ISS Science Operations Status Report for week ending 10-09-02

Science operations aboard the International Space Station
this week were geared toward the docking today of Space Shuttle Atlantis, with
three new experiments scheduled for transfer to the Station and four completed
experiments to be ferried back to Earth.

The exchange of scientific experiments represents research
in the fields of medicine, biotechnology, agriculture, petroleum processing
and pharmaceuticals.† Scheduled for transfer to the Station this week are: the
Plant Growth Bioprocessing Apparatus (PGBA), the Commercial Generic
Bioprocessing Apparatus (CGBA), the Protein Crystal Growth Single-locker
Thermal Enclosure System (PCG-STES), and fresh samples for the Zeolite
Crystal Growth (ZCG) experiment.

PGBA will investigate the effects of microgravity on
plant structures. CGBA will serve as a refrigerator to stabilize biological
samples from PGBA for post-flight analyses. PCG-STES, which has flown on Expeditions
Two and Four, will again provide a temperature-controlled environment for growing
high-quality crystals of selected proteins that could yield insights in the
fields of medicine and agriculture. ZCG will continue to process zeolite crystals,
which are used on Earth in petroleum manufacturing and are being studied for
future applications in energy storage, electronics and more.

Returning to Earth with Atlantis on this mission are soybean plants grown in
the Advanced Astroculture experiment, PCG-STES protein crystals
for analysis, experimental capsules for drug delivery from the Microencapsulation
Electrostatic Processing experiment, liver cell tissue samples cultured
in the StelSys experiment, and Zeolite Crystal Growth experiment
samples processed during the mission.

Flight Engineer Peggy Whitson and the Pore Formation
and Mobility Investigation (PFMI) science team completed the fifth experiment
run on Sunday and a sixth experiment run on Monday in a research program to
learn more about how bubbles can weaken materials such as those used in semiconductors
and jet engine turbine blades.

Also on Monday, Whitson collected a gas sample from
the growth chamber of the ADVASC experiment in preparation for deactivation
and the return to Earth. With the Shuttle safely on its way, Whitson also on
Monday began preparing the zeolite crystal samples for return.

Selected crewmembers on Monday filled out their weekly
Crew Interactions survey on the Human Research Facility laptop computer.
Interactions is a computer-based questionnaire
intended to identify and characterize important interpersonal and cultural factors
that may affect the performance of the crew and ground support personnel during
Station missions.

On Tuesday, the crew conducted pre-spacewalk readings
on the EVA Radiation Monitoring (EVARM) badges. The badges, which will
be used in this week’s scheduled spacewalks, are designed to be worn in pockets
in the cooling undergarments of the U.S. spacesuits and measure radiation dosages
received by specific parts of the body during operations outside the Station.

Crew Earth Observation photography targets
for this week included Dar es Salaam, Tanzania; Khartoum, Sudan, Buenos Aires,
Argentina; Sao Paulo, Brazil; Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; Dakar, Senegal; the lower
Amazon River Basin; Caracas, Venezuela; the Tuamotu Archipelago in the Pacific;
and Monterrey, Mexico.

The crew continued its daily payload status checks
of automated science payloads to make sure that all experiments and payload
facilities continue to operate properly.

Research operations aboard the Station last week slowed
after NASA’s Mission Control Center in Houston shut down Wednesday in the face
of a threat from Hurricane Lili and transferred control to its Backup Control
Center in Moscow. During that period, high-rate data downlink from the Station
was not available, and the Station’s solar arrays were fixed. As a result,
power to some Station payloads was reduced by the Payload Operations Center
in Huntsville, Ala. The Operations Center returned to normal operations on
Friday after Mission Control was reactivated.