ISS On-Orbit Status 30 Apr 2003

All ISS systems continue to function nominally, except as noted previously or below.  Day 158 for Expedition 6 (since STS-113 launch, 11/23/02 [156 days aboard ISS]).

Handovers continued between Expedition 6 and the Expedition 7 crews.

FE-1 Nikolai Budarin completed the first day of the Russian MBI-2 Deuraz (“Diuresis”) experiment, conducted by him today and tomorrow.  [Deuraz required Budarin today to record toilet use time in the morning, perform urine sample collections throughout the day, and log meal and fluid intake on a record card.  Additional work, to be completed on Thursday, consists of collecting venous blood samples from Budarin, followed by centrifugation to separate the blood into cells and plasma, and finally closeout and stowage.]

CDR-7 Yuri Malenchenko and Budarin continued the Russian BTX-10 “Conjugation” experiment, which pursues development of new methods of engineering of new recombinant strains of protein producers.  [Malenchenko monitored the run, replacing the ice packs with new ones from the Biokont-T container, while Budarin took imagery of the Biokont-T operations.  This will be done daily until 5/3 for return on 5S/Soyuz).

FE-1 Nikolai Budarin, observed closely by Yuri Malenchenko, started regeneration for absorbent bed #2 of the BMP harmful impurities unit, switching channel 2 back to Purify mode.  [The “bakeout” cycle in the filter beds is repeated every 20 days.  Each bakeout to space vacuum takes about 24 hours.]

Malenchenko conducted the periodic inspection of the (new) BRPK-1 air/condensate water separator in the Service Module (SM).  [When the BRPK exceeds its service life or is malfunctioning, incomplete separation of the atmospheric condensate occurs and water accumulates under the “sheet” of porous hydrophilic fluoroplastic.]

FE-1-7 Edward  Lu reconfigured the HRF (human research facility) laptop computer and workstation with the backup drives, to provide ample disk space for upcoming HRF Increment 7 events.

Bowersox and Lu checked out the station’s communications configuration prior to Soyuz undocking.

Yesterday’s InSPACE (investigating the structure of paramagnetic aggregates from colloidal emulsions) run performed similar to previous runs.  The ground team is awaiting data analysis results to determine the validity of data received from the MSG (Microgravity Science Glovebox).  [Yesterday’s InSPACE operations by Don and Ed were a continuation of testing with the CA005 (coil assembly #5) that contains 0.4 micron particles, including changing the frequency value of the electric field during the all-day monitoring and switching the video cassette.]

Malenchenko completed the daily routine task of SOZh life support systems maintenance and prepared the daily IMS (inventory management system) “delta” file for updating the IMS database.

Nikolai Budarin conducted his daily checkup of the BIO-5 “Rasteniya-2/Lada-2” zero-G plant growth experiment.

CDR Ken Bowersox, Nikolai Budarin and Yuri Malenchenko completed another three hours of nominal descent ops training in the Soyuz TMA-1 spacecraft, with Yuri taking the place of Don Pettit for the OBT.  During the training, the crew tagged up with ground specialists at MCC-M/TsUP.

All crewmembers worked out on the RED resistive trainer, CEVIS cycle ergometer and TVIS treadmill, completing their daily physical exercise program.  Pettit and Bowersox performed the weekly maintenance of the TVIS, and Pettit also conducted the monthly maintenance of the CEVIS. 

New targets were uplinked for the Russian Uragan earth observations program for today and tomorrow.  [Today’s targets were the city of London, seven cities on the Rhine river in the Ruhr basin, open pit mines south of Leipzig, flood land of the Oder river, panoramic pictures of the Tatres and Karpaty mountain ranges, the dike of the Krasnodarski water-storage reservoir and Krasnodar town, the Black Sea coast, city of Sochi-Adler, the Elbrus mountain range, Kolka glacier, city of Baku with oil contamination, and the mountain system south of the Caspian Sea.]

The crews received congratulations for yesterday’s excellent PAO event with U.S. media at NASA centers and Russian media at TsUP.

Today, at 6:45am EDT, both crews participated in live televised interviews on ABC’s Good Morning America and the NBC “Today” Show.

Upcoming Crew Rotation Events (all on Saturday, 5/3):

• Exp. 6/Exp. 7 Change of Command Ceremony — 2:11pm EDT
• Farewells & Hatch closing — 3:32pm EDT
• Soyuz TMA-1/5S undocking (Exp. 6):  6:40pm EDT (2:40am Moscow, 1:40am DMT (TsUP), on 5/4);
• Soyuz TMA-1/5S landing:  10:03pm EDT (6:03am Moscow; 5:03am DMT; 8:03am Kazakhstan, on 5/4).

Today’s optional CEO (crew earth observations) targets, including cities during daylight and at night (again available as targets in the current LVLH attitude) were Irrawaddy River delta, Myanmar (opportunity for detailed mapping in sun glint, just right of track), Karachi, Pakistan (nadir pass; ESC [electronic still camera]), Bombay, India (nadir pass; ESC), Tessina landslide site, Italy (active research is being undertaken in and around this hazardous Alpine avalanche site.  Request for a series of detailed views near nadir), Damascus, Syria (nadir pass; ESC), Tunis, Tunisia (left of track on the coast; ESC), Zambezi River wetland, Zambia (Dynamic event.  Sun glint opportunity just right of track for major mid- continent swampland drainage patterns, that are both poorly mapped and poorly understood), Seattle, Washington (nadir pass; ESC), Dakar, Senegal (nadir pass; ESC), Albuquerque, New Mexico (nadir pass; ESC), and La Paz, Bolivia (night target. Nadir pass).
CEO images can be viewed at the websites
http://eol.jsc.nasa.gov and
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov