ISS On-Orbit Status 2 Mar 2003

All ISS systems continue to function nominally, except as noted previously
or below. Space Day 99 for Expedition 6. Ahead: Week 14.

A regular off-duty Sunday, except for a few scheduled tasks, with congrats
for the station residents by the ground on a great past week. Tomorrow:
the crew’s 100th day in space!

FE-1 Nikolai Budarin completed the weekly routine tasks of collecting
SP toilet flush counter and SVO water supply readings in the Service
Module for calldown, as well as the periodic inspection of the Elektron
oxygen generator’s VM gas/liquid system for the air bubble that usually
lingers after an in-flight maintenance.

Afterwards, Budarin took care of the daily routine maintenance of the
SOSh life support system, incl. ASU toilet subsystem, and FE-2/SO Don
Pettit prepared the IMS inventory database for automated file import/export.

All crewmembers had their weekly PFCs (private family conferences) scheduled,
via S-band. [For Nikolai, this works over a Houston-Moscow link.]

The crew also performed their daily physical exercise program on TVIS,
RED, CEVIS, and VELO with load trainer.

Prior to the morning physical exercise and before lunch (7:30am EST),
Budarin was up for his fourth session of the MBI-9 "Pulse" experiment,
working off the Russian task list. [Execution of the medical cardiological
assessment is controlled from the Russian laptop 3, using a set respiration
rate (without forced or deep breaths) and synchronizing respiration with
computer-commanded "inhale" commands. Before the experiment,
arterial blood pressure is measured with the "Tensoplus" sphygmomanometer.
The first "Pulse" session by Nikolai was performed on 11/30/02,
the second on 12/30/02, the third on 2/2/03.]

One of the highlights of the current Increment 6 are the weekly "Saturday
Morning Science happenings", improvised and conducted by Science
Officer Dr. Don Pettit, with subsequent video downlink. Yesterday’s session
of these on-the-spot observations of interesting phenomena in space,
strikingly illustrating the value of human presence, was another big
hit with ground watchers at MCC-H.

The software patch to correct the RGA (rate gyro assembly) "data
staleness" problem was uplinked to both GNC MDMs last night. Ground
specialists are evaluating the performance of the U.S. GPS navigation
system through the weekend. [The patch uploading required swapping between
the two GNC MDMs, attitude control handovers between US and Russian segments,
and regaining communications with GPS 1 &2 and RGA 1&2.]

The upgrade of the Russian BVS onboard computer system to the new Vers.
7.01 software is continuing, having fallen behind schedule by two days
(i.e., using built-in reserve days). The second set of matching units
(US-21-2 and -4) will be upgraded tonight during crew sleep. [This is
a ground-only activity, initiated over a Russian ground site, requiring
about 1.5 hours per matching unit].

Looking ahead: Tomorrow: SM Ethernet OpsLAN testing, installation of
SUBA cables, and MSG (microgravity science glovebox) troubleshooting.
Tuesday: SSRMS robotics ops. Wednesday: FOOT ops, MSG troubleshooting,
Russian Central Post laptop (KTsP) reloading.

Today’s targets for the CEO (crew earth observations) program were Lake
Nasser, Toshka Lakes; Egypt (this was a nice pass with sun glint possibilities
to document the continued unexpected spread of the Toshka Lakes west
of the Nile. Looking right of track), Lake Chad in Sun Glint (DYNAMIC
EVENT TARGET: Crew was asked to take advantage of sun glint enhancement
this pass to document surface water features in this still, mostly dry,
lake and its dune-filled lakebed), Tropical Storm Japhet (DYNAMIC EVENT
TARGET: Today’s pass should have placed this storm system right of track.
No further strengthening was expected, but it should remain intact, offshore
of Mozambique), and Industrialized Southeastern Africa (looking obliquely
either side of track this pass to document the formation and distribution
of smog plumes over South Africa.

CEO images can be viewed at the website
http://eol.jsc.nasa.gov

ISS Orbit (as of this morning, 7:22am EST [= epoch]):
Mean altitude — 390.6 km
Apogee — 398.6 km
Perigee — 382.6 km
Period — 92.37 min.
Inclination (to Equator) — 51.63 deg
Eccentricity — 0.0011796
Orbits per 24-hr. day — 15.59
Mean altitude loss in last 24 hours — 160 m
Revolutions since FGB/Zarya launch (Nov. ’98) — 24436

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