NASA Space Station On-Orbit Status 12 February 2006

SpaceRef note: This NASA Headquarters internal status report, as presented here, contains additional, original material produced by SpaceRef.com (copyright © 2006) 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 and Valery Tokarev, except for housekeeping and voluntary work.  Ahead: Week 19 for Expedition 12.

After breakfast (1:40am EST), during Daily Orbit 10, FE Tokarev downlinked the video taken by him yesterday of the Progress-355/DC1 Docking Compartment air ducting, for ground evaluation of the performance of new intermodular ventilation in 20P.

Valery also performed the daily routine maintenance of the Service Module (SM)’s environment control & life support system (SOZh), including its toilet system (ASU), as well as the weekly collection of the toilet flush (SP) counter and water supply (SVO) readings for calldown to TsUP/Moscow.

CDR/SO McArthur ran another periodic atmospheric status check for ppO2 (Partial Pressure Oxygen) and ppCO2 (pp Carbon Dioxide), using the CSA-O2 (Compound Specific Analyzer-Oxygen Sensor).   [Over the last month, ground engineers have noticed a discrepancy between the SM GA (Gas Analyzer) ppCO2 reading and that of the MCA (Major Constituents Analyzer).  In addition to the ppCO2 issue discrepancy, there also appears to be a trending apart of the MCA ppO2 value and the CSA-CP O2 sensor value.  Therefore since 1/26 the CDR also is taking daily CDMK and CSA-O2 readings to assist in evaluating these trends.  Both MCC-H and TsUP are evaluating these issues.  Despite the discrepancies, the atmosphere on ISS is considered in a safe configuration.]

Both crewmembers completed their regular 2.5-hr. physical exercise program on the TVIS treadmill, RED resistive exerciser 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 in unmotorized mode and one hour on VELO plus load trainer (today: Day 2 of the first set).]

Afterwards, in preparation for the major 6-month treadmill maintenance scheduled for the next three days, CDR McArthur deactivated the TVIS power circuit breaker.

At ~1:30pm EST, Bill held his weekly PFC (private family conference) via S-band/audio and Ku-band/MS-NetMeeting video.

Valery performed the regular check of the Japanese experiment GCF-JAXA (Granada Crystallization Facility) in the Russian TBU incubator, maintained at 20 degC, including a temperature check on its ART (automatic temperature recorder).   [This daily monitoring/temp checking, carried on the Russian voluntary “time available” task list, will continue until 4/30.]

A second discretionary task on the Russian work list for Tokarev today was the daily status check of the Russian BIO-5 Rasteniya-2 (“Plants-2”) experiment.   [Rasteniya researches growth and development of plants under spaceflight conditions in the Lada-8 greenhouse.  The regular maintenance of the experiment (each Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Sunday) involves monitoring of seedling growth, humidity measurements, moistening of the substrate if necessary, topping off the water tank if ~20-25% of the total amount (4 liters) remains, and photo/video recording.  Once weekly, data from the Lada greenhouse control unit are recorded on floppy disk for weekly downlink via REGUL-Packet or the new BSR-TM at a suitable occasion.]

Also on Valery’s voluntary work list for today was the regular temperature check on the BIO-11 “Statokonia” payload with the ULITKA (“snail”) incubator with the ART (automated temperature logger), set up in the SM with new material delivered on 20P.   [BIO-11 studies the composition of statoconia, i.e., the organ of equilibrium in snails, and other phenomena exhibited by “ulitka” in zero-G and post-flight.]

An additional item on Tokarev’s task list continues to be final post-EVA cleanup and reconfiguration of the DC1 and SM PkhO compartments.

As reported by personnel of the University of California/San Diego’s EarthKAM (Earth Knowledge Acquired by Middle School Students) experiment to the Science Officer, the experiment was operational for 136 hours before yesterday’s nominal shutdown.  Images are still being downlinked, but so far the ground has received 1646 pictures for this run.  This brings the Increment 12 total to 3313, the highest total for any Shuttle or ISS Mission.   [As of November 2005, a total of 839 schools and more than 56,000 students from the United States and 11 other countries have participated in EarthKAM sessions, to supplement their science curricula.]

Bill McArthur was also thanked for conducting the SLAMMD (Space Linear Acceleration Mass Measurement Device) activity as “Saturday Science” during his free time yesterday, including producing a bonus video. [With his help, investigators hope to improve the SLAMMD software, which is currently thought to be too sensitive.]

After last night’s single apogee test burn by Progress 20 at the DC1 nadir port, which raised the station’s mean altitude by 622 m (0.39 mi.), ISS remains in XPOP attitude (x-axis perpendicular to orbit plane) until an ISS plasma test on 2/21 with the external PCUs (Plasma Contactor Units).

No CEO (Crew Earth Observation) photo targets uplinked for today.

To date, more than 186,000 of CEO images have been taken in the first five years of the ISS, almost one third of the total number of images taken from orbit by astronauts.

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, 7:20am EST [= epoch]):

• Mean altitude — 346.2 km
• Apogee height — 351.3 km
• Perigee height — 341.1 km
• Period — 91.46 min.
• Inclination (to Equator) — 51.64 deg
• Eccentricity — 0.0007529
• Solar Beta Angle — 16.4 deg (magnitude increasing)
• Orbits per 24-hr. day — 15.74
• Mean altitude gain in last 24 hours — 600 m
• Revolutions since FGB/Zarya launch (Nov. 98) — 41351

Events Ahead (all dates Eastern & tentative):

• 02/21/06 — ISS reboost (by 19P; mvr. back to XPOP after burn)
• 03/03/06 — Progress M-54/19P undocking & reentry (mvr. to LVLH XVV after undock)
• 03/10/06 — ISS reboost (by SM thrusters; mvr. back to XPOP after burn)
• 03/30/06 — Soyuz TMA-8/12S launch (Pavel Vinogradov/Russia, Jeffrey Williams/US, Marcos Pontes/Brazil)
• 04/01/06 — Soyuz TMA-8/12S docking (DC1; mvr. to LVLH XVV after dock)
• 04/09/06 — Soyuz TMA-7/11S undocking & reentry (mvr. to XPOP after undock)
• 04/16/06 — Soyuz TMA-8/12S relocation (DC1 to FGB nadir port)
• 04/24/06 — Progress M-56/21P launch
• 04/26/06 — Progress M-56/21P docking
• 05/03/06 — ULF1.1 launch (NET, not earlier than)
• 06/15/06 — U.S. EVA (under review)
• 06/19/06 — Progress M-55/20P undocking & reentry
• 06/28/06 — Progress M-57/22P launch
• 06/30/06 — Progress M-57/22P docking
• 07/01/06 — 12A launch (under review)
• 08/01/06 — Russian EVA-16 (under review)
• 09/13/06 — Progress M-56/21P undocking & reentry
• 09/14/06 — Soyuz TMA-9/13S launch
• 09/16/06 — Soyuz TMA-9/13S docking (DC1)
• 09/24/06 — Soyuz TMA-8/12S undocking & reentry
• 10/18/06 — Progress M-58/23P launch
• 10/20/06 — Progress M-58/23P docking
• 12/19/06 — Progress M-57/22P undocking & reentry
• 12/20/06 — Progress M-59/24P launch
• 12/22/06 — Progress M-59/24P docking.

 
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.