Soon: 400 Days, Cakes, and a Fudgy Brownie

All four Crew-12 members were gathered together as a full crew for the Crew Dragon event, a configuration the crew itself said had not happened in some time.

The observation brought back memories of their ride uphill.

Meir tied that memory directly to what comes next, describing the crew as already anticipating the ride home on Dragon that they hope will arrive «around the corner.»

When experiments arrive on station, the crew cannot always predict how the hardware will work out or whether it will even fit. That was the case with an upgrade to the Cold Atom Lab, a quantum mechanics experiment, where a part simply refused to slip into the slot it was supposed to occupy.

Hathaway and Meir worked on the problem together. He estimated the effort at «2 or 3 hours» trying to seat the part, before the crew and the ground team decided to disassemble a portion of the hardware and apply some pressure to adapt it.

Once the part was finally installed and ready to do science, cheers broke out on the ground and came over the space-to-ground loops. Hathaway described that as a pretty fun moment for him.

The Cold Atom Lab is one of the station's long-running quantum research facilities, and getting its upgrades seated is one of the practical jobs that rarely makes the outside conversation about the mission.

During that EVA, two cosmonauts moved the arm from the SM module to the MLM/MRM module, a relocation that the crew described in module-to-module terms rather than in orbit-wide ones.

The space shuttle program played a huge part in inspiring her. Asked what made her want to be an astronaut, there was not one moment she could point to.

What she recalled instead was the classroom. In that era, teachers wheeled in a television on a cart for special events, and shuttle launches were among those events.

One of those childhood memories was unfortunately a painful one — the transcript cuts off before she could complete the thought, so what follows is not captured here.

Reporter Will Robinson Smith of Spaceflight Now asked whether any part of the mission had been commemorative or logistical given the station's approaching final years, mentioning that Crew-13 arrives in a few weeks.

The answer was that the work is already underway: engineering teams and the crew are doing things aimed at the end of station life. One EVA installed the iROSA kit, and the crew will need extra solar panels to manage the station's later years. More EVAs are still to come.

For now, though, the crew said their focus remains on using the station at its full potential because it is a very mature orbital laboratory, and they can do a great deal of science «at its full power.»

Some maintenance work is already within the scope of the station's end, but on the crew's account the science is running at full power «more than ever.»

Josh Dinner of Space.com directed a question to Sophie Adenot about the Euro suit, the EVA suit that arrived on the SpaceX cargo Dragon in May.

Adenot reported that she completed donning and doffing the suit. Many points of the design will still be improved, and space systems design is incremental work.

Her summary of where the suit stands was unambiguous — it is at the very beginning of its journey.

Manuel Manzotti with Exploration Special asked about the roughly 36 experiments of the Epsilon mission and whether Adenot had expected three spacewalks back to back. He also asked her to describe the 4D fitness machine after nearly seven months of use, and whether it has a future.

Adenot had been trained and ready for EVAs, and had hoped to do some. What she had never expected was to do three in a row.

The compressed schedule was the striking part — three EVAs inside a 15-day window. As she put it, in space exploration nothing is granted.

Fedyaev described the Epsilon mission as «a huge experience» and a big highlight, thanking the teams who trusted him to run it. The E4D exercise machine is at the end of its commissioning phase.

He expects some delta commissioning and probably software upgrades, but called it a great machine with great potential.

The value he sees is in future, much smaller space stations than the ISS: the machine fits in a very small space. On station, it appears to have done its job — he was able to build muscle, which he regards as a sign of an efficient machine.

He is looking forward to ground measurements that will confirm what the crew saw during the flight.

James Dowling Healy of West Hartford Community Interactive asked about food, framing the question around astronaut happiness on longer-duration missions.

Hathaway credited the ground teams for designing both the food and the systems that keep the crew going, then described what is actually on the menu: a mix of freeze-dried and dehydrated items.

The occasional highlight is a cargo vehicle bringing up fresh fruit and vegetables. That is always nice for him, and mentioned a sweet tooth — the Cosmic Brownie in particular.

He described it as a nice, thick, fudgy brownie that makes him happy every time, and noted it can be bought at local grocery stores.

Fedyaev brought up a recurring ritual of the flight: the crew made many different cakes while in orbit. The cakes were tied to day-count milestones, celebrated in birthday style at 100, 200, 300 and 400 days.

Asked for the most exciting moment of their flight, he pointed to those cakes.

A student journalist posed the culture question, beginning from the premise that every generation has its own idea of what is cool.

The framing was specific: space exploration would need to become part of everyday culture rather than something people pay attention to only when there is a major launch.

The next question came from the Boston Teachers Union School, delivered by student journalist Harrison Swider, who opened with greetings from the students of Boston.

The question was simple and direct: how did it feel when the crew lifted off the ground to get into space?

The first half asked what was the hardest part of running experiments on the station.

The second half asked whether anything surprised her about how tissues or bacteria behaved compared with what the crew expected.

The connection runs through nearly all of the experiments the crew ran, including cell biology and cell culture work. Those depend on interactions between cells and fluid, or between different constituents in different fluids.

The answer was cut off mid-thought at «Sometimes it's difficult, even for—,» so the conclusion of her explanation is not captured in this excerpt.

His prompt assumed family was number one, then opened the floor to specifics — a food, an experience, a hot shower, a cold beer, «whatever.»

The second part tied the commander's training as a marine biologist to the view below — whether looking down on the ocean had affected him during the mission.

The NASA moderator closed the question period and thanked both the crew and the media.

Crew-12 is scheduled to return to Earth following a brief handover with Crew-13, and NASA will share additional coverage information once it is available. Updates on the Crew-12 mission continue at nasa.gov/station.

The crew signed off thanking everyone, Houston ACR announced the event was concluded, and operational audio communications resumed.