NASA Space Station On-Orbit Status 13 Oct 2003
All ISS systems continue to function nominally, except as noted previously or below. Columbus Day Holiday also on board the ISS. Today, Expedition 7 has been in space 170 days, nearly 100 days longer than Columbus spent on his journey to the new world in 1492 (72days).
CDR Yuri Malenchenko performed the daily routine maintenance of the SM SOZh life support system (including ASU toilet facilities).
FE/SO Ed Lu completed the regular routine status checkup of the autonomous ISS-7 Lab payloads, currently PCG-STES (Protein Crystal Growth-Single Locker Thermal Enclosure System) and CGBA (Commercial Generic Bioprocessing Apparatus).
The crew worked out with their daily 2.5-h program of physical exercise, on TVIS treadmill and RED expander. Both crewmembers took care of the weekly TVIS maintenance by inspecting their individually set SPDs (subject positioning devices).
At 10:30am EDT, the crew also had the monthly teleconference with ISS Program Management via S-band/audio, deferred from yesterday.
Upcoming Soyuz Events:
- 7S launch: 10/18 (Saturday), 1:37am Eastern, 9:37am Moscow, 11:37am Baikonur;
- 7S docking: 10/20 (Monday), 3:20am Eastern, 11:20am Moscow;
- 6S undocking: 10/27 (Monday), 6:20pm Eastern, 2:20am (10/28) Moscow;
- 6S landing: 10/27 (Monday), 9:36pm Eastern, 5:36am (10/28) Moscow.
Today’s CEO (crew earth observation) targets, limited in the current XPOP attitude by flight rule constraints on the use of the Lab nadir/science window, and including the targets of the Lewis & Clark 200-year memorial locations, were Lake Eyre, Australia (sun illumination and crew sleep have militated against good viewing of Australia for months. This was a rare opportunity with just enough sun for this major ecological site), Tel Aviv, Israel (looking left near the coast), Amman, Jordan (nadir pass), Statue of Zeus at Olympia (looking a touch right in a major valley on the west coast of the Pelopponese peninsula. A mapping swath should have captured the site),. Casablanca, Morocco (looking right on the coast), Barcelona, Spain (looking left on the coast), Chicago, Illinois (daylight image was requested to complement the fine recent night-time shot of the city from ISS [night shot is on short list for web display]), and Nihoa reef, Hawaiian chain (looking a touch left for this coral reef).
CEO images can be viewed at the websites
See also the website “Space Station Challenge” at
http://voyager.cet.edu/iss/
ISS Orbit (as of this morning, 11:25am EDT [= epoch]):
- Mean altitude — 380.8 km
- Apogee — 385.2 km
- Perigee — 376.3 km
- Period — 92.2 min.
- Inclination (to Equator) — 51.63 deg
- Eccentricity — 0.0006583
- Orbits per 24-hr. day — 15.62
- Mean altitude loss in last 24 hours — 75 m
- Revolutions since FGB/Zarya launch (Nov. ’98) — 27951
- For more on ISS orbit and worldwide naked-eye visibility dates/times, see
- http://www.hq.nasa.gov/osf/station/viewing/issvis.html