ISS Weekly Science Status Report 16 May 2001
The Expedition Two crew and ground controllers continued to monitor and tend
research experiments started earlier in the mission and plan for new experiments.
The crew checked payloads to make sure lights, fans,
clocks and other equipment was operating, recharged batteries on portable radiation
sensors, transferring data from radiation sensors into storage recorders and
took documentation photos of experiments.
Operating normally this week were the: Advanced Astroculture (ADVASC)
plant growth experiment; Protein Crystal Growth Single Thermal Enclosure Unit
9 and one growth chamber of Unit 10 (PCG-STES) experiments; Commercial
Protein Crystal Growth-High Density (CPCG-H) experiment; three radiation
experiments – Bonner Ball Neutron Detector (BBND), Dosimetric Mapping
(DOSMAP), and Phantom Torso; and two Earth photography experiments
– Earth Knowledge Acquired by Middle school students (EarthKAM) and Crew
Earth Observations (CEO). And the crew continues to particpate in a
study called Interactions on crew working relationships.
The science team today sent Flight Engineer Jim Voss a list of experiments
they would like photographed and downlinked in response to a request by Voss
on Tuesday that additional science payload tasks be added to his list of optional
activities to be done if time permits. Voss completed the photography and downlinked
the pictures. Science teams are evaluating additional payload tasks for transmitting
to Voss.
The Advanced Astroculture experiment, activated May 10, became the first
U.S. payload to receive its experiment video on the ground. The science team
has since sent commands to change the growth chamber temperature and reach normal
operation temperature. Scientists at the University of Wisconsin Madison hope
to grow plants through an entire life cycle – from seed to seed.
Controllers reactivated the Station’s three radiation experiments May 10 after
they shut down Wednesday, May 9. The problem occurred during a data transfer
using the Human Research Facility Personal computer that controls the Bonner
Ball, DOSMAP and Phantom Torso radiation experiments.
The Microgravity Acceleration Measurement System (MAMS) experiment
was operated for about eight days to collect acceleration data during normal
Station operations before being turned off last Friday. It will be reactivated
Monday, May 21, to capture vibration and acceleration data during the docking
of a Russian Progress ship that week. This information is important to experimenters
who require very quiet operations for delicate microgravity experiments.
Science teams and controllers today continue troubleshooting activities with
the Commercial Generic Bioprocessing Apparatus (CGBA), which shut down
in the early morning hours Wednesday, May 9, during commanding from the ground.
CBGA is devoted to studying pharmaceutical manufacturing processes. Controllers
have tried to restart the experiment seven times. If the problem is caused
by experiment software, controllers hope the experiment will correct itself
when the computer is re-booted. If the problem is hardware-related, they do
not expect to recover the payload.
Scheduled for activation on Friday is the Human Research Facility payload
rack. It will provide an on-orbit laboratory that will enable life science
researchers to study and evaluate the physiological, behavioral and chemical
changes in human beings induced by space flight. Research performed with the
Facility will provide data relevant to longer term adaptation to the space flight
environment. HRF and its diagnostic tools will support a variety of human research
investigations.
The Medium-rate Communications Outage Recorder (MCOR) — the main storage device
for science data during periods when the Station is not in contact with satellites
or ground stations — stopped working Tuesday, May 15. It remains powered off
while controllers at Johnson Space Center are troubleshooting the problem. The
recorder stores information on experiment results and hardware operating conditions.
