NASA ISS On-Orbit Status 11 October 2009
All ISS systems continue to function nominally, except those noted previously or below. Sunday – Day 1 of Expedition 21, with CDR Frank De Winne (Belgium), FE-1 Maxim Suraev (Russia), FE-2 Nicole Stott (USA), FE-3 Roman Romanenko (Russia), FE-4 Robert Thirsk (Canada), FE-5 Jeff Williams (USA). Ahead: Week 1 of Increment 21.
Yest posadka! (We have Landing!) Welcome back home, Gennady Padalka, Michael Barratt and Guy Laliberte! After 199 in space (196 docked to ISS), Soyuz TMA-14/18S, carrying one third of the Expedition 20 crew plus the Canadian Space Flight Participant, landed successfully early this morning at 12:32am EDT (local time 10:32am) in the steppes of southern Kazakhstan northeast of the town of Arkalyk, with the crew in excellent condition and Guy sporting his red clown nose. [The 18S undocking sequence was initiated on 10/10 with the command to open the Soyuz hooks at 9:04pm EDT. 18S separated from the ISS DC1 (Docking Compartment 1) port at 9:07pm using the docking system springs. Three minutes after initial separation an automatic separation burn was performed by the Soyuz vehicle. A 4min 21sec de-orbit burn was initiated at 11:40pm. During descent, the tri-module separation was nominal (12:05am), and the 18S vehicle guidance system operated well. Russian SAR (Search & Rescue) helicopters sighted the parachute descent of the capsule and reached the crew immediately after touchdown. The crewmembers were reported to be in excellent health. They were flown to Kustanai to participate in the landing ceremony, and then boarded the GCTC (Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center) plane for Chkalovski Airfield of Star City near Moscow and the usual post-flight examinations at the “Prophy”. For Gennady Padalka, this was his third spaceflight, accumulating a total time spent in space of 586 days.]
After yesterday’s long workday (9:00am – 1:05am this morning), the six ISS-21 crewmembers are enjoying a really long (24h55m) sleep & rest period, from 1:05am – 2:00am tomorrow morning. The station sleep/wake cycle will then be back on the standard 2:00am-5:30pm EDT period.
The crew reported yesterday that the right dashpot on the ARED (Advanced Resistive Exercise Device) was broken. They crew were instructed to remove the failed dashpot and stow it for return. FE-5 Jeff Williams then successfully installed a new, onboard spare dashpot and obtained photo documentation of the hardware.
Still before Soyuz 18S departure, the crew set up TV equipment to obtain video of the first exercise on the new T2 COLBERT treadmill, followed by FE-1 Barratt and CDR Padalka taking turns to perform short duration speed tests on the newly installed device. Both crewmembers noted that the new treadmill was an excellent machine to use and run on and thanked all the ground teams for working the procedures and allowing them to run before they left station.
Also yesterday, FE-4 Thirsk fixed the instrumented TVIS harness by replacing a malfunctioning transducer with a spare, then activated the hardware for the exercise run on the treadmill. Afterwards, Thirsk downloaded the harness data and filled out a survey questionnaire to complete the SDTO (Station Development Test Objective).
Immediately before her bedtime this morning, Nicole Stott took her first eye test with the PanOptic experiment, which requires application of eye drops causing eye dilation for subsequent ophthalmic examination performed by Bob Thirsk as CMO. [The procedure, guided by laptop software, captures still & video images of the eye, including the posterior poles, macula & optic disc with the optic nerve, for downlink and expert analysis.]
No CEO (Crew Earth Observations) photo targets uplinked for today.
ISS Orbit (as of this morning, 8:02am EDT [= epoch])
Mean altitude — 345.3 km
Apogee height – 350.4 km
Perigee height — 340.1 km
Period — 91.44 min.
Inclination (to Equator) — 51.64 deg
Eccentricity — 0.00013248
Solar Beta Angle — -45.8 deg (magnitude increasing)
Orbits per 24-hr. day — 15.75
Mean altitude loss in the last 24 hours — 83 m
Revolutions since FGB/Zarya launch (Nov. 98) — 62427
Significant Events Ahead (all dates Eastern Time, some changes possible!):
10/14/09 — Progress M-03/35P launch (9:14pm EDT)
10/17/09 — Progress M-03/35P docking (DC-1, ~9:41pm)
10/27/09 — Ares I-X Flight Test
10/29/09 — HTV1 hatch closing
10/30/09 — HTV1 unberthing
11/04/09 — HTV1 reentry (destructive)
11/10/09 — 5R/MRM-2 (Russian Mini Research Module 2) on Soyuz-U
11/12/09 — 5R/MRM-2 docking (SM zenith)
11/12/09 — STS-129/Atlantis/ULF3 launch (ELC1, ELC2)
12/01/09 – Soyuz TMA-15/19S undock
12/21/09 — Soyuz TMA-17/21S launch — O. Kotov/S. Noguchi/T.J. Creamer
12/23/09 — Soyuz TMA-17/21S (FGB nadir)
01/??/10 — Soyuz 20S relocation (from SM aft to MRM-2)
02/03/10 — Progress M-04/36P launch
02/04/10 — STS-130/Endeavour/20A – Node-3 + Cupola
02/05/10 — Progress M-04/36P docking
03/18/10 — STS-131/Discovery/19A – MPLM(P), LMC
04/02/10 — Soyuz TMA-18/22S launch
04/28/10 — Progress 37P launch
05/14/10 — STS-132/Atlantis/ULF4 – ICC-VLD, MRM-1
05/30/10 — Soyuz TMA-19/23S launch
06/30/10 — Progress 38P launch
07/27/10 — Progress 39P launch
07/29/10 — STS-133/Endeavour (ULF5 – ELC4, MPLM) or STS-134/Discovery (ULF6 – ELC3, AMS)
08/31/10 — Progress 40P launch
09/16/10 — STS-133/Endeavour (ULF5 – ELC4, MPLM) or STS-134/Discovery (ULF6 – ELC3, AMS)
09/30/10 — Soyuz TMA-20/24S launch
10/27/10 — Progress 41P launch
11/30/10 — Soyuz TMA-21/25S launch
12/21/10 — ATV2 – Ariane 5 (ESA)
02/09/11 — Progress 42P launch
03/30/11 — Soyuz TMA-22/26S launch
xx/xx/11 — Progress 43P launch
05/30/11 — Soyuz TMA-23/27S launch
12/??/11 — 3R Multipurpose Laboratory Module (MLM) w/ERA – on Proton.
