NASA Space Station On-Orbit Status 8 August 2004
SpaceRef note: This NASA Headquarters internal status report, as presented here, contains additional, original material produced by SpaceRef.com (copyright © 2004) to enhance access to related status reports and NASA activities.
All ISS systems continue to function nominally, except those noted previously or below. Sunday — rest day aboard the ISS. Ahead: Week 15 for Expedition 9.
FE/SO Mike Fincke set up and activated the HRF (human research facility) and its ELC (EXPRESS rack laptop computer), then conducted an OCA comm data search preparatory to loading new software on the laptop. Closeout operations completed the task later in the day.
Mike also unstowed the “Urolux” equipment, setting it up for the Russian biochemical urine test (PZE MO-9) scheduled for tomorrow. [The MO-9 analysis is conducted regularly every 30 days and before and after Orlan-suited activities. It is one of five nominal Russian medical tests adopted by NASA for US crewmembers for PHS assessment as part of the “PHS/Without Blood Labs” exam. The MO-9 analysis uses the sophisticated in-vitro diagnostic apparatus “Urolux” developed originally for the Mir program.]
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CDR Gennady Padalka conducted the routine inspection of the Service Module (SM)’s SOZh life support system, with the weekly data collection of toilet flush counter readings, inspection of the SP urine collection and pretreat assembly, and SVO water supply status counter readings, all for calldown to TsUP/Moscow.
Fincke and Padalka completed their full regimen of physical exercise on VELO with force loader, RED (resistive exercise device) and TVIS (treadmill with vibration isolation and stabilization).
At 11:15am EDT, Mike held his weekly private family conference (PFC) via S-band/audio and Ku-band/NetMeeting video.
Yesterday’s MFMG “Saturday Science” program by the SO received grateful acknowledgment this morning for Mike working “extra time” with the Miscible Fluids experiment on his Saturday afternoon.
The FE was asked to verify the torque on the manual oxygen valve (HVO2) of the Major Constituents Analyzer (MCA)’s VGA (verification gas assembly), to help engineers eliminate the valve as a potential source of an apparent leak of verification gas from the MCA tank. [MCA verification gas is normally only used during a full MCA calibration and MCA activation. The ground has changed the activation procedure to eliminate verification gas consumption. However, there appears to be a leak of the gas.]
Working from the Russian task list, the CDR continued the current session with the Uragan (“hurricane”) earth-imaging program, using the Kodak 760 DSC (digital still camera) with 800mm-lens from SM windows #9. [Today’s task was to perform photo imagery of the Grushevskoye village/settlement in the Alexandrovskiy Region of Stavropol Territory. Grushevskoye is 80 km east of Stavropol, on the highway between Svetlograd — Gofitskoye — Grushevskoye — Alexandrovskoye.]
Also added to the Russian task list for today was photography of the BKDO contamination-monitoring unit attached near the DC-1 EVA hatch.
A third item on Padalka’s discretionary task list was to make preparations for the upcoming IFM (inflight maintenance) R&R of the turbo pump (with electronics unit) of the Russian TEKh-20 Plasma Crystal-3 (PK-3) payload, which requires the pump for evacuation of the PK vacuum chamber.
The station continues to fly in XPOP attitude (X-axis perpendicular to orbit plane), pitch: 0.8 deg, yaw: -8.0 deg, roll: 0 deg.
Major upcoming events:
- Progress 15P launch — 8/11 (1:01am EDT);
- Progress 15P docking — 8/14 (2:05am EDT).
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Today’s CEO photo targets, limited in the current XPOP attitude by flight rule constraints on the use of the science window, which is available for only ~1/4 of each orbit when not facing forward (in “ram”), were EQUIS Rocket Campaign, Kwajalein (visual range window for the sounding rocket launch was at 4:46-5:02am EDT), Noumea, New Caledonia (good nadir pass over a bright, modern city that Ed Lu shot beautifully during daylight), Singapore (this island nation was on the crew’s left about two degrees off track), and Aurora, Australia (looking right for several minutes).
CEO images can be viewed at these websites:
See also the website “Space Station Challenge” at:
To view the latest photos taken by the expedition 9 crew visit:
- http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/gallery/images/station/crew-9/ndxpage1.html at NASA’s Human Spaceflight website.
Expedition 9 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.
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.
