Status Report

NASA Space Station On-Orbit Status 20 July 2006

By SpaceRef Editor

July 20, 2006

Filed under ISS, ISS On-orbit status, NASA HQ/SpaceRef/NASA Watch, US

NASA Space Station On-Orbit Status 20 July 2006 — http://images.spaceref.com/news/exp.13.jpg

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. It is 37 years after Apollo 11’s touchdown on the moon! Thank you, Neil, Buzz and Mike!

The Expedition 13 crew, with focus on Thomas Reiter, took the standard 70-minute depress emergency OBT (on-board training) drill, with Russian and US specialists standing by at both control centers in case the crew had questions or comments. The rule is that the emergency egress exercise should be performed by every new station crew once within seven days after departure of the previous crew. [Some background: Purpose of the drill is to familiarize the station residents with the stowage locations of emergency equipment and the position of valves used in emergency situations, to work through the Russian Segment (RS) deactivation procedures, and to develop crew emergency joint measures. Crewmembers are to verify ISS readiness for emergency response by performing specific actions such as ascertaining the locations of emergency equipment, inspecting all translation paths to the Soyuz CRV and determining any obstructions that would hinder an emergency egress, inspecting all vehicle hatchways and determining if hatchways can be easily cleared in the event of an emergency, reviewing and discussing methods to disconnect air-ducts that run through Russian hatches (without disconnecting any permanent hardware), determining the accessibility of all communications panels and hardware, of specific fireports, deployed and stored instruments and kits (such as CSA-CPs and CCPKs, =crew contamination protection kits), and confirming that specific valves are in the expected configuration.]

The depress emergency response training was topped off by a thorough joint debrief with the ground at ~7:45am EDT.

After putting on protective gear, CDR Vinogradov performed routine service on the ASU toilet facility by replacing its pretreat container (E-K) plus hose with a new assembly and discarding the old one. [E-K contains five liters of pre-treat solution,- a mix of H2SO4 (sulfuric acid), CrO3 (chromium oxide, for oxidation and purple color), and H2O (water). The pre-treat liquid is mixed with water in a dispenser (DKiV) and used for toilet flushing.]

Shuttle
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ISS
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Soyuz | Progress
ISS News | ATV

Pavel Vladimirovich also serviced the BMP (Harmful Impurities Removal System), starting the “bake-out” cycle to vacuum on absorbent bed #2 of the regenerable dual-channel filtration system. Before sleep time today, the bake-out will be terminated. [Regeneration of each of the two cartridges takes about 12 hours and is conducted only during crew awake periods. After the recent successful IVA/EVA installation of a new H2 dump line for the Elektron, the BMP now uses its vacuum vent line/valve without having to share it with the electrolysis machine.]

The Elektron O2 (oxygen) generator was successfully activated on the third attempt yesterday in 32 amp mode, after air bubbles were compressed out of the system.

After conducting a tagup with ground specialists regarding the SD1-7 lamps in the Docking Compartment (DC1), Vinogradov took photographs of the mounting screws of the lights’ screen guards. [The lamps were inspected by Williams on 6/7.]

The CDR was scheduled to search for an USI blood pressure biomed harness (#88), shown as “lost” in the IMS (Inventory Management System). After finding the #88 cuff, Pavel was to use it for performing a health check on the Gamma 1M blood pressure panel.

FE-1 Williams worked on the new Client V13.00 Load Expedition 14 laptop, creating a boot manager disk.

The CDR conducted the routine daily maintenance of the SOZh environment control & life support system in the Service Module (SM), including the ASU toilet facilities systems/replaceables, and he performed the weekly inspection of the BRPK air/liquid condensate separator apparatus, while FE-2 Reiter updated/edited the standard IMS “delta file”, including locations, for the regular weekly automated export/import to its three databases on the ground (Houston, Moscow, Baikonur).

Reiter set up and started the new ESA experiment OEE (Oil Emulsion Experiment), which he had inspected on 7/18. Using the PD-150 videocam for recording the activities, Thomas conducted the first part of the experiment (“light shaking”).

In the US Airlock, Jeff Williams disconnected the laptop used for METOX (Metal Oxide) canister regeneration, and later he and Reiter worked on resizing their EMUs (Extravehicular Mobility Units) for the US EVA-5 on 8/3.

On EXPRESS Rack 5 (ER5), Jeff set up the laptop to support MOOCE (MELFI On-Orbit Commissioning), which begins this weekend. [Yesterday’s functional checkout activities on MELFI (Minus Eighty Degree Celsius Laboratory Freezer for ISS) were successful. MELFI provides the ISS with refrigerated storage and fast-freezing of biological and life science samples. It can hold up to 300 liters of samples ranging in temperature from 4°C to a low of -80°C.]

The FE-1 ran his daily atmospheric status check for ppO2 (Partial Pressure Oxygen), using the CSA-O2 (Compound Specific Analyzer-Oxygen Sensor).

The crew worked out in their regular 2.5-hr. physical exercise program (about half of which is used for setup & post-exercise personal hygiene) on the new CEVIS cycle ergometer (FE-1, FE-2), TVIS treadmill (FE-1, CDR), RED resistive exerciser (FE-1, FE-2), and VELO bike with bungee cord load trainer (CDR). [Pavel Vinogradov’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 4 of the first set).]

Afterwards, Williams transferred his and Pavel’s exercise data files to the MEC (Medical Equipment Computer) for downlink, as well as the daily wristband HRM data of the workouts on RED, followed by their erasure on the HRM storage medium (done six times a week).

At ~6:30am EDT, Thomas Reiter received a 20-min. audio-only call from German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Hessen Minister President Roland Koch and ESA Director General

As all new station crews, Thomas had one hour set aside on today’s schedule for ISS familiarization and adaptation, to help in adjusting to their new surroundings and activities. [This unstructured and discretionary session has become a valuable standard requirement for new station occupants for the first two weeks.]

FE-1 Williams worked on copying data accumulated by the IWIS (Internal Wireless Instrumentation System) from the recent dynamics measurements to a hard disk for subsequent downlinking.

Working off his discretionary “time available” task list, Pavel completed the daily status check of the BIO-5 Rasteniya-2 (“Plants-2”) experiment. [Rasteniya researches growth and development of plants (peas) under spaceflight conditions in the Lada-9 greenhouse.]

Jeff Williams performed his standard weekly CWC (Contingency Water Container) audit, the first post-ULF 1.1.

The ground commanded the ITCS (Internal Thermal Control System) to Single LTL (Low Temperature Loop). Also, the EETCS (Early External TCS) loop setpoint was to be lowered today to 3.6deg C (38.5deg F). [This is in order to support MOOCE operations that begin on Saturday (see above).]

Today’s CEO (crew earth observations) photo targets, limited in the current XPOP attitude by flight rule constraints on the use of the Lab nadir/science window, which is available for only ~1/4 of each orbit when not facing forward (in ram), were Internal waves, South China Sea-N (as ISS tracked SE-ward off the China coast near Hong Kong, the crew was to look left of track for glint-enhanced internal wave features in the vicinity of Hai-nan Island and offshore areas down track), Internal waves, N Azores, Atlantic (this pass was to the N and E of the Azores themselves. Looking right of track for internal wave features in the glint area near of the islands), and Internal waves, E & W Florida coasts (although thunderstorm activity was expected to be heavy over land at the time of this pass, sun glint opportunities looked good over western Florida. Looking right of track for glint-enhanced internal wave features on the Gulf side from just east of Cape San Blas to the Tampa Bay area).

To date, more than 198,000 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:

See also the website “Space Station Challenge” at:

http://voyager.cet.edu/iss/

To view the latest photos taken by the expedition 13 crew visit:

http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/gallery/images/station/crew-13/ndxpage1.html at NASA’s Human Spaceflight website.

Expedition 13 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, 7:16am EDT [= epoch]):