ISS Science Operations Status Report 13 Feb 2002
The Advanced Astroculture experiment was successfully activated today
(Feb. 13) to learn whether seeds from plants grown aboard the Space
Station last year will grow normally and produce second-generation
space seeds.
“We are growing Arabadopsis seeds during Expedition Four just as
we did on Expedition Two,” said Dr. Weijia Zhou, WCSAR director
and principal investigator for the experiment. “These will be
second-generation Arabadopsis plants produced from the seeds produced
by those first-generation space-grown plants. Additionally, we are
going to sample the plant tissue and preserve it for RNA and DNA
analysis after returning to the ground. Hopefully it will provide
important information regarding the impact of low gravity on the plant
gene expression. We and our commercial partner are looking forward to
a successful mission, and we appreciate the support we are receiving
from the crew and mission support teams on the ground.”
Arabadopsis thaliana is a member of the same family as cabbages and
radishes. Scientists are using the species to evaluate plant life
support technologies, its seed-to-seed life cycle and compare the
genetic makeup of space-grown plants with those grown on Earth.
This experiment was developed by the Wisconsin Center for Space
Automation and Robotics (WCSAR) and is managed by NASA’s Space
Product Development Program at Marshall Space Flight Center.
WCSAR’s commercial partner, Space Explorers Inc., is using the
experiment in its Internet-based space education programs. It
produces a ssubsl kit that allows students to design, conduct and
analyze the experiment and compare data through an online student
experiment database. The program is being marketed to kindergarten
through high school classes worldwide and is used in hundreds of
schools. The product also will be sold retail for home schools and
consumers.
Also on Wednesday, Commander Yury Onufrienko and Flight Engineer Carl
Walz completed their Crew Interactions surveys. Flight Engineer Dan
Bursch is slated to do his survey on Thursday. The crew also checked
radiation levels on the EVA Radiation Monitoring badges that will be
worn in U.S. EVA suits during spacewalks, including oen planned for
February 20.
The Earth Knowledge Acquired by Middle School Students (EarthKAM)
experiment was deactivated Sunday, Feb 10. During six days of
operations, the EarthKAM camera fixed in a Russian Service Module
window downlinked 844 images for middle schools around the world.
Eighteen schools were active during this period. Another round of
observations is planned for later in the expedition. Pictures we have
received so far using the 180mm lens are clear and wonderfully
detailed. The science team reports that participating students were
amazed at the increased level of detail resulting from the lens swap
from a 50 mm lens to a 180 mm lens. All schools have successfully
received images back, and continue to submit photo requests at an
increasing rate.
The Experiment on Physics of Colloids in Space began a 72-hour run
Sunday studying its slow fractal sample. Fractal clusters appear to
be growing slowly and will form an interconnecting gel sometime later.
Checkout of the Zeolite Crystal Growth furnace was completed Friday,
Feb. 8. Zeolites have a rigid crystalline structure similar to a
honeycomb. While a sponge is squeezed to release water, zeolites give
up their contents when they are heated or under a reduced pressure.
Zeolites can absorb liquids and gases such as petroleum or hydrogen
but remain hard as a rock. They form the backbone of the chemical
processes industry, and most of the world’s gasoline is produced
or upgraded using zeolites. Research could make them more efficient.
In space, larger zeolites with fewer defects may be produced for
easier study.
“The ZCG furnace check out went off flawlessly with commands sent from
Marshall as well as a remote site in Ohio,” said Dr. Al Sacco,
Jr., principal investigator with the Center for Advanced Microgravity
Materials Processing at Northeastern University in Boston, Mass.
“The ZCG team and our industrial partners look forward to
processing our zeolite samples during Expedition Four following their
launch on STS-110 in April. These commercially important materials are
being investigated by our partners in the petrochemical, petroleum and
electronic industries.”
The crew completed the Human Research Facility Ultrasound functional
checkout on Thursday and Friday. This checkout ensured that all HRF
Ultrasound hardware on-orbit is functioning properly, supporting plans
for future use of the device for both experimental and space medicine
applications. The checkout also tested the on orbit capability of
downlinking still images from the Ultrasound for the first time.
Also on Friday, one growth cylinder inside the Protein Crystal Growth
Single-locker Thermal Enclosure System was activated to begin
crystallization.
Geographical targets for the Crew Earth Observation program this week
included fires that accompany the dry season in the Congo-Zimbabwe
region of Africa, smog over the Mediterranean region, vegetation along
the Somalia coast, aerosols in the Ohio River Valley, pre-El Nino
water levels in Lake Poopo in Bolivia, and coral reefs and atolls in
the Tuamotu Archipelago in the South Pacific.
Editor’s Note: The Payload Operations Center at NASA’s
Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., manages all science
research experiment operations aboard the International Space Station.
The center is also home for coordination of the mission-planning work
of a variety of international sources, all science payload deliveries
and retrieval, and payload training and payload safety programs for
the Station crew and all ground personnel.
