ISS Weekly Science Status Report 13 June 2001
All science payloads on board the International Space Station have
been activated as of this week.
On Tuesday, June 12, Flight Engineer Jim Voss activated the Active
Rack Isolation System International Space Station Characterization Experiment
(ARIS-ICE). Many microgravity experiments on the Station require
a disturbance-free environment. ARIS — an experimental system of sensors,
actuators and pushrods in the EXPRESS Rack 2 – is designed to damp out
vibrations caused by equipment vibrations and crew activities such as
exercise. When sensors detect disturbances from the Station, the actuators
work to counter the effects of vibrations by delivering a reactive force
between the payload rack and the laboratory module, acting like a powered,
smart shock absorber.
ARIS ICE is a separate experiment designed to characterize the performance
of the ARIS vibration damping equipment. It includes a “shaker unit”
that provides a precise, measurable disturbance to simulate possible
disturbances in the Station environment.
“We’re pretty happy about what happened,” said Jim Allen, ARIS-ICE
project lead and payload developer with The Boeing Co. of Houston. “Power
and data cables for the Payload On-orbit Processor were installed and
it was successfully activated for the first time. Several commands to
the processor were successfully uplinked and executed, and initial checkout
tests started Tuesday. ARIS itself will be activated later this week
or early next week.”
Tests of the experimental system will be conducted daily in 16- and
24-hour blocks over a period of several weeks during Expeditions 2,
3 and 4.
With activation of ARIS-ICE, all experiments on the Station have been
activated or completed. A vibration sensor called the Space Acceleration
Measurement System experiment has been activated, although not all of
its sensors are yet activated. One more Expedition Two payload – a passive
protein crystal growth experiment — is scheduled to arrive on the 7A
Station assembly mission.
Also Tuesday, Flight Engineer Susan Helms activated the Ultrasound
Imaging System, located in the Human Research Facility, a payload
rack dedicated to studying the physical, chemical and behavioral effects
of spaceflight on humans. The system provides three-dimensional image
enlargement of the heart and other organs, muscles and blood vessels.
Helms performed a physical evaluation of the imager by holding the sensor
unit to her carotid artery.
On Monday, June 11, Susan Helms activated the fourth of six growth
cylinders in the Protein Crystal Growth Single Thermal Enclosure
System (PCG-STES) Unit 10. She was scheduled to activate the fifth
cylinder today. The sixth cylinder is a control unit and will not be
activated. This experiment is scheduled to be completed and deactivated
on Friday, June 15. The goal of this experiment is to use the microgravity
environment of the Station to grow larger and more perfect biological
materials than is possible on Earth. By analyzing these materials back
on Earth, scientists hope to gain new insights into biological functions
important in the fields of medicine, agriculture, the environment and
other biosciences.
An identical unit called PCG-STES Unit 9 was activated earlier in Expedition
Two and continues to function normally. A total of 756 biological crystal
experiments will be housed in the two STES units.
During the past week, the crew has continued to ensure that all the
experiments running in the Destiny laboratory module are operating correctly.
They have kept portable radiation sensors recharged and downloaded their
data to a laptop computer for transmitting later to the ground. Video
from the Advanced Astroculture plant growth experiment showed that the
seedlings have begun to flower. On a list of optional items for the
crew to do this week if their schedule permits are additional tests
with the MACE II space structures experiment and activities with the
lab’s three major radiation monitoring experiments.
