Status Report

NASA Space Station On-Orbit Status 16 August 2005

By SpaceRef Editor

August 16, 2005

Filed under ISS, ISS On-orbit status, NASA HQ/SpaceRef/NASA Watch, US

NASA Space Station On-Orbit Status 16 August 2005 — http://images.spaceref.com/news/iss.33.jpg

SpaceRef note: This NASA Headquarters internal status report, as presented here, contains additional, original material produced by SpaceRef.com (copyright © 2005) to enhance access to related status reports and NASA activities.

All ISS systems continue to function nominally, except those noted previously or below. >>>Today at 1:44am EDT, on this 124th day of Expedition 11, CDR Krikalev beat Cosmonaut Sergei Avdeyev’s three-mission space-endurance record of 748 days. With his total of six space flights, Krikalev thus has become the human with the most cumulative time in space, setting a new stay-time record with every further day in space. Congratulations, Sergei Konstantinovich!

The crew’s sleep cycle has now shifted four hours to the right, with wakeup this morning at 6:00am EDT. Sleep period begins at 9:30pm tonight. [Tomorrow’s workday will be from 6:00am – 7:30pm, followed by another adjustment on EVA day (Thursday): wake-up at 5:20am, sleep at 2:40am Friday (8/19) morning. Friday’s wake-up will be at 12:00 noon, with sleep period beginning at the regular 5:30p. Starting Saturday (8/20), the crew will then return to the normal schedule of 2:00am – 5:30pm (all times EDT).]

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Onboard preparations for EVA-14 on Thursday afternoon moved into the home stretch with a successful suit training run by CDR Krikalev and FE/SO Phillips in the DC1 docking compartment, supported by ground specialist tagups. [Specific results of the dry-run are yet to be evaluated.]

After yesterday’s completion of all EVA suit preparations, today’s dry-run activities began at ~10:30am EDT with Phillips tearing down and removing the air ducts between the Service Module Transfer Compartment (SM PkhO) and DC1 docking compartment/airlock, skipping ventilation fan V3, to make room for the subsequent suited exercise.

Meanwhile Krikalev configured the communications system for the exercise. [The suited run requires wireless Tranzit-B suit radio comm and temporary deactivation of the Russian VHF channel 1 (Very High Frequency, Russian: UKV1, for ultra-shortwave) to avoid interference from extraneous radio stations to the Orlans while over Russian ground stations (RGS). All EVA preps were monitored by the ground via audio.]

After another functionality and leak checking of the Orlan-Ms, their equipment and their interface units (BSS) in the DC1 and PkhO, the crew began donning EVA gear at ~11:50am, including putting on personal gear bags, biomed harness, thermal underwear, LCG (liquid cooling garment), low-noise headset, gloves, etc. After another checkout of comm hookups & biomedical parameter telemetry via the BSS interface system for vital signs and equipment monitoring, suiting up then culminated in ingress in the Orlans through their “backdoors” and sealing off of the backpacks. [A problem with John’s biomedical telemetry reception at RGS on the ground, found yesterday, was successfully overcome by swapping electrode harnesses.]

Next came functionality checkout of the suits and their BSS controls (e.g., temperature control handling, water cooling system ops), preliminary reduced-pressure fit checks at 0.4 at (5.9 psi) suit pressure, and half an hour of testing/training of suited mobility and translation inside the DC1, beginning at ~2:00pm [These exercises included translation to all DC1 work stations with mated fluid umbilical, verification of Orlan fit, checkout of onboard cooling system operation, assessment of how the interior DC1 config impacts operations with various gear and accessories such as the POV (EVA support panel) and BSS (Orlan interface unit), evaluation of stowage of hardware to be taken out during the spacewalk, plus some typical EVA-14 tasks, such as Russian-American-Russian safety tether swap, Strela crane cradle installation on a handrail, SKK-5 canister retrieval from its sealed container and restowing, removal of the special OTA (Orlan tether adapter) on the waist clevis of the Orlan-M, both solo and with crewmember help, etc.]

Egress from the Orlans was timelined for ~2:30pm, to be followed by restoration of communications settings to nominal operation, lunch break, and a two-hour period of post-training cleanup activities (changing clothes, drying out LCG, biomed harness belt, thermal undergarment, socks, comfort gloves, hygienic trunks and comm caps, remove LiOH canister and moisture collector, etc.)

Subsequently, after the Orlans are confirmed to be dry, they are to be re-equipped with fresh consumables/replaceable elements for the spacewalk on Thursday.

Before the dry run, Sergei deactivated the IK0501 gas analyzer (GA) of the SM’s pressure control & atmospheric monitoring system (SOGS) and exchanged its carbon dioxide (CO2) filter assembly (BF) with a new unit from FGB stowage (replaced last: 7/5/05). GA was reactivated and the spent BF stowed for disposal. [IK0501 is an automated system for measuring CO2, O2, and H2O in the air as well as the flow rate of the gas being analyzed.]

John performed the daily routine maintenance of the SM’s environment control & life support system (SOZh), including the toilet system (ASU), while Sergei, working off his discretionary “time available” task list, did the regular preparation of the IMS (Inventory Management System) “delta” file for automated export/import to the three IMS databases.

The crew performed their daily physical exercise program on TVIS treadmill (aerobic) and RED resistive exerciser (anaerobic), today at a reduced 1.5 hrs due to their subsequent strenuous physical activity in the DC1. Sergei’s workout continued his prescribed four-day microcycle exercise with 1.5 hr on the TVIS (today: Day 1 of a new set).

Today’s CEO (crew earth observations) photo targets from the Lab nadir/science window were Internal waves, W Azores, Atlantic (although not cloud-free, this pass offered reasonably good sun glint enhancement opportunities. As ISS approached from the WNW, the crew was to look forward and left of track for sea surface glint to the west and south of the Azores Islands), Cedar Creek Area, Minnesota (although this part of the world was rapidly losing light for this pass, weather looked excellent for this target area at the time of the pass. Beginning a near-nadir mapping strip from just west of Minneapolis and track ESE-ward to near La Crosse, Wisconsin on the Mississippi River, using the long lens for details), and Internal waves, N Patagonian Shelf (at the time of this pass, a rare winter clearing on the Atlantic side of Patagonia offered some nice sun glint possibilities. After ISS crossed the coast, the crew was to begin looking back near the prominent Valdez Peninsula until glint appears).

CEO photography can be viewed and studied at the websites:

See also the website “Space Station Challenge” at:

http://voyager.cet.edu/iss/

To view the latest photos taken by the expedition 11 crew visit:

http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/gallery/images/station/crew-11/ndxpage1.html at NASA’s Human Spaceflight website.

Expedition 11 Flight Crew Plans can be found at http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/station/timelines/

Previous NASA ISS On-orbit Status Reports can be found here. Previous NASA Space Station Status Reports can be found here. Previous NASA Space Shuttle Processing Status Reports can be found here. A collection of all of these reports and other materials relating to Return to Flight for the Space Shuttle fleet can be found here.

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