NASA ISS On-Orbit Status 18 May 2015
A reboost of the International Space Station using the Russian Progress 58 cargo craft was completed successfully on Sunday at 7:30 p.m. CDT.
A previous attempt on Friday evening was aborted one second into the burn automatically by the Progress vehicle. Russian flight controllers identified an issue with one of the eight thrusters on the spacecraft that was disabled for Sunday’s backup attempt.
The burn lasted 32 minutes and 3 seconds and began the process of setting up the correct phasing for the early June landing of three members of the Expedition 43 crew while providing the proper trajectory for Thursday’s return of the SpaceX Dragon cargo craft for its parachute-assisted landing in the Pacific. The reboost raised the station’s altitude by 1.2 statute miles at apogee and 3 miles at perigee and left the station in an orbit of 252.2 x 247.1 statute miles.
The six-member Expedition 43 crew started its work week with medical science. The crew practiced using a tonometer on an eye simulator with help from doctors on the ground. Similarly, One-Year crew member Scott Kelly explored how microgravity shifts fluids to the upper body impacting a crew member’s vision and eye structure.
On-Orbit Status Report
Fluid Shifts Before, During and After Prolonged Space Flight and Their Association with Intracranial Pressure and Visual Impairment (Fluid Shifts): Kelly begun his Flight Day (FD) 45 Fluid Shifts Dilution Measurements today. Upon wakeup he collected baseline saliva, blood and urine and inserted them into Minus Eighty Degree Celsius Laboratory Freezer for ISS (MELFI) prior to ingesting a Sodium Bromide (NaBr) tracer. Throughout the day, he performed more urine, blood, and saliva collections, inserting those samples into MELFI as well. The Dilution Measurements are the first part in the series of FD45 Fluid Shifts measurements. Next week, Kelly and Kornienko will be performing their Baseline Imaging using the ultrasound. The third portion of the Fluid Shifts experiment involves utilization of the Russian Chibis (Lower Body Negative Pressure – LBNP) during ultrasound measurements. Fluid Shifts investigates the causes for severe and lasting physical changes to astronaut’s eyes. Because the headward fluid shift is a hypothesized contributor to these changes, reversing this fluid shift with a lower body negative pressure device is investigated as a possible intervention. Results from this study may help to develop preventative measures against lasting changes in vision and eye damage.
Ocular Health: Virts and Cristoforetti performed their Return-30 (R-30) Ocular Health sessions. Each crew acted as the Crew Medical Officer (CMO) for each other’s tonometry session, and Cristoforetti assisted Virts in collecting his blood pressure. The crew also performed vision tests and questionnaires. The Ocular Health protocol calls for a systematic gathering of physiological data to characterize the risk of microgravity-induced visual impairment/intracranial pressure in ISS crewmembers. Researchers believe that the measurement of visual, vascular and central nervous system changes over the course of this experiment and during the subsequent post-flight recovery will assist in the development of countermeasures, clinical monitoring strategies, and clinical practice guidelines.
Dragon Release On-Board Training (OBT): In preparation for SpX-6 unberth scheduled this Thursday, today Virts and Kelly performed proficiency training on the Dragon departure profile, departure crew procedures, and crew interfaces for monitoring and commanding Dragon. The lesson walks through the steps in the departure procedures and provides representative Remote Work Station (RWS) and Portable Computer System (PCS) screenshots for each step. The lesson also provides an overview of the Dragon commands available to the crew via the Crew Command Panel (CCP). The crew will also perform Dragon Robotics On-Board Trainer (RoBOT) OBT.
ISS Reboost: The ISS reboost attempt Friday night using 58 Progress (58P) thrusters was aborted within the first second of the burn. MCC-M confirmed the abort was due to Rendezvous and Docking (R&D) Thrusters #1 on Manifold #1 unable to pass an automatic readiness check at the time of ignition. A second attempt to reboost ISS was successfully performed overnight on Sunday utilizing Manifold #2. The burn duration was 32 min and 3 sec. The planned delta velocity (dV) was 1.75 m/s, but the actual dV was 1.89 m/s. This difference was within family to previous reboosts in this configuration and is not expected to cause any long-term trajectory impacts. This reboost set up phasing for 41S landing scheduled on June 11th 2015. MCC-M will be investigating the issue with Thruster #1 on Manifold #1.
Japanese Experiment Module (JEM) Power Strip (PS)-120 Junction Box: Today, Virts installed the JEM PS-120 Junction Box at the JPM1F7 location. The newly installed junction box will provide crews the ability to have a total of eight simultaneous 120V loads plugged in.
JEM Network Storage (NeST): Virts installed the NeST, which will provide more network storage capability on JEM LAN during Ku LOS period. This hardware was required to be installed to accommodate the PS-TEPC, scheduled to arrive onboard later this year.
Today’s Planned Activities
All activities are completed unless otherwise noted.
FLUID SHIFTS
Makita tool battery capacity restoration – hardware prep
??? Maintenance
OBT – Review Dragon departure training procedures
OH – Tonometer test config
Setup for preliminary charge of Makita tool battery, installation for charge
Dragon – cargo transfer ops
Monitoring Makita tool battery preliminary charge
Cardio-Vascular Research with incremented physical load on VELO. Tagup with specialists
Monitoring Makita tool battery preliminary charge
Vision check
OH – BP ops
OH – Tonometer ops
Cardio-Vascular Research with incremented physical load on VELO. Tagup with specialists
Makita tool battery discharge
OBT – Review Dragon departure training procedures
Vision Questionnaire
Vision Check
BD MELFI – reconfig
HXP platform – stowing of materials
HDPCG – photography
HDPCG – hardware transfer and deactivation
??-2 exercise, Day 3
Makita tool battery setup for charge
Post-tonometer test stow
Dragon – cargo transfer ops
T2 treadmill monthly inspection
Monitoring Makita tool battery charge
MATRESHKA-R. BABBLE-dosimeter initialization and placement for exposure. Tagup with specialists
Monitoring Makita tool battery charge
Makita tool battery charge complete, log in charge time into table, remove battery from the charge unit
MELFI – procedure review
BCAT – battery change and downlink of images
Cleaning of digital matrices of Nikon cameras. Tagup with specialists
Air ducts ??1 and ??2 vacuum cleaning in MRM2
Transfer of POLAR samples from MELFI
Makita tool battery setup for preliminary charge
V3 fab grid cleaning in MRM2
Monitoring Makita tool battery preliminary charge
???’s – ROBoT – release
NANO – Module-53 to Module-24 replacement ops
VISIR. Experiment ops
Photo/Video Life on the Station
NANO – Module-53 insertion into MELFI
IMS Ops
Evening Work Prep
Dragon – cargo transfer conference
Makita tool battery charge complete
Completed Task List Items
None
Ground Activities
All activities are completed unless otherwise noted.
Ocular Health ops
Dragon departure OBT
Dragon Comm Processor B/Flight computers reboot
Three-Day Look Ahead:
Tuesday, 05/19: OCT exams, CUCU checkout, POLAR transfer to Dragon
Wednesday, 05/20: Double Cold Bag pack in Dragon, N3 stowage removal, Dragon egress/vestibule config for demate/N2 CPA install
Thursday, 05/21: SSRMS walkoff, Dragon N2 vestibule demate/depress, Dragon unberth/landing, ACE M-3 sample prep, COL stowage relocate
QUICK ISS Status – Environmental Control Group:
Component – Status
Elektron – On
Vozdukh – Manual
[???] 1 – SM Air Conditioner System (“SKV1”) – On
[???] 2 – SM Air Conditioner System (“SKV2”) – Off
Carbon Dioxide Removal Assembly (CDRA) Lab – Standby
Carbon Dioxide Removal Assembly (CDRA) Node 3 – Operate
Major Constituent Analyzer (MCA) Lab – Shutdown
Major Constituent Analyzer (MCA) Node 3 – Operate
Oxygen Generation Assembly (OGA) – Process
Urine Processing Assembly (UPA) – Process
Trace Contaminant Control System (TCCS) Lab – Off
Trace Contaminant Control System (TCCS) Node 3 – Full Up
