NASA Space Station On-Orbit Status 14 Sep 2003
All ISS systems continue to function nominally, except as noted previously or below. Second crew rest day this weekend. Ahead: Week 20 of Expedition 7, who is in great shape and going strong.
CDR Yuri Malenchenko performed the regular Sunday duty of collecting the weekly data readings of the Service Module (SM)’s toilet flush counter readings (with inspection of the SP urine collection and pretreat assembly) and SVO water supply status counter readings, both for calldown to MCC-M/TsUP.
FE/SO Ed Lu prepared the daily IMS delta file for automatic export/import to update the data base, while Yuri attended to the daily routine maintenance of the SM SOZh life support system (including ASU toilet facilities).
Both crewmembers worked out with their daily 2.5-h program of physical exercise, on TVIS treadmill, RED expander, and VELO cycle with load trainer.
The crew had their regular weekly PFCs (private family conferences), via S-band/audio and Ku-band/video.
As a new item on his discretionary task list, Malenchenko was to conduct a search for three tools shown in the IMS data base as “lost”, and stow two of them (a cutter and a tool kit with ratchet wrench heads) on the Node’s instrumentation panel #3.
The crew was requested by news media, through PAO, to provide images of Hurricane Isabel, the largest hurricane to be seen in the Atlantic basin in some years. Best time (and probably last opportunity) for Isabel viewing, as daylight orbits shift rapidly south, was 6:15am-6:22am EDT this morning, using the Lab window.
The crew will finish off this Sunday with work preparations for tomorrow, including a DOUG review of Monday’s scheduled Robotics activities and the replacement of three IDZh-2 smoke detectors in the DC-1 docking module.
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 Johannesburg, South Africa (nadir pass), Hurricane Isabel (Dynamic event. At its predicted position, this major storm appeared ~5-6 deg right of track just after sunrise. With low morning sun, this may have been the last opportunity to shoot Isabel as daylight tracks shift south), Navassa Island, Caribbean (nadir pass over the coral reefs), Kure reef, Pacific (nadir pass over the coral reefs), Midway Island reefs, Pacific (looking a touch left), Pearl & Hermes reef, Pacific (looking a touch left), Lisianski reef, Pacific (looking a touch left), Tuamotu Archipelago (good pass down the axis of this double chain of islands in the South Pacific. Looking left and right for coral reefs), and Wake Island reef, Pacific (nadir pass. Wake Island is an atoll of three coral islands classically built up on an underwater volcano [central lagoon being the former crater, coral islands developing on the rim]).
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, 7:50am EDT [= epoch]):
- Mean altitude — 380.8 km
- Apogee 384.7 km
- Perigee — 376.9 km
- Period — 92.2 min.
- Inclination (to Equator) — 51.63 deg
- Eccentricity — 0.0005765
- Orbits per 24-hr. day — 15.62
- Mean altitude loss in last 24 hours — 60 m
- Revolutions since FGB/Zarya launch (Nov. ’98) — 27495
- For more on ISS orbit and worldwide naked-eye visibility dates/times, see
- http://www.hq.nasa.gov/osf/station/viewing/issvis.html
