NASA Space Station On-Orbit Status 21 May 2005
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.
As generally on Saturdays, Sergei Krikalev and John Phillips were off duty today, except for some housekeeping and voluntary work
Starting the day, the crew performed the regular weekly 3-hr task of thorough station cleaning, wearing protective garment. [“Uborka”, done every Saturday, includes removal of food waste products, cleaning of compartments with vacuum cleaner, wet cleaning of the Service Module (SM) dining table and other surfaces with “Fungistat” disinfectant and cleaning fan screens to avoid temperature rises.]
Later, the CDR did the daily routine maintenance of the Service Module (SM)’s SOZh environment control & life support system, including its ASU toilet system.
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Working off his voluntary “job jar” task list, Sergei also conducted another session with the “Uragan” (hurricane) earth-imaging program, focusing the Nikon D1X No. 3 digital camera with 800-mm lens on targets called out on an uplinked list. [Targets for today included such views as strip photography of Russian coastal line along the Argun and Amur Rivers, the cities of Blagoveschensk and Svobodny, the coastal line of the Russian mainland and both Sakhalin Island coasts, the North Kuril Islands, the Vakhsh River valley, including Nurekskaya Hydroelectric Power Plant, the city of Ulan-Ude and the eastern coast of Lake Baikal at the Selenga and Uda River merge point, the cities of Chita, Shilka, Nerechinsk and others in nadir, the sea coastal line along the shore from Terek River gullet to Apcheron filled with oil spills washed out by floods from Chechen mini refineries, general views and strip photography of the Aral Sea, infrastructure of central and suburban Karaganda, and fragments of the Katun River valley with overlays, in nadir and to the north all the way to Gorno-Altaisk city.]
Also off the discretionary task list, Krikalev took photographs of the cities of Sevastopol, Novorossiysk and Volgograd with the Nikon D1X with 800mm-lens, storing the images on flash cards. [The KPT-3 photography was done for Russia’s Environmental Safety Agency (ECON).]
Both crewmembers conducted their regular 2.5-hr. physical exercise program on the TVIS treadmill (aerobic), RED resistive exerciser (anaerobic) and VELO ergometer cycle with bungee cord load trainer (combination aerobic/anaerobic). [After reviewing John’s videotape of his TVIS run on 5/19, ground specialists, including Safety, today gave Phillips the Go for regular exercise on the treadmill in motorized and passive mode until 5/24/05, with a speed restriction of 6 mph, along with using the SM handrails unless the SPDs (subject positioning devices) are used. As was the case for Salizhan Sharipov, Sergei’s daily protocol prescribes a four-day microcycle exercise with 1.5 hr on the treadmill and one hour on VELO plus load trainer (today: Day 2 of a new set).]
Afterwards, Phillips transferred the exercise data files to the MEC for downlink, as well as the daily wristband HRM (heart rate monitor) data of his workout on RED, followed by their erasure on the HRM storage medium.
At ~10:00am EDT, Sergei and John engaged in the regular weekly planning conference (WPC) with the ground, discussing next week’s “Look-Ahead Plan” (prepared jointly by MCC-H and TsUP/Moscow timeline planners), via S-band/audio, reviewing upcoming activities and any concerns about future on-orbit events.
And at 12:45pm, Phillips had his weekly PFC (private family conference) via S-band/audio and Ku-band/NetMeeting video.
Preparations are underway on the ground for troubleshooting the US CDRA (carbon dioxide removal system) which experienced a failure on 4/21. [A checkout test of the onboard vacuum system is being prepared for Monday (5/23), combined with concerted diagnostic data gathering for the engineering analysis at MCC-H.]
Weekly Science Update (Expedition Eleven — 4th):
Human Research Facility/Gas Analyzer System for Metabolic Analysis Physiology (HRF GASMAP): The health check for the GASMAP by the Science Officer in the past week went well..
Human Research Facility/Workstation (HRF WS): Continuing.
Advanced Ultrasound (ADUM): An ADUM OPE training session and a Scan A are scheduled next week. This will be the same scanning routine that Dr. Phillips performed during the Joint Ops period with Leroy Chiao.
Renal Stone (RS): In progress.
Foot/Ground Reaction Forces during Space Flight (FOOT): The SO was thanked once again for his outstanding work this week: “We all feel fortunate to have such a dedicated and conscientious person as you on our team. As soon as we have analyzed the data and video from your session we will work to get you some feedback. For now, we can say that from what we saw in real time it looked like you were successful in adjusting the foot plates for the EMC calibration and that your exercises went well.”
Space Acceleration Measurement System (SAMS): SAMS remains in nominal operations.
Microgravity Acceleration Measurement System (MAMS): MAMS remains in nominal operations.
Protein Crystal Growth-Single Locker Thermal Enclosure System (PCG-STES): PCG-STES is performing nominally.
Binary Colloidal Alloy Test-3 (BCAT-3): BCAT-3 Slow Growth Sample Module will be left undisturbed in its current location by the E11 crew. In order for the samples to potentially grow crystals that can be photographed during Increment 12 operations, the Sample Module must be left undisturbed.
Materials ISS Experiment (MISSE): In progress. Deployed outside on the U.S. Airlock. Nominal and collecting data. To be exchanged during LF-1.
Dust and Aerosol Measurement Feasibility Test (DAFT): Nothing new.
Earth Knowledge Acquired by Middle School Students (EarthKAM): Nothing new. Will be back in July.
Serial Network Flow Monitor (SNFM): All done for Increment 10. Will be taken up again in the near future.
Fluid Merging Viscosity Measurement (FMVM): Nothing new. Will be taken up again in the near future.
Space Experiment Module (SEM): Nothing new. Experimenters and kids are working to get the next two satchels on ULF1.1.
Miscible Fluids in Microgravity (MFMG): Nothing new. Rolled over to Increment 11.
Educational Payload Operations (EPO): Thanks went up the SO for supporting EPO last week. Specialists were on console while John sent down the introduction and closing for the video and it certainly met their objective. The ground is looking forward to viewing what Phillips taped for the rest of the demo. Thanks again to Expedition 11 for helping NASA Education inspire the next generation of explorers!
Crew Earth Observations (CEO): As of 5/18, a total of 1131 CEO images have been downlinked by Expedition 11 and reviewed on the ground. Investigators plan to start providing more supporting images to help the crew locate their targets.
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Today’s CEO (crew earth observations) photo targets, in the current LVLH attitude no longer limited by flight rule constraints on the use of the Lab nadir/science window, were Beni River dynamics, Bolivia (the Beni River breaks out of the Cordillera Oriental of northwestern Bolivia just east of Lake Titicaca. It then meanders northward toward Amazonia. Because of its heavy sediment load, the lighter colored river contrasts well with the vegetation of the surrounding floodplain. Its pattern of meanders and oxbow lakes is quite dynamic from year to year. As ISS crossed Lake Titicaca the crew looked left of track for the Beni and began mapping it for context views to be used later in indicating specific areas of interest), Internal waves, E & W Florida coasts (although outflow cirrus clouds from Adrian may be encroaching from the south, this may have been an excellent pass for details of the internal wave structures in and around the Tampa Bay area and then just north of Cape Canaveral. Near nadir views with landmarks are best), Red River Basin, TX (land use changes are the features of interest in this target area. The crew used the long lens to map the river valley from just north of Wichita Falls eastward to Lake Texoma), and Stardust Site (next January, NASA’s comet sample return mission “Stardust” is scheduled to land in the desert SW of Great Salt Lake. The presence of and potential locations for transient water bodies in this relatively flat area is of interest to recovery teams. For this initial pass the crew was to try for nadir context views as they crossed the area indicated on an uplinked map file.)
CEO photography can be viewed and studied at the websites:
- http://eol.jsc.nasa.gov
- http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov
- http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Study/AstronautPhotography/
See also the website “Space Station Challenge” at:
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/
Some Increment 11 Main Events (not final):
- Progress M-52 (17P) undock — 6/16;
- Progress M-53 (18P) launch — 6/17 (dock 6/19);
- Reboost — ~6/22 (delta-V 1.5 m/s);
- LF-1/STS-114 launch — NET 7/13 (window opens);
- Soyuz TMA-6 (10S) relocate (from DC-1 to FGB) — 8/16;
- Progress M-53 (18P) undock — 8/23;
- Progress M-54 (19P) launch — 8/24 (dock 8/26);
- ULF1.1/STS-121 launch — NET 9/9 (window opens);
- Soyuz TMA-7 (11S) launch — 9/27 (dock 9/29);
- Soyuz TMA-6 (10S) return — 10/7.
ISS Altitude History
Apogee height — Mean Altitude — Perigee height
For more on ISS orbit and worldwide ISS naked-eye visibility dates/times, see http://www.hq.nasa.gov/osf/station/viewing/issvis.html. In addition, information on International Space Station sighting opportunities can be found at http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/realdata/sightings/ on NASA’s Human Spaceflight website. The current location of the International Space Station can be found at http://science.nasa.gov/temp/StationLoc.html at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center. Additional satellite tracking resources can be found at http://www.spaceref.com/iss/tracking.html.
