Status Report

ISS On-Orbit Status 1 May 2002

By SpaceRef Editor

May 1, 2002

Filed under ISS On-orbit status, NASA HQ, US

All ISS systems continue to function nominally, except as noted previously
or below. Day 545 of continuous station occupancy.

Again the crew received kudos from the ground for their great work
yesterday. FE-2 Dan Bursch was commended for his Hoffman-Reflex session.

The visiting crew (VC3) were once more very busy with a crowded VC ops
timeline, trying to squeeze as much as possible into the four days remaining
until their departure (5/4, 8:20 pm, EDT).

Roberto Vittori continued the Italian “Marco Polo” suite of experiments:
CHIRO (monitoring and video recording impairment of muscle function in
weightlessness), VEST (donning and evaluating experimental clothing),
ALTEINO (AST high-energy charged particle spectrometer ops and data
recording), and, today for the first time, BMI (blood pressure measurement
instrument). [After SFP Mark Shuttleworth completed his CCE session on the
VELO (VB-3) cycle ergometer, Vittori used it to record a demonstration video
of the use of the BMI payload, pedaling for about five minutes with a
braking load of 100 W.]

Vittori also used suitable orbit passes for photo and video imagery of
Italy.

Mark Shuttleworth conducted today’s sessions of the Republic of South
African research program, continuing CCE (workout, physical parameter
reading, saliva sampling and log entries), Plankton Lens-S (development of
techniques for monitoring natural resources via visual and instrumental
observations from space), Plankton Lens-M (study of the plankton
productivity of ocean regions around Africa), and Education (video recording
of demonstrations of the effects of weightlessness for grade school students
at home).

SFP Shuttleworth also conducted two live TV (S-band) reports for media via
MCC-Moscow (one of which with CNN early in the morning), participated in an
amateur radio pass with a US ham operator and held his daily private phone
conference on the IP telephone.

VC CDR Yuri Gidzenko clearly had his hands full with providing assistance to
his two colleagues. He also continued, with CDR Yuri Onufrienko, the Russian
MBI-7 Biotest experiment (testing metabolic adaptation in weightlessness).
In addition he performed today’s main session of the TEKh-20 Plasma
Crystal-3 research, activating the turbo pump for the vacuum chamber (at
2:20 am EDT), setting the payload up for experiment operations, recording
data on HDD (hard disk drive) and camcorder, stowing the records and
deactivating the vacuum pump in the evening. [Objective of the
German-developed experiment is to obtain ordered structures from charged
dust particles in a high-frequency plasma discharge in an evacuated
chamber.]

CDR Onufrienko started a special video imaging session called “Zhizn’ na
Stantsii” (Life on Station), to extend until 5/3. It involves filming lively
video scenes of all crew members, including the taxi crew, while engaged in
various experiments, accompanied with comments. To also get footage of
Onufrienko himself, FE-2 Dan Bursch assists in filming his CDR in various
experiment operations and living activities on station. The completed tapes
will be returned on Soyuz TM-33.

FE-1 Carl Walz and Bursch completed a refresher review of the SSRMS DOUG
(Space Station Remote Manipulator System/Dynamic Operations Ubiquitous
Graphics) application on their standalone PCS (portable computer system),
preparatory to tomorrow’s “Robotics Day”. [DOUG is a software program that
provides a birdseye-view graphical image of the SSRMS arm, showing its
real-time location and configuration on laptops during its operation. The
primary objective of the Robotics ops planned for 5/2 will be to grapple the
FRGF (flight releasable grapple fixture) on the newly installed S0 truss to
collect grapple force and joint angles data that will be used in conjunction
with ground measured data to predict the MBS (mobile base system)
installation parameters for the upcoming mission UF-2/STS-111. The ground
will again perform the initial powerups and setup, using the redundant SSRMS
string with the seven-degree-of-freedom (7DOF) software, and will also power
up the CUP RWS (cupola robotics workstation) as backup with the 6DOF
software. The S0 FRGF release will be performed on the prime string using
the 6DOF patch. Single joint maneuvers will later be used to maneuver to a
modified port stow position which will allow us to view the Soyuz
undocking.]

CDR Onufrienko, with Dan Bursch, replaced four dust filters in the SM and
two dust filters in the DC-1 docking module, where he also cleaned the
ventilation screens of the V1 and V2 fans. Other systems tasks completed by
Yuri included returning filter bed #2 of the BMP harmful impurities
filtration system from Regenerate to Purify mode.

On 4/29, the BRPK-1 water separator system in the SM system failed when it
reached its end of lifetime. This system is used to separate gas from the
water condensate produced by the SKV air conditioner systems. The crew
reconfigured some valves to bring the backup system online and restarted
SKV-1. MCC-M reported that this system exceeded its lifetime specification
by 10 times prior to its failure. The BRPK-2 system is active and is
operating with SKV-1.

All three ISS crewmembers were scheduled for the weekly NTXN Interactions
session, filling out the interpersonal mood, group and journal
questionnaire, which is automatically saved in encrypted form on the HRF
laptop and returned to Earth on the hard drive.

Carl Walz completed the daily payload status check, and Dan Bursch conducted
a photographic session with the CPCG (Commercial Protein Crystal Growth)
payload at the same time, in order to take photos of Carl interacting with
CPCG.

Bursch also worked on the PCG-STES (Protein Crystal Growth-Single Locker
Thermal Enclosure System, labeling and photographing a spare cable. On the
BPS (Biomass Production System), he removed excess water from the HCS
(humidity control system) reservoir, because total fluid volume in BPS both
reservoirs was reaching a maximum volume.

Walz was scheduled to collect potable water samples for in-flight chemical
and microbiological analysis, starting with the hot and warm taps of the
Russian SRV-K water system, followed by the SVO-ZV container of the potable
water system. Later in the day, he also was to power-cycle the IV-CPDS
(intravehicular charged particle directional spectrometer).

The second string of U.S. segment (USOS) attitude and rate determination
software was enabled yesterday (the first string had been enabled last
week). With the new systems on the S0 truss, there are now three fully
redundant sources of attitude and rate information available for pointing
and attitude control. The priorities of the three sources are set as
follows; GPS-1 (global positioning system #1) & RGA-1 (rate gyro assembly
#1) are first priority, GPS-2 & RGA-2 are second priority, and Russian
attitude and rate are third priority. [The GPS-1 receiver stopped providing
attitude updates for approximately seven hours on 4/29. After obtaining
data, MCC-H performed a power cycle on the unit to recover it, and the GPS
unit operated nominally thereafter. The ground is assessing the cause of
this “stale data” problem.]

Early tomorrow morning (5/2), MCC-M will perform an undocking test for Soyuz
TM-33 (3S). Two of the activities are a jet firing test and a comm check.
Moscow has scheduled FE-1 Walz to assist with the comm check, and MCC-H has
scheduled FE-2 Bursch to assist with the attitude control moding in support
of the jet firing test.

The Soyuz jet firing test requires a short period of free drift, during
which Houston is out of comm range most of this time. Therefore the crew has
been asked to command the US GNC (guidance, navigation and control computer)
to Drift, and after the jet firing test is complete, to command the station
back to CMG attitude control.

Correction: Yesterday’s status report on the role of XPOP attitude in low
solar Beta angle regions was inaccurate. XPOP (x-axis perpendicular to orbit
plane) is certified for use at Beta angles between +/- 37degrees, while LVLH
(local vertical/local horizontal) is used for lower Beta angles. The U.S.
side prefers XPOP in the low Beta region for reducing the strain on the BGAs
(beta gimbal assemblies), while LVLH requires their motion and perhaps
caused their anomalies. The Russian side, on the other hand, has concerns
with low beta angle XPOP because it affects some experiments they’ve been
contracted to perform. Their desire is to stay in LVLH as much as possible.

Today’s target areas for CEO (crew earth observations) were W. Mediterranean
Dust and Smog (high pressure holds over the western Med. In low light the
crew was to look to the right of track as they crossed the coast of Morocco
for sunlit aerosols over a darker sea surface), E. Mediterranean Dust and
Smog (this was an excellent pass for an oblique view to the right of track
down the length of the Adriatic. High pressure there has allowed aerosols to
accumulate in this basin), Ganges River Delta (the pass provided a nice
context view of the delta region to the right of track. Crew was asked to
note the agricultural activity and the river’s sediment plumes, fresh with
Himalayan snow melt) Bombay, India (the ISS approached this mega city on the
west coast of India from the northwest this pass. Of interest: documenting,
with nadir views, the details and extent of this rapidly growing
metropolis), European Smog (with high pressure over this region, crew was to
look to the left of track for oblique views of smog buildup in the vicinity
of Corsica), Gulf of St. Lawrence (weather was finally improving over this
area, however little ice remains at this time of the year. Crew to look to
the left of track towards the island of Newfoundland for any vestiges of
this year’s meager pack ice formation).