ISS On-Orbit Status 11 May 2003
All ISS systems continue to function nominally, except as noted previously or below.
A Sunday rest day for the crew, with a few standard maintenance and optional “job jar” tasks.
CDR Yuri Malenchenko performed the daily routine maintenance on the SOZh life support system and collected the weekly SP toilet flush and SVO water supply counter readings in the Service Module (SM) for calldown to TsUP.
He also conducted the periodic inspection of the Elektron oxygen generator’s VM gas/liquid system for obstructing air bubbles that may linger after IFMs (in-flight maintenances).
FE/SO Ed Lu prepared the daily IMS (inventory management system) delta file for automatic export/import to update the database.
Malenchenko completed his regular daily inspection of the growing pea plants of the BIO-5 “Rasteniya-2/Lada-3” (Plants-2) experiment.
Later, Yuri again tagged up with a ground expert at TsUP via UHF for today’s session with the Russian Diatomeya world ocean aquatoria investigation program. [Main target area on the Russian task list was the Atlantic Ocean. After the observations, at 10:04-10:15am EDT, he copied his best daily shots from the CompactFlash memory card to laptop TP1 for Regul-Paket downlink.]
Also working from the Russian discretionary task list, Malenchenko conducted today’s session of the Russian Uragan (“hurricane”) earth imaging program (GFI-8), currently concentrating on educational imagery of selected geographical targets using the LIV video camera system. [Suggested targets were volcanoes in the equatorial zone and a track across West and South Africa.]
Another Russian task list item completed by Yuri today were deactivation, closeout and teardown operations of the Molniya-SM/LSO hardware, with the French-provided EGE1 laptop. [Objective of LSO was to study rare optical phenomena occurring in the upper layers of Earth’s atmosphere, so-called “sprites” (i.e., puzzling glow phenomena observed above thunderstorm clouds). LSO was originally part of Claudie Haigneré’s French “Andromeda” payload package of taxi mission 3S that could not be performed as planned during Increment 4 due to an ISS flight attitude conflict. LSO research objectives are very similar to those of the Russian Molniya-SM, being about storm phenomena and other related events in the Earth’s equatorial regions. LSO is controlled from the French EGE-1 laptop, which needs to be loaded with orbital sighting predictions using an up-to-date NORAD tracking TLE (two-line element).]
Lu and Malenchenko completed their daily physical exercise program, on TVIS treadmill, RED expander, CEVIS bike and, for Yuri, on the Russian VELO cycle ergometer with load trainer.
The crew had their weekly PFCs (private family conferences) via Ku-band/video and S-band/audio.
At 12:18pm EDT, the ISS maneuvered from earth-oriented LVLH (local vertical/local horizontal) flight attitude to XPOP (x-axis perpendicular to orbit plane), in which it will remain until its transition to YVV/”Barbecue”, scheduled for 5/18. Return to XPOP will then follow on 5/27. [The maneuver commenced with handover to Russian MCS (motion control system) thrusters at 12:05pm EDT. Control returned to U.S./CMGs at 12:45pm. While in inertial XPOP (solar arrays always pointed toward the Sun), the Lab window will be within plus/minus five degrees of the velocity vector (i.e., facing “forward”) for almost half the orbit. Flight rules dictate that it remain shuttered during this time to reduce the risk of MMOD (micrometeoroid/orbital debris) damage. This also limits earth observation opportunities.]
Since this morning at 7:00am EDT, MCC-H has another 14 hr. period of ground-based Static Transfer Switch modifications scheduled which render some ground equipment and flight consoles unavailable. Alternate workstations and workarounds have been defined where required.
The crew was uplinked recommendations for the use of food rations delivered on the Soyuz 6S (16 containers) and previously on Progress 10P. [The most recently delivered food should be stored for use at the end of this Increment, with food containers delivered on previous vehicles to be used first. Some food items delivered previously on the Progress vehicles have reached their expiration dates (incl. cheese, canned apple and preach desserts, appetizer snacks, beet salad, cottage cheese with nuts and honey). Those that have expired are to be discarded.]
ISS Orbit (as of this morning, 7:13am EDT [= epoch]):
- Mean altitude — 390.0 km
- Apogee — 394.3 km
- Perigee — 385.6 km
- Period — 92.36 min.
- Inclination (to Equator) — 51.63 deg
- Eccentricity — 0.0006462
- Orbits per 24-hr. day — 15.59
- Mean altitude loss in last 24 hours — 90 m
- Revolutions since FGB/Zarya launch (Nov. ’98) — 25527
- For more on ISS orbit and worldwide naked-eye visibility dates/times, see http://www.hq.nasa.gov/osf/station/viewing/issvis.html
