NASA Space Station On-Orbit Status 28 November 2004
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All ISS systems continue to function nominally, except those noted previously or below. A very short Sunday rest day for the crew.
With the Soyuz TMA-5 relocation scheduled for early tomorrow morning, the crew went on a special sleep cycle today that had them wake up at the regular time of 1:00am EST and start sleep period just eight hours later, at 9:00am. Second wake-up will be tonight at 5:45pm for final station closedown activities.
In the Russian segment (RS), Salizhan Sharipov deactivated the TEKh-25 payload hardware, consisting of the Skorpio and Spika-S experiments. [Skorpio’s objective is to monitor environmental radiation parameters with dosimeters inside station compartments at various places and to characterize environmental conditions for conducting scientific and technical experiments. To operate, Skorpio requires about 6 W of energy. The Spika-S payload investigates the influence of the space environment, primarily radiation, on selected commercial electronic “next-generation” components. Early Spika experiments on the Mir space station go back as far as 1992. Its electronics unit, located in the SM working compartment (panel 417), uses about 7 W power, running either in Acquisition or Monitoring mode, and storing its data on a PCMCIA (portable computer memory card international adapter) card.]
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In the U.S. segment (USOS), Leroy Chiao configured the ECLSS (environment control & life support system) and TCS (thermal control system), in case of a failed redocking of the crew. [After installation of jumpers (fluid hoses) for the racks, the TCS was transitioned to dual mode, and the LTL (low temperature loop) setpoint was raised, in order to provide redundancy for critical avionics, thus minimizing the impacts of a depressurization in the USOS.]
FE Sharipov completed the weekly routine SOZh/ECLSS maintenance tasks of collecting SP toilet flush counter and SVO water supply readings in the Service Module (SM) for calldown to TsUP.
Working off the Russian discretionary task list, Salizhan transferred new accumulated Matryoshka measurement tables from the Matryoshka server (BSPN) via broadband Ethernet to a PCMCIA memory card via Wiener laptop (using a program called ShellForKE) for subsequent downlink on U.S. OCA comm. Afterwards he cleaned up the BSPN folders for receiving new data. [Matryoshka automatically takes radiation measurements in the SM and DC-1 docking compartment for studies of on-orbit radiation and long-term dose accumulation, using six SPD dosimeters deployed throughout the Russian segment as well as in a spherical body-simulating Matryoshka-R phantom and a human torso model outside on the SM hull, mounted there during EVA-9 on 2/27/04.]
The hatches between USOS and RS will be closed at ~5:35am, and the crew subsequently completes the power-downs of those systems in the RS, which cannot be ground-controlled.
Activities after wakeup tonight will include air duct disassembly between DC1 & SM and in the FGB, hatch ring removal in the SM/DC1 vestibule, and deactivation of the Elektron O2 generator (8:05pm), Vozdukh CO2 removal system (8:20pm), ASU toilet system, SKV air conditioner water supply system and food supply system, FGB air ventilation fans powerdown, FGB hatches closing, etc.
Ingress in the DC1 docking compartment will be at ~11:20pm, followed by QD (quick disconnect) screw clamps removal, ingress in the Soyuz vehicle at 11:55pm, cleaning of the transfer hatch seals between the Soyuz and DC1, and Soyuz/DC1 hatch closing at ~12:15am tomorrow morning and leak checking.
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Soyuz 9S undocking is scheduled for 4:32am, the 5-sec. test of the DPO17/18 thrusters at ~4:54am and docking at the FGB nadir port at 5:00am, five minutes before local sunset. [In case of an off-nominal situation with delayed docking, for any minor problems the crew could dock a little late, having covered docking in darkness in their training. For a major problem, Soyuz can make three docking attempts before the spacecraft has to return to Earth (each docking attempt uses ~30 kg props, and a total of ~100 kg is available for the relocation). Significantly less props would be required if the Soyuz would coast in free flight for 24 hours rather than station-keep for one orbit (90 minutes). Nominally, a crew of three can stay one day aboard Soyuz, with one more day as reserve. For a two-man crew, as in the present case, additional margin exists. The Soyuz landing would be postponed one day for a Daily Orbit 1 landing, and the Russian SAR (Search & Rescue) Forces then will have 24 hours to deploy from a Russian airfield near the Kazakhstan border to the landing site.]
U.S. CMG 2 (control moment gyro #2) registered a brief failure yesterday. From the time the CMGs were activated, all of them (but especially CMG 2) have occasionally stopped communicating with the GNC MDM (guidance, navigation & control computer) due to what is believed are minor timing problems. When that happens, the GNC MDM performs an automatic retry on the CMG by power-cycling it, which yesterday brought CMG2 back online in two minutes. [This was the first comm failure for CMG2 after the upgrade to the R4 software.]
CEO photography can be viewed and studied at the websites:
See also the website “Space Station Challenge” at:
To view the latest photos taken by the expedition 10 crew visit:
- http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/gallery/images/station/crew-9/ndxpage1.html at NASA’s Human Spaceflight website.
Expedition 10 Flight Crew Plans can be found at http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/station/timelines/
Previous NASA ISS On-orbit Status Reports can be found here. Previous NASA Space Station Status Reports can be found here. Previous NASA Space Shuttle Processing Status Reports can be found here. A collection of all of these reports and other materials relating to Return to Flight for the Space Shuttle fleet can be found here.
ISS Altitude History
Apogee height — Mean Altitude — Perigee height
For more on ISS orbit and worldwide ISS naked-eye visibility dates/times, see http://www.hq.nasa.gov/osf/station/viewing/issvis.html. In addition, information on International Space Station sighting opportunities can be found at http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/realdata/sightings/ on NASA’s Human Spaceflight website. The current location of the International Space Station can be found at http://science.nasa.gov/temp/StationLoc.html at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center. Additional satellite tracking resources can be found at http://www.spaceref.com/iss/tracking.html.
