ISS Science Operations Status Report for week ending 05-08-02
Zeolite experiment completes testing aboard Space Station
The Zeolite Crystal Growth (ZCG) experiment aboard the International Space Station
was concluded this week, with results that could contribute to improvements in
the petroleum industry, such as increasing the amount of gasoline from a barrel
of crude oil. The zeolite crystal research project is led by Dr. Al Sacco of Northeastern
University in Boston, Mass., where Sacco heads a NASA-sponsored Commercial Space
Center. Station experiments and payload operations are managed by the Marshall
Center.
The
Zeolite Crystal Growth (ZCG) experiment was concluded a day early
this week and the samples will be returned for analysis on the upcoming
UF-2 Space Shuttle mission, which also is scheduled to ferry up new
samples for the experiment.
Zeolites are used in many chemical manufacturing processes on Earth,
including gasoline production. Insights from the Station experiment
could lead to improvements in manufacturing processes. The principal
investigator is Dr. Al Sacco, Jr., with the Center for Advanced Microgravity
Materials Processing at Northeastern University in Boston.
Scientists
on the ground began trouble shooting a potential problem with the zeolite
experiment when it stopped receiving experiment health and status data
on Monday. When they regained contact with the experiment, they learned
that the furnace used to growth zeolites had lost power for about half
an hour and experienced a temperature drop.
After
evaluating their options, scientists elected to wrap up the experiment
a day early rather than subject the samples to additional temperature
cycling and possibly ill-defined thermal history that could hamper analysis
later. The zeolite experiment arrived on the recent STS-110 mission
to the Station and was scheduled for a 15-day run.
All
checkout activities were completed Saturday with EXPRESS Rack 5
and its payload lockers, and the rack was powered off. It will begin
hosting experiments on Expedition 7. However, the checkout enables it
to serve as a backup for EXPRESS Rack 4 in a contingency.
Plant
growth continues in the Biomass Production System (BPS) experiment,
an experimental version of a permanent plant growth facility for the
Space Station. The crew continued root priming activities over the weekend
and again on Monday, injecting water into the growth chambers and removing
air from the fluid lines. The crew collected water samples from the
system reservoirs today (Wednesday). They are scheduled to downlink
video from chambers 2 and 4 on Thursday and take gas samples from those
chambers on Friday.
In
response to a loss of humidity control in Chamber 2, scientists have
asked the crew to swap the wheat growing in Chamber 2 with Brassica
rapa plants growing in Chamber 4. Brassica rapa can be grown in Chamber
2’s higher humidity, while the wheat will be moved into a chamber that
retains humidity control. The swap will prevent any negative impact
to the transpiration and photosynthesis data being collected on the
plants. The crew has already harvested wheat samples, and the first
harvest of Brassica rapa samples is planned for next week. The BPS principal
investigators are Dr. Robert Morrow of Orbital Technology Corp., Madison,
Wisconsin and Dr. Gary Stutte, of Dynamac Corp., Kennedy Space Center,
Florida.
Trouble-shooting
with the Medium-rate Communication Outage Recorder (MCOR) was scheduled
for today (Wednesday). MCOR serves as the main science data storage
unit during Loss of Signal periods when the Station is not in satellite
contact with the ground. The device has been unable to record since
April 18.
The
Commercial Generic Bioprocessing Apparatus (CGBA) experiment
continued to run normally in the past week. The experiment automatically
collected antibiotic-producing bacteria on April 24, April 28 and again
Tuesday for later analysis on the ground. CGBA is studying the process
of fermentation used in production of antibiotics, including a class
of drugs used to treat cancer. Earlier research indicates that those
types of microorganisms tend to grow better in space. The principal
investigator is Dr. David Klaus, of BioServe Space Technologies at the
University of Colorado, Boulder, and Dr. Wenying Li, of Bristol-Myers
Squibb Pharmaceutical Research Institute, Wallingford, Conn.
Commander
Yury Onfrienko completed his Crew Interactions survey on Tuesday.
Flight Engineer Carl Walz completed his today (Wednesday) with Bursch
scheduled to complete the questionnaire Thursday. The crew also completed
the regular monthly background radiation readings on the EVA Radiation
Monitoring experiment badges worn by astronauts during spacewalks
outside the Station.
Crew
Earth Observations (CEO) photography targets for the week include
wildfires in Cambodia and southwest Vietnam, wetlands and dam construction
along the Mekong River, vegetation around Lake Eyre, Australia, human
development in Bombay, India, the first tropical cyclone of the season
over the Arabian Sea, water levels in the Kariba and Cahora Basa reservoirs
in Africa, and fires in Yucatan, Honduras and Nicaragua.
