ISS On-Orbit Status 2 May 2002
All ISS systems continue to function nominally, except as noted
previously or below. Day 546 of continuous station
occupancy.
The visiting crew has another busy day jammed with continued
experiment sessions of the South African CCE, ESCD and Plankton Lens
payloads, and the Italian "Marco Polo" suite of
experiments. For example, VC FE-1 Vittori performed session 6
of the Italian CHIRO (impairment of muscle function) experiment, with
Gidzenko assisting as video recorder of the activities. Vittori also
received detailed instruction for packing of CHIRO return items,
including such items as the hand grip and pinch force dynamometers,
power and data cables, video cassettes, the PCMCIA storage card and a
mass memory.
VC CDR Yuri Gidzenko continues the Plasma Crystal-3 experiment with
another day-long run.
SFP Mark Shuttleworth conducted another live televised event with
South African media, conversing today with former South African
President Nelson Mandela.
Later, at 12:28 pm EDT, Shuttleworth was scheduled for an amateur
radio exchange with a group of about 188 persons assembled at
Vodaworld, Voda Valley, Midrand, South Africa, consisting of pupils
and teachers from the Midrand/Kempton Park area, media, and
Department of Education officials. After the Gauteng (=
"Place of Gold") Province Dept. of Education had identified
13 schools, a competition was held in which students
("learners") were required to submit a question that they
would like to ask Mark. The learners’ 13 best questions were then
selected to ask their questions to Mark at today’s event (rehearsed
beforehand). The chat was to be relayed through Paringa,
Australia.
At 3:50 am EDT, Roberto Vittori conducted a 19-min. live TV event
with Italian media interviewers on the ground, including Pier
Ferdinando Casini (live on Italian TV channel RAI 1), and Lawrence
McGinty of ITN, with Mark Shuttleworth in the picture by request. He
also repeated his recorded greeting to German Chancellor Gerhard
Schröder on the occasion of the opening of the ILA (International
Aerospace Exhibition) in Berlin at 5/6.
The ISS crew was scheduled today to downlink a recorded
message/greeting for the opening of the soccer World Cup 2002 and
addressing Scottish schools.
At 5:26-5:40 am EDT, MCC-M performed a
pre-departure test for Soyuz TM-33 (3S). Two of the
activities were a jet firing test and a comm check. Moscow had
scheduled FE-1 Walz to assist with the comm check, and MCC-H
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 was out
of comm range most of this time. Therefore the crew was asked
to command the US GNC (guidance, navigation and control computer) to
Drift, and after the jet firing test was complete, to command the
station back to CMG attitude control.
Later, CDR Onufrienko removed the no-longer-needed local temperature
commutator (TA251M) with its TA765B memory unit from the Orbital
Module (BO) of the "old" Soyuz TM-33 (207), slated for
return to Earth in two days.
Onufrienko also performed maintenance on the Vozdukh carbon dioxide
removal system by replacing the CO2 filter of the Vozdukh delta-CO2
gas analyzer.
FE-1 Carl Walz completed the periodic GASMAP (gas analyzer system for
metabolic analysis physiology) 90 Day Health Check, essentially a
full system functional check of the hardware, including a five-hour
warm-up and calibration check. The health check keeps the
hardware in good working order and helps maintain the internal vacuum
for future experiment use.
Carl and Dan recorded a photo session with the CGBA (commercial
generic biotechnology apparatus), scheduled for the same time slot as
the regular daily Payload Status Check (PSC) so that Carl could take
pictures of Dan interacting with the payload (CGBA team: "If Dan
were upside-down that would be great!"). Dan was also
asked to inspect and report on the condition of the CPCG (commercial
protein crystal growth) air filter during today‚s PSC. This
will help the ground to determine if the filter should be changed out
in the near future.
Carl Walz and Dan Bursch were scheduled today for another set of
SSRMS/Robotics ops, with the main objective being 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 was to again command the initial
powerups and setup, using the redundant SSRMS string with the
seven-degree-of-freedom (7DOF) software, and also to power up the CUP
RWS (cupola robotics workstation) as backup with the 6DOF software.
The S0 FRGF release was to be performed on the prime string using the
6DOF patch. Single joint maneuvers were to be used later to maneuver
to a modified port stow position which will allow us to view the
Soyuz undocking.
Yesterday at 1:48 pm EDT the Lab CDRA (carbon dioxide removal
assembly) experienced a failure. When the CDRA switched from
Half Cycle 2 to Half Cycle 1, one of the air save valves (ASV 4)
failed to move to its commanded position. Consequently, the
unit transitioned to the "Failed" state. Since this
type of transient failure has been seen before, MCC-H commanded an
"Active BIT" (built-in test) just prior to the crew’s sleep
period last night to verify CDRA functionality and clear the failure
flag. The CDRA passed the Active BIT, and the unit is ready to
be restarted. The precise timing of the restart is still being
discussed.
Provided he saw clear skies, Yuri Onufrienko was scheduled for
another Uragan photo session, taking pictures with the Kodak 760
camera (800 mm lens) of specific Earth sites, today London, the Rhine
River with a conglomerate of eight cities, and Berlin-Potsdam.
Upcoming Russian holidays will have some impact on joint planning
activities between the two Mission Control Centers (MCCs). The first
two weeks in May are short work weeks in Russia due to the following
May holidays:
May 1: International Labor Day
May 2: Spring Day
May 3: "Bridge" Holiday (because of weekend)
May 9: Victory Day
May 10: "Bridge" Holiday (because of weekend).
The CEO (crew earth observation) program today had the following
target areas: E. Mediterranean Dust and Smog (with
high pressure holding over the central Med, there was a good
likelihood of detecting smog over the Adriatic Sea. Crew was to
look either side of track as ISS crossed Italy from the SW)
Tigris-Euphrates, Turkey (this pass ran the length of this
complex river system. Crew was to begin mapping with near-nadir views
of the complex of lakes and reservoirs under construction in Turkey
and continue southeastward down the valley as far as possible),
Gulf of St. Lawrence (although satellite imagery suggests
that little, if any, ice remains in the Gulf of St Lawrence now, crew
was to try to observe any that might remain to the left of track on
either coast of northern extension of Newfoundland, or any near the
coast of Labrador further north), E. Mediterranean Dust and
Smog (as a desert storm tracked across northwestern Africa, on
this second pass crew was to look to the right of track towards Libya
and Tunisia for dust clouds moving northward out of the Sahara),
Lake Nasser, Toshka Lakes; Egypt (this was an excellent
pass in good light for nadir views. Crew was asked to continue to map
the color and extent of these man-made lakes), Rift Triple
Junction, Ethiopia (ISS pass provided nadir views for mapping
the details of this complex of folds and faults in Eastern
Ethiopia), Somalia Coast (coastal Somalia just received
its first significant rains in months last week. Crew was to try to
detect the vegetative response to this event as ISS approached the
coast from the NW), Rukwa Transform, Tanzania (crew was
to take advantage of fair weather and the shadowing of low light to
map details of this complex of faults, folds, and valleys in central
Africa), James Bay (Dynamic Event Site: Satellite
imagery indicates an early breakup of sea ice in James Bay, near
Akimiski Island. ISS pass offered near-nadir views in good
light), Canadian Rocky Mountains (this was the first of
two fine passes over this target. Crew was asked to use the
long lens in near-nadir views for details of the snow pack and
especially the small glaciers and ice fields here. In the second
pass, with a bit more light, they were to try for oblique context
views of this snow capped mountain region).
