NASA Space Station On-Orbit Status 22 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. Sunday — second crew rest day. Ahead: Week 5 for Increment 11.

As part of the regular morning inspection after wakeup, CDR Krikalev today checked up on the ASU urine collection system in the Service Module (SM) behind panel 454.

Later, Sergei completed the daily routine maintenance of the SM’s SOZh environment control & life support system and collected the weekly toilet flush (SP) counter and water supply (SVO) readings for calldown to TsUP/Moscow.

At ~8:00am EDT, after the crew set up the Russian TV system, the CDR enjoyed his weekly PFC (private family conference) via Russian ground sites on Daily Orbit 2, with Ku- and S-band (Houston-Moscow) as backup.

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 the city of Komsomolsk-on-Amur, the Amur River valley, both coasts of Sakhalin Island, volcanoes of Kamchatka, details of the upper waters of the Katun River, the main mountain, Belukha, of the Altai range, woodlands on the western Angara River bank at the point of Belaya River debouchment, the “Berovskie knolls”, i.e., numerous ripples that are traces of ancient sea recession west of the Volga delta, the city of Guriev, Lake Teletsk, the major And-Uaskaran volcano (location of the largest disaster of the 20th Century with mud slides which killed more than 20,000 people, etc.]

Also off the discretionary task list, Krikalev conducted his second run of the “Diatomeya” ocean observations program, using the DSR PD-150P video camera on SM window #8 and Nikon F5 digital still camera with 24/85-mm lens from window #7 to obtain data characterizing the impacts of river influxes, sea-floor relief, hydrodynamic and atmospheric phenomena on bio-production processes during the end of May. [Today’s observations focused on the North Atlantic — from the Amazon over the mid-Atlantic ridge to the coast of Portugal (sea border line of the Amazon river run-off, transition of cumulous clouds into stratus clouds, color contrast formations along track), and the Pacific Ocean — from the East-Pacific Elevation region west of Easter island over south tropical front waters, the Isthmus of Panama, Caribbean sea with Cuba and Bahamas (color contrast formations and structural anomalies in cloud field along track, oil spills and contamination in the Caribbean sea waters, Cuba and Bahamas island coastal waters).]

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). [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 3 of a new set).]

Preparations are underway on the ground for troubleshooting the CDRA (carbon dioxide removal system) in the Lab 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.]

No CEO (Crew Earth Observation) targets today.

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:

• 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/

ISS Orbit (as of this morning, 6:12am EDT [= epoch]):

• Mean altitude — 353.1 km
• Apogee height — 357.0 km
• Perigee height — 349.2 km
• Period — 91.60 min.
• Inclination (to Equator) — 51.64 deg
• Eccentricity — 0.0005787
• Solar Beta Angle — -5.4 deg (magnitude increasing)
• Orbits per 24-hr. day — 15.72
• Mean altitude loss in last 24 hours — 95 m
• Revolutions since FGB/Zarya launch (Nov. 98) — 37162

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.