NASA Space Station On-Orbit Status 23 October 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 Bill McArthur & Valery Tokarev, except for some housekeeping and voluntary work.  Ahead: Week 3 for Expedition 12.

As part of his daily morning inspection, the Flight Engineer did the periodic checkup behind panel 139 in the Service Module (SM) on a fluid connector of the urine collection system, checking for potential moisture.

FE Tokarev also performed the daily routine maintenance of the SM’s environment control & life support system (SOZh), including its toilet system (ASU), plus the weekly collection of the toilet flush (SPKU) counter and water supply (SVO) readings for calldown to TsUP/Moscow.   [These regularly collected data include the fill dates, water source & water quantities for the KPV potable water container of the condensate water processor (SRV-K2M), two EDV containers (for RP and SV), and replacement date & number of the Elektron’s EDV (KOV) container, and of the EDV-U liquid-waste and KTO solid-waste containers.] 

Working off his voluntary “job jar” task list for today, Valery set up and reviewed procedures for his first session of the Russian biomedical MBI-8 Profilaktika (“Countermeasures”) fitness assessment.  The objective of today’s refresher course was for him to recall how to use the ????-100? gas analyzer and the Cardiocassette-2000 unit.   [The MBI-8 test series is identical to the MO-5 test except for the additional use of the TEEM-100M gas analyzer during the test and subjective evaluation of physical exertion levels (using the Borg Perceived Exertion Scale, viz., 10 steps from very light over hard and very hard to maximum) during the test.  At the end of the assessment, the results will be logged, copied from Cardiocassette-2000 recording to OCA for downlink, and reported to the ground via tagup.]

Both crewmembers completed their regular 2.5-hr. physical exercise program on the TVIS treadmill, RED resistive machine and VELO bike with bungee cord load trainer.   [Valery’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 1 of the first set).]

At ~1:00pm EDT, Bill McArthur enjoyed his weekly PFC (private family conference) via S-band/audio and Ku-band/NetMeeting video.

No CEO (crew earth observations) photo targets uplinked today.

To date, over 177,000 of CEO images have been taken in the first five years of the ISS.

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:

• http://voyager.cet.edu/iss/

To view the latest photos taken by the expedition 12 crew visit:

• http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/gallery/images/station/crew-12/ndxpage1.html at NASA’s Human Spaceflight website.

Expedition 12 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 Orbit  (as of this morning, 9:17am EDT [= epoch]):

• Mean altitude — 346.7 km
• Apogee height — 347.4 km
• Perigee height — 346.0 km
• Period — 91.47 min.
• Inclination (to Equator) — 51.64 deg
• Eccentricity — 0.0001071
• Solar Beta Angle — 33.7 deg (magnitude increasing)
• Orbits per 24-hr. day — 15.74
• Mean altitude loss in last 24 hours — 95 m
• Revolutions since FGB/Zarya launch (Nov. 98) — 39588

Upcoming Events (all times EDT):

• 10/26/05 — Test Reboost (four Progress 19 thrusters, for 0.25 m/s delta-V)
• 10/27/05 – EVA-04 Dry Run
• 11/07/05 — EVA-4 (U.S.)
• 11/18/05 — Soyuz TMA-7/11S relocation (from DC-1 to FGB nadir port)
• 12/20/05 – Progress M-54/19P undocking & reentry
• 12/21/05 – Progress M-55/20P launch
• 12/23/05 — Progress M-55/20P docking
• 01/09/06 — 100 days for Expedition 12.

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.