ISS On-Orbit Status 3 Oct 2002
Aboard the ISS, the crew today was on a relatively light duty schedule.
By staying well east of Houston and turning north, hurricane Lili has
spared JSC. Hurricane readiness activities were cancelled as of 10:00pm
EDT last night as JSC reverted to Level 4 (normal operations). At MCC-H,
things will be returning to normal by tonight as ISS and Shuttle control
facilities are being powered up throughout the day, followed by significant
confidence level testing and simulation runs.
The dynamic test of the Progress DPO thrusters from the Service Module
TVM (terminal computer system) was cancelled because of the contingency
situation, as was tomorrow’s planned reboost by Progress 9P.
After CDR Valery Korzun performed a check of the newly deployed Rasteniya-2
plant growth payload, he and FE-2 Sergei Treschev was to continue unloading
and unpacking 9P cargo.
The daily routine maintenance of the SOSh life support system was scheduled
today for Treschev, while FE-1/SP Peggy Whitson had the Lab payload status
checkup and monitoring.
Korzun and Treschev were scheduled for another one-hour session with
the Russian/Japanese HDTV (high-definition television) experiment to take
video imagery of the crewmembers during exercise and conversation for
medical evaluation.
The planned replacement of the fine filter assembly of the MTL PPA (moderate
temperature loop — pump package assembly) remains on the "job jar"
task list. It is now scheduled for next Sunday, along with Progress cargo
stowage activities. [The filter has started to become clogged up with
of some precipitate, and the decision was made to replace it before 9A
with the filter from the spare PPA before it clogs up completely.]
The crew conducted their regular daily physical exercise program. Because
they reinstalled the old RED (resistive exercise device) Flexpack canisters
after one of the new canisters did not perform as expected, they were
given the Go to continue using RED until canister failure.
ISS Orbit (as of last night, 11:51pm EDT [= epoch]):
Mean altitude — 385.3 km
Apogee — 397.0 km
Perigee — 373.7 km
Period — 92.3 min.
Inclination (to Equator) — 51.63 deg
Eccentricity — 0.0017186
Orbits per 24-hr. day — 15.61
Solar Beta Angle — 28.5 deg (magnitude decreasing)
Altitude decrease — 300 m (mean) in last 24 hours
Revolutions since FGB/Zarya launch (Nov. ’98) — 22087
Current Flight Attitude — LVLH (local vertical/local horizontal = "earth-fixed":
z-axis in local vertical, x-axis in velocity vector [yaw: -10 deg, pitch:
-7.8 deg, roll: 0 deg]).with CMG/Thruster Assist Momentum Management).
For more on ISS orbit and worldwide naked-eye visibility dates/times,
see
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/osf/station/viewing/issvis.html