ISS On-Orbit Status 11 Apr 2002

All ISS systems continue to function nominally, except as noted previously or below.

After start of workday at 4:45 am EDT, the ISS/Shuttle stack’s ten occupants got down to business right away — in a smooth and amazingly successful
process.

Using the SSRMS (space station remote manipulator system), MS2 Ellen Ochoa performed a hand controller calibration and then unberthed the S-Zero
truss in the Shuttle payload bay (PLB) at 6:45 am. Transfer of the important centerpiece of what will become the 356 ft (108 m) long girder beam with
the solar array wings and radiators, went according to plan along the new trajectory (minimizing wrist roll), and the S0 was securely clamped in the LCA
(lab cradle assembly) atop the Lab module at 8:30 am,– a truly momentous event and major milestone in the course of ISS assembly.

Due to load limits on the S0/LCA structural interface, crew exercise is prohibited during S0 EVA activities as long as all four MTS strut groups are not
yet installed.

EVA-1, by Steve Smith (EV1) and Rex Walheim (EV2), also was completed successfully after being extended by more than an hour, with the SSRMS,
for the first time, used for worksite access and the Shuttle SRMS for acquisition of EVA video. Hatch opening was at 10:35 am EDT. During the EVA,
the spacewalkers installed the forward MTS (module to truss) struts, thereby firmly attaching the S0 to the Lab (aft struts to be installed during EVA-2).
Next, they deployed the aft Lab avionics tray containing power, data, and coolant fluid umbilicals (after an initial problem with the balky cable tray), and
then installed Lab forward avionics umbilicals which are critical to maintain thermal limits on S0 (if this operation had been delayed, LTA
[launch-to-activation] cables would have had to be installed instead, to supply heaters with “keep-alive” power). Other EVA activities completed were
activation of CID (circuit interrupt device) #6, followed by mating of the TUS (trailing umbilical system) #1 zenith cable to the MT (mobile transporter)
on the truss. To make up for the 30-45 minutes lost at the aft tray, installation of lower-priority S0 CIDs #7 and #8 was deferred to a later EVA. At 5:20
pm, Steve Smith replenished his EMU O2 tank at the Airlock (A/L). S0 activation, necessary for it to retain thermal integrity, was successfully
commanded by PHALCON (the power, heating, articulation, lighting, and control group at MCC-H), monitored by the ISS crew on PCS laptops. Smith
and Walheim ingressed the A/L CL (crew lock) at 6:15pm, with hatch closure at 6:24 pm, resulting in total EVA-1 duration of 7h 48 min. The spacewalk
brought the number of ISS assembly EVAs to 35, with a cumulative time now exceeding 200 hours, and it was the 10th EVA conducted from the station
itself.

On board the ISS, the crew supported the EVA, particularly the installations of the MTS forward struts as well as starboard and port avionics.

CDR Yuri Onufrienko continued the troubleshooting of the KURS-P system, today by checking the integrity of cable connections between the KURS
electronics container and amplifier box in the SM and between the latter and the SM wall feed-through to the external antennas.

Yuri powered down the EXPRESS Rack 1 (ER1) laptop. This allowed the ground to deactivate ER1 during joint operations to save power. SAMS (space
acceleration measurement system) and MAMS (microgravity acceleration measurement system) had already been powered down.

IWIS (internal wireless instrumentation system) recordings downlinked yesterday are showing good data on the docking event from all four IWIS RSUs
(remote sensor units) in Node and Lab. The next IWIS structural dynamics readings will be taken during the Soyuz relocation from FGB to DC-1 on
4/20.

CDR Onufrienko conducted two PAO events with Moscow on the occasion of Cosmonautics Day tomorrow (4/12), one of them a press conference
attended by leading Russian TV channels, newspapers and magazine journalists.

FE-1 Carl Walz engaged in an interchange with students of Caribbean Preparatory School in San Juan, Puerto Rico, USA, during an amateur (ham) radio
pass at 1:35 pm EDT.

ISS Orbit(as of this morning, 10:00 am EDT):

• Mean altitude — 385.8 km
  
• Apogee — 388.0 km
  
• Perigee — 383.6 km
  
• Period — 92.3 min.
  
• Inclination (to Equator) — 51.64 deg
  
• Eccentricity — 0.000328
  
• Orbits per 24-hr. day — 15.60
  
• Altitude decrease — 710 (mean) in last 24 hours
  
• Revolutions since FGB/Zarya launch (Nov. ’98) — 19364
  
• Current Flight Attitude — LVLH (local vertical/local horizontal = “earth-fixed”: z-axis in local vertical, x-axis in velocity vector [yaw: -10 deg, pitch:
  
• -7 deg., roll: 0 deg]).
  

For more on ISS orbit and naked-eye visibility dates/times, see
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/osf/station/viewing/issvis. html