ISS On-Orbit Status 26 Dec 2002
All ISS systems continue to function nominally, except as noted previously or below. Back to work after a (brief) Christmas holiday on orbit. (Three cheering and singing Santas floating in the ISS could even be seen yesterday in Europe on German and Austrian TV).
After wakeup at 1:00am EST and before breakfast, all crewmembers completed the Russian MedOps biochemical urine testing (PZE MO-9), using the Urolux equipment set up last night by FE-1 Nikolai Budarin for in-flight analysis. Afterwards, Nikolai stowed the equipment. [MO-9 is one of several Russian medical assessments that have been accepted by US MedOps officials in the interest of working more jointly as an Integrated Medical Group. It is performed every 30 days, also before and after Orlan EVAs.]
After joint “saftrak” (breakfast) at about 2:00am, Budarin checked up on the activated BIO-5 Rasteniya-2/Lada-2 (“Plants-2”) experiment that researches plant growth and development under spaceflight conditions.
FE-2/SO Don Pettit took CO2 (carbon dioxide) readings with the CDM (carbon dioxide monitor), in order to help resolve discrepancies between ppCO2 (carbon dioxide partial pressure) readings by the SM gas analyzer and U.S. MCA (major constituents analyzer). [Daily readings are to be taken in the SM and the US Lab using both CDMs. Once the ppCO2 readings and corresponding location and CDM serial numbers have been read down to the ground, both CDMs can be turned off to preserve battery life.]
Budarin cleaned the filter screens 1, 2 and 3 of the SM’s GShT gas-liquid heat exchanger and the CO2 filter of the IK0501 gas analyzer (GA).
Nikolai Budarin also removed the separator component of the BRPK-1 condensate separation and pumping unit in the SM and replaced it with a new unit delivered on Progress 5P (255). [The SKV air conditioner had to be deactivated 40 minutes before power down of the SRV-K2M condensate water processor.]
Later, Budarin performed a memory dump of the IWIS RSU 1027 (internal wireless instrumentation system remote sensor unit #1027), after preparing the SSC (station support computer) system, gathering input files from the server and initializing the system with IWIS automated software.
Nikolai also completed a Russian medical hardware inventory, specified by uplinked inventory tables compiled from IMS (inventory management system) data. Items were listed for the medical cabinet as well as for medical hardware outside the medical cabinet. [After marking each page as complete or adding comments, he was to downlink the results file to MCC-Moscow for subsequent update of the IMS database. The second phase of inventory take is planned for January 2003.]
Bowersox transferred the FOOT (foot/ground reaction forces during space flight) experiment data to the HRF (human research facility) workstation to be downlinked to the ground. The FOOT team again thanked him for his great work on this experiment.
Don Pettit conducted a detailed vacuum leak check for the starboard hatch window installation in the Node. This included measuring lengths of fluid jumpers when depressed and a basic configuration assessment of the ability to reach the starboard window location. [To evaluate the hardware, the VAJ/ISA (vacuum access jumper/internal sampling adapter) hose assembly was to be hooked up to Node nadir MPEV (manual pressure equalization valve), routed towards the Node starboard ECOMM (early communications system) plate, and evacuated. For the first two hours the pressure is to be recorded every 15 minutes. After the first two hours the frequency is decreased to every 30 minutes. Subsequently, an 8-hr and 24-hr measurement will be recorded as well.]
CDR Bowersox performed the daily routine status check of Lab payloads, while FE-2/SO Pettit completed the regular SOSh life support systems maintenance (incl. ASU toilet insert replacements).
The crew completed the daily physical exercise program (2.5 hrs.) on TVIS, CEVIS, and RED.
Today’s targets for the CEO (crew earth observations program) were Ganges River delta (sun glint on the many mouths of the Ganges should have showed up well right of track in a long view), Mekong River tributary, Thailand (nadir mapping swath requested for about 0.5 minutes. Swamplands in this part of Thailand are being mapped), Lake Eyre, Australia (ideal pass for sun glint images of this lake to show any water that may exist. Unusual rains occurred at the beginning of the present El Nino [when rainfall is mostly suppressed]. The lake is the lightest [highest albedo] region in the view, 1-2 degrees off track), Addis Ababa, Ethiopia (general view of the capital region, on the N flank of the East African Rift that cuts through Ethiopia as a major visual. Crew was to look right of track. [The view left showed a panorama of the low-lying Afar Triangle at the south end of the Red Seaa region of “seafloor spreading” geology, where the Yemen corner of Arabia used to lie before continental drift began here about twenty million years ago]), Lake Chad tributary (crew was asked to shoot views from nadir off track left about 3 degrees: this should have captured the swampy axis of one of Africa’s largest, recently discovered inland deltas. Visual cues are a series of disorganized streams within a major, green swampland), Bamako, Niger River, Mali (nadir and a touch left), and Industrialized SE Africa (dramatic low-sun views of the Cape Mountains of southernmost South Africa should appear right of track).
