NASA Space Station On-Orbit Status 14 June 2003
All ISS systems continue to function nominally, except as noted previously or below.
Except for standard maintenance and optional task list jobs, the crew is off duty on this first day of the weekend. It’s a safe bet that they are enjoying their assortment of fresh fruits and vegetables brought up by Progress 11P.
“Flying” through their voluminous residence after wake-up at the regular 2:00am EDT, morning inspection, hygiene and breakfast, CDR Malenchenko and FE/SO Lu performed the regular weekly 3-hr. housecleaning, which involves removal of food waste products, cleaning of compartments with vacuum cleaner, wet cleaning of the Service Module (SM) dining table and other surfaces with disinfectants (“Fungistat”) and cleaning of fan screens to avoid temperature rises.
Yuri Malenchenko completed the regular weekly maintenance/inspection of the BRPK-1 air/liquid condensate separator of the SM’s SRVK water processing system.
The CDR also was to perform the regular daily inspection of the SOZh life support systems, while Ed Lu will prepare the daily IMS (inventory management system) delta file for automatic export/import to update the database.
The crew will conduct their regular daily workout on TVIS (treadmill) and RED (resistive trainer).
Working from the Russian discretionary task list, Malenchenko conducted another session of the Russian Uragan (“hurricane”) earth imaging program (GFI-8), using the Kodak DCS 760 digital camera with f/400 focal length lens.
Yuri and ED were also scheduled for their regular weekly planning conference with the ground via S-band/audio, discussing next week’s “Look-Ahead Plan” (regularly prepared jointly by MCC-H and MCC-M planners). They also had their weekly tagup with ISS Program management.
At 1:20pm EDT, Ed Lu is to engage in a ham radio pass with amateur fans at Apprenti-Sage School, an elementary school in Québec City, which has an attendance of nearly 600 students.
Weekly Science Update (Expedition Seven — 6th):
“The CEO images downlinked this week were phenomenal.” A valuable InSPACE run and Interactions session was also completed this week; as well as reboots on the EXPRESS Rack laptops. The ground is currently working with the EPO team to complete lesson plans for the remainder of the EPO activities this increment as the crew has requested. The middle school students that built the Wright Flyer were able to view the downlinked video this week and were very excited to see their work aboard ISS.
GASMAP: Next 30-day health check is next week.
Human Research Facility/Workstation (HRF WS): Continuing.
Pore Formation and Mobility Investigation (PFMI): Waiting to begin operations.
Space Acceleration Measurement System (SAMS): SAMS is nominal and currently analyzing data in support of general characterization of the ISS acceleration environment. Captured acceleration data with SAMS during 11 Progress docking.
Microgravity Acceleration Measurement System (MAMS): MAMS is nominal and currently analyzing data in support of general characterization of the ISS acceleration environment. Captured acceleration data with MAMS during 11 Progress docking.
Protein Crystal Growth-Single Locker Thermal Enclosure System (PCG-STES): PCG STES is operating nominally. Temperatures are holding steady at ~22.00 deg C.
Investigating the Structure of Paramagnetic Aggregates from Colloidal Emulsions (InSPACE): There was only one InSPACE run this week with the new large particle sample, but it proved to be a very interesting one. There was much structure development in both the straight and right angle views. Due to numerous available Ku band passes, the ground was able to see much of this activity in real time. There were massive columnar structures that appeared as dark bands on the RT view and as thick concentrated circular spots on the ST view. These structures continue evolving up to the end of the run. The ground also observed on the ST view a relationship between the size of the structure and their spacing. Looking forward to another successful run next week.
Materials ISS Experiment (MISSE): In progress. Deployed outside. Nominal and collecting data.
Earth Knowledge Acquired by Middle School Students (EarthKAM): Waiting to begin operations in July.
Coarsening in Solid-Liquid Mixtures-2 (CSLM-2): Waiting to begin operations.
Educational Payload Operations (EPO): The ground is working to compile a lesson plan for the Pu’ili Hawaiian flute activity as well as the remaining EPO activities for this Increment. The plans will hopefully be finalized very soon so that the crew can resume work with the EPO payloads. The students who built the Wright Flyer model were amazed when they saw their work on ISS. The crew’s participation in the EPO payload has touched many lives.
Crew Earth Observation (CEO): The crew received an animation of their aurora imagery created by Dr. Tony Phillips, editor of the NASA Science Internet site http://science@nasa.gov .. The crew’s “beautifully composed” photo of the Gosses Bluff, an ancient impact crater in Australia’s Northern Territories is this week’s CEO contribution to Earth Observatory (website see below). The crew was thanked for their enthusiasm on acquiring imagery of the Lewis & Clark sites. These are small, challenging targets to spot and describe, but there will be more and better opportunities through the summer to catch them with good illumination and hopefully better weather.
Today’s CEO (crew earth observation) targets, no longer limited in the current LVLH attitude and including the targets of the Lewis & Clark 200-year memorial locations, were Lake Nasser, Toshka Lakes (looking right of track this pass for rare sun glint views of both Lake Nasser and the new lakes in the desert to the west), Western Mediterranean Smog (this is a good pass to document smog over the industrialized Rhone River valley of southeastern France. As ISS crossed the northwestern Med, the crew was to look left of track), Eastern Mediterranean Smog (tracking southeastward over the Balkans and looking right of track towards Italy to document low sunlit smog plumes over the darker waters of the Adriatic Sea), Fort Mandan, ND (LEWIS & CLARK SITE: Looking left of track along the Missouri River in the vicinity of Bismarck for the site of the expedition’s 1805 winter encampment. A good context view of this area will be useful), and Congo-Zimbabwe Biomass Burning (burning season is approaching its seasonal peak in southern Africa. Looking left of track for smoke plumes and point sources).
CEO images can be viewed at the websites
http://eol.jsc.nasa.gov
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov
See also the website “Space Station Challenge” at
http://voyager.cet.edu/iss/
