NASA Space Station On-Orbit Status 3 December 2004
SpaceRef note: This NASA Headquarters internal status report, as presented here, contains additional, original material produced by SpaceRef.com (copyright © 2004) to enhance access to related status reports and NASA activities.
All ISS systems continue to function nominally, except those noted previously or below.
Continuing the latest round of the monthly preventive maintenance of RS ventilation systems, Salizhan Sharipov spent ~50 min. in the Funktsionalnyi-Grusovoi Blok (FGB) to uninstall and replace the FGB’s two dust collector filters (PS1 & PS2). [Last time done: 11/5.]
Later in the day, the Kirghizian Flight Engineer continued the FGB ventilation maintenance for another hour of cleaning of the protective mesh screens of its central ventilation fans (TsV1 & TsV2), without having to power down the fans.
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Leroy Chiao performed troubleshooting on the Cupola RWS PCS (robotics workstation/portable computer system) laptop (#6076), which had failed on 7/5 to boot up properly with two separate known good HDDs (hard disk drives). [The IBM 760XD currently has HDD #6036 installed. If the troubleshooting is successful, the crew has the Go to use the laptop; otherwise they will be informed at a later date how to proceed with the PCS and HDD.]
The FE had several hours scheduled to complete the computer hardware “pantry” inventory begun on 12/1. At ~3:15am EST he also held his weekly IMS (inventory management system) tagup with ground specialists, discussing open issues concerning identification of equipment and storage locations for IMS updating. [Besides the food and computer issues, today’s topics included stowage locations for BKO hardware and dust filters/collectors, location of bags with undergarments, and the arrangement for empty bags in the Service Module (SM) transfer tunnel.]
Leroy initiated the final week of this year’s EVA battery maintenance charge/discharge procedure, this time on four batteries: two EMU batteries (#2045, #2046) and two REBAs (rechargeable EVA battery assemblies, #1004, #1011), using BC3 (battery charger 3) and BC4 in the Airlock’s BSA (battery stowage assembly). [Today’s first step: begin charging the four batteries.]
The Science Officer set up the MWA (Maintenance Work Area) containment system in the Lab with the hardware for the new ISSI (In-Space Soldering Investigation) payload run, then installed the solder and performed Test 4 of the experiment. The activity was covered by camcorder and recorded on the ground-commanded VTR (video tape recorder). Test 5 is scheduled as Chiao’s “Saturday Science” program tomorrow. [Test 4 today consisted of soldering 18 different shaped wire “coupons”: six “ISSI Straight 2”, six “ISSI Parallel” and six “ISSI Small Loop” samples.]
Leroy completed the regular once-a-week maintenance reboot on the operational PCS (portable computer system) laptops and the restart of the OCA comm router laptop (every two weeks).
Sharipov conducted the regular daily maintenance/inspection of the SM’s environment control & life support systems (SOZh) and prepared the regular IMS (inventory management system) Delta file for export/import to the IMS databases.
The FE also performed the periodic replenishment of the Elektron’s water supply for electrolysis, his sixth, filling the KOV thermal loops EDV container with purified (deionized) water from the BKO multifiltration/purification column unit that he newly installed yesterday. [The procedure is specially designed to prevent air bubbles from getting into the BZh liquid unit where their pressure spikes, from collapsing, could cause micropump impeller cavitation and Elektron shutdown, as happened numerous times in the past. In the procedure, the EDV water is drawn from the BKO and the air/liquid separator unit (GZhS) while the crewmember checks for any air bubbles in the EDV (and, if visible, estimates their number).]
The crew performed their daily 2.5-hr. physical exercise program on TVIS treadmill, RED exerciser, CEVIS cycle and VELO cycle with bungee cord load trainer. Salizhan’s daily protocol currently prescribes 1.5 hrs on the treadmill (today: Day 4) and one hour on VELO.
Afterwards, the CDR transferred the daily TVIS and RED exercise data files to the MEC (medical equipment computer) for downlink, as well as the daily wristband HRM (heart rate monitor) data, followed by their erasure on the HRM storage medium.
At 9:00am EST, the crew held their regular (once every two weeks) teleconference with the JSC Astronaut Office (Kent Rominger), via S-band S/G.
At ~11:14am, Chiao and Sharipov participated in a 20-min. live/interactive PAO event of two TV interviews with media, one with AsianWeek (Julie Soo), the other with CNN Headline News (Sachi Koto).
The nominally weekly teleconference between the crew and the ISS Flight Director at MCC-H took place at 2:35pm.
The crew was specially thanked by MedOps personnel for yesterday’s successful placement of the TEPC (tissue equivalent proportional counter) radiation-measuring instrument in the SM where its performance can now be compared with that of the Russian R-16 unit.
TsUP/Moscow is continuing the new extensive test run on the SM’s ASN-2401 antenna hardware of the Russian ASN-M satellite navigation system, now involving the combined system. [Although not operational yet, ASN uses GLONASS satellites (the Russian GPS equivalent) to update the SV without using the ground (which up to now has to uplink daily SV updates) or requiring SV transfers from the U.S. segment (USOS) from time to time.]
Station flight attitude continues to be earth-oriented LVLH TEA (“barbecue mode”), until 12/13, when ISS maneuvers to sun-pointing XPOP.
Today’s CEO photo targets, no longer limited in the current LVLH attitude, were Amman, Jordan (the nadir pass provided an opportunity for mapping of the urban-rural fringe. High-resolution mapping swaths from the fringe through the urban center are useful for spatial analysis of city form and extent), Internal Waves, Caribbean Sea (weather was predicted to be mostly clear for internal wave photography. The sunglint point will be to the right of track), Baker Island, equatorial Pacific (weather was predicted to be clear for reef photography. High-resolution images of this island are useful for updating reef maps and assessing reef health), and Howland Island, equatorial Pacific (the nadir overpass provided an opportunity for reef photography. High-resolution imagery is useful for updating reef maps and assessing reef condition).
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-10/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.
Upcoming Key Events:
- Progress 15P undocking & destructive reentry — 12/23;
- Progress 16P launch — 12/24;
- Progress 16B docking — 12/26;
- EVA-12 — January 2005 (1/27?).
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ISS Location NOW |
ISS Orbit (as of this morning, 6:37am EST [= epoch]):
- Mean altitude — 356.1 km
- Apogee height — 359.0 km
- Perigee height — 353.2 km
- Period — 91.66 min.
- Inclination (to Equator) — 51.64 deg
- Eccentricity — 0.0004253
- Solar Beta Angle — -65.3 deg (magnitude increasing)
- Orbits per 24-hr. day — 15.71
- Mean altitude loss in last 24 hours — 95 m
- Revolutions since FGB/Zarya launch (Nov. 98) — 34491
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.
