NASA Space Station On-Orbit Status 24 July 2005
SpaceRef note: This NASA Headquarters internal status report, as presented here, contains additional, original material produced by SpaceRef.com (copyright © 2005) to enhance access to related status reports and NASA activities.
All ISS systems continue to function nominally, except those noted previously or below. Sunday — off-duty day for Sergei Krikalev & John Phillips, except for some housekeeping and voluntary tasks. Ahead: Week 14 for Increment 11.
As part of today’s morning inspection after wakeup, CDR Krikalev did the periodic checkup behind panel 139 in the Service Module (SM) on a fluid connector of the urine collection system, looking for potential moisture.
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The CDR conducted the third experiment session with the Russian/German Plasma Crystal-3 (PK-3) payload, activating the evacuation turbopump and starting the evacuation of the vacuum chamber (ZB) and subsequent all-day PK-3 operations. The turbopump will be deactivated again tonight at ~5:25pm EDT. [The experiment is performed on dusty plasma, i.e., fine particles charged and excited by RF/radio frequency power inside the evacuated work chamber as it crystallizes. Experiment ops are automated.]
Krikalev also completed the daily routine maintenance of the SM’s SOZh environment control & life support system, which today included the weekly collection of the toilet flush (SP) counter and water supply (SVO) readings for calldown to TsUP/Moscow.
John and Sergei conducted their regular 2.5-hr. physical exercise program on the TVIS treadmill, RED resistive machine and VELO bike with bungee cord load trainer. [Sergei’s daily protocol prescribes a strict four-day microcycle exercise with 1.5 hr on the treadmill and one hour on VELO plus load trainer (today: Day 2 of a new set).]
Session 2 of the EarthKAM (Earth Knowledge Acquired by Middle School Students) experiment from the University of California in San Diego, which concluded yesterday, resulted in an enthusiastic uplink message of thanks to the crew with some images: “From all of us at UCSD, ISS EarthKAM, THANK YOU for all your wonderful help during the mission!! We hope that you enjoy the annotated images and all of the superb feedback from the Student Mission Operations Centers. Over 1700 students participated in this summer mission. These students are using the images to study a broad range of topics, including geography, mathematics, environmental research and literary inspiration.” [Number of schools involved: 46; number of requests: 884; number of photos taken: 649 (as of Friday, 12:42pm EDT).]
Working off his voluntary “time available” task list, Sergei had another session with the “Uragan” (hurricane) earth-imaging program, focusing the Nikon D1X digital camera with f400 or 800 mm lens and a video camcorder from an SM window on targets specified by an uplinked list, some of them downlinked to TsUP/Moscow via the new BSR-TM data channel. [Today’s targets included the Altai Mountains, the Irkut River valley from Lake Hovsgol to western tip of Lake Baikal followed by the lake bank to Angara River head, mapping imagery with frame overlap, an area of forest between Angara right bank and Lake Baikal bank, the Eastern bank of Baikal, from Selenga Estuary northward, cities and townships at nadir (Chita, Shilka, Nerchinsk, etc.), the left Russian bank of the Argun River and the Amur river to Tatar Strait, Khabarovsk Territory coast, the southern coast of Sakhalin, the Kuriles Islands, a nature reserve in Armenia located to the north of the western tip of Lake Sevan, oil field infrastructure at base of Mangyshlak Peninsula, the Katun River valley, northern and eastern banks of Teletskoye Lake, Sayans, wooded areas at the confluence of Angara and Belaya rivers, an air field on one bank of Belaya, panoramic imagery of the Urals from nadir to horizon, etc.]
Update on LF-1: Countdown for STS-114/Discovery got underway yesterday at the T-43 hour mark, and final preparations continue on track. The Orbiter’s aft compartment has been closed for flight. Development of cumulus clouds, stray showers or anvil clouds will be concerns at launch time, according to Shuttle Weather Officer Kathy Winters. The chance of KSC weather prohibiting launch remains at 40 percent. Liftoff is set for Tuesday, 7/26, at 10:39 am EDT.
No CEO (crew earth observations) photo targets today.
CEO photography can be viewed and studied at the websites:
- http://eol.jsc.nasa.gov
- http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov
- http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Study/AstronautPhotography/
See also the website “Space Station Challenge” at:
To view the latest photos taken by the expedition 11 crew visit:
- http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/gallery/images/station/crew-11/ndxpage1.html at NASA’s Human Spaceflight website.
Expedition 11 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.
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ISS Orbit (as of this morning, 5:52am EDT [= epoch]):
- Mean altitude — 353.4 km
- Apogee height — 355.6 km
- Perigee height — 351.2 km
- Period — 91.61 min.
- Inclination (to Equator) — 51.64 deg
- Eccentricity — 0.0003249
- Solar Beta Angle — -21.8 deg (magnitude increasing)
- Orbits per 24-hr. day — 15.72
- Mean altitude loss in last 24 hours — 60 m
- Revolutions since FGB/Zarya launch (Nov. 98) — 38153
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.
