NASA Space Station On-Orbit Status 14 March 2018

One week from today three individuals will blast off on a two-day trip to the International Space Station. They will join the three Expedition 55 crew members already in space who continue to research the effects of living in space while maintaining the orbital laboratory.
The Soyuz spacecraft that will carry one cosmonaut and two astronauts to their new home in space was encapsulated into its rocket today ahead of its March 21 launch. Soyuz Commander Oleg Artemyev will fly the Soyuz MS-08 spacecraft ferrying him and NASA astronauts Ricky Arnold and Drew Feustel to the station’s Poisk module on March 23.

Waiting for the trio are Expedition 55 Commander Anton Shkaplerov and Flight Engineers Scott Tingle and Norishige Kanai. Today, the orbiting crewmates watered plants for a space crop study and scanned their eyes with an ultrasound device for ongoing health checks. They are also getting gear ready for the next spacewalk to conduct maintenance on the orbital lab.

The space station is orbiting a little higher today after a docked Russian cargo craft fired its engines for 1 minute and 48 seconds. The burn increased the lab’s altitude enabling future spacecraft operations including the undocking of the Expedition 54-55 trio in June and the docking of a new Russian space freighter in July.

On-Orbit Status Report

Veg-03: Today the crew watered the Veg-03 plants and continued with the photo-documentation of plant growth for the Veg-03 investigation. Veg-03 supports the proof-of concept for the Veggie plant growth chamber and the planting pillows. Future long duration space missions will require a fresh food supply grown in space to supplement crew diets.

Earth Imagery from ISS Target (EIISS): Today the crew captured images of the area from southern California to the Baja peninsula for the Earth Imagery investigation. EIISS captures a series of videos showcasing targets around the world as seen from the ISS. These videos will be integrated into a product for later release.

Meteor: The crew performed a routine changeout of the hard drive in the Meteor laptop located in the Window Observational Research Facility (WORF). The Meteor payload uses a visible spectroscopy instrument to observe meteors in Earth orbit and then analyze the images to provide information on the physical and chemical properties of meteoroid dust. The study of the meteoroid dust on-orbit provides information about the parent comets and asteroids.

On-Board Training (OBT) 53 Soyuz (53S) Emergency Egress Drill: All three crew members participated in a training session when they reviewed and practiced procedures that would be performed in the event of an emergency that required the crew to egress ISS and execute an emergency descent. This drill is scheduled after the crew has been onboard for 12 to 14 weeks and every 2.5 months thereafter.

Extravehicular Activity (EVA) Airlock Unstow: In preparation for US EVA #49 at the end of the month, the crew relocated hardware not needed for the upcoming EVA and prepared the Airlock to support EVA operations.

MetOx Regeneration Initiation: Today the crew initiated a MetOx regeneration cycle on 2 MetOx canisters. This process is expected to take 14 hours and the crew is scheduled to terminate the regeneration cycle and remove the canisters from the MetOx Regenerator on Friday. These two canisters will be used during an upcoming EVA.

Eye Exams: Today the crew completed routine eye exams using an Ultrasound machine. Eye exams are performed regularly onboard in order to monitor crewmembers eye health. Eyesight is one of the many aspects of the human body that is affected by long-duration stays in a microgravity environment.

Progress 69P ISS Reboost: Last night the ISS performed a nominal reboost using the 69P thrusters. The purpose of the reboost was to start phasing for 53S landing in June and 70P 2-orbit constraints in July. The reboost time of ignition (TIG) was 072/21:25:00 GMT (Tuesday, March 13, 04:25:00 pm CDT), with a burn duration of 1 m 48 s.

Remote Power Control Modules (RPCM) P14B-G and P13A-G Swap: In July 2017 RPCM P14B-G Remote Power Controller (RPC) 11, which powers the thermostatically controlled Port Thermal Radiator (PTR) Multiplexer/Demultiplexer MDM survival heaters, tripped due to a hybrid Field Effect Transistor (FET) failure. To regain functionality of the heaters, later today ground robotic specialist will use the Space Station Remote Manipulator System (SSRMS) and Special Purpose Dexterous Manipulator (SPDM) to swap RPCM P14B-G and P13A-G. Since there is no load downstream of RPCM P13A-G RPC 11 there will be no impact of this hybrid FET failure following the swap.

Today’s Planned Activities
All activities are complete unless otherwise noted.

Hematocrit Test
Hematocrit Hardware Stowage
Acoustic Monitor Data Transfer and Stow
ISS Emergency Descent OBT
Periodic Health Status (PHS) Evaluation
Recharging Samsung tablet in 53S
Study of cardiac bioelectric activity at rest.
Installation of ??-? No.53001022 for Orlan Battery.
Mating telemetry connector to ??-?.
Setup unit 825?3 (1266132133) to charge and start charge
??? maintenance
Progress 437 (DC1) Stowage and IMS Ops
Meteor Hard Drive Swapout
VEG-03 E & F Plant Photo
VEG-03 Dual Facility Watering for each Plant Pillow
RED Camera Setup.
Ultrasound 2 Set-up
Earth Imagery from ISS RED Target Operations
IMS Update
RED Camera Deactivation.
Health Maintenance System (HMS) Ultrasound 2 Scan
Soyuz 737 Samsung PC recharge after OBT, remove from charge
Two-Phase Flow Experiment Multi-purpose Small Payload Rack (MSPR) Video Compression And Recording Unit (MSPR VRU) Power Cycle
Extravehicular Activity (EVA) Airlock Unstow
Portable air samples with CDM
Metal Oxide (METOX) Regeneration Initiation

Completed Task List Activities
EVA Systems Checklist pen & ink update

Ground Activities
All activities are complete unless otherwise noted.
RPCM P13AG and P14BG Swap
Standard Commanding

Three-Day Look Ahead:
Thursday, 03/15: Eye Exams, LLB Battery Charging, JAXA Glovebox Setup, Neuromapping
Friday, 03/16: EVA Loop Scrub, LLB Autocycle, CBEF Reconfig, Veggie Harvest, JOTI Reconfig
Saturday, 03/17: Housekeeping Tasks, Crew Off-Duty

QUICK ISS Status – Environmental Control Group:
Component – Status
Elektron – Off
Vozdukh – Manual
[???] 1 – SM Air Conditioner System (“SKV1”) – Off
[???] 2 – SM Air Conditioner System (“SKV2”) – On
Carbon Dioxide Removal Assembly (CDRA) Lab – Standby
Carbon Dioxide Removal Assembly (CDRA) Node 3 – Operate
Major Constituent Analyzer (MCA) Lab – Idle
Major Constituent Analyzer (MCA) Node 3 – Operate
Oxygen Generation Assembly (OGA) – Process
Urine Processing Assembly (UPA) – Process
Trace Contaminant Control System (TCCS) Lab – Full Up
Trace Contaminant Control System (TCCS) Node 3 – Off