Status Report

NASA Space Station On-Orbit Status 9 Aug 2003

By SpaceRef Editor

August 9, 2003

Filed under ISS, ISS On-orbit status, NASA HQ, US

NASA Space Station On-Orbit Status 9 Aug 2003 — iss

All ISS systems continue to function nominally, except as noted previously or below. Day 107 in space for the Increment 7 crew (from launch on April 25, Eastern Time); Day 105 of ISS residency. First crew rest day of this weekend.

As generally on Saturdays, Commander Yuri Malenchenko and Flight Engineer/Science Officer Ed Lu performed the weekly 3-hr. station cleaning. [This 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.]

Malenchenko attended to the daily routine maintenance of the Service Module’s (SM) SOZh life support system (including ASU toilet facilities), while Ed Lu prepared the daily IMS delta file for automatic export/import to update the database.

Both crewmembers completed their daily physical exercise program on TVIS treadmill and RED resistive expander.

Yuri and Ed conducted the weekly planning conference with the ground, discussing next week’s “Look-Ahead Plan” (regularly prepared jointly by MCC-H and MCC-M planners), via S-band/audio.

Malenchenko dismantled the Molniya-SM/LSO payload at SM window #3, deactivating the French-provided EGE1 laptop, which had been running since 8/6. He then stowed all hardware. [Objective of Molniya-SM was to record storm phenomena and other related events in the Earth’s equatorial regions, similar to the French LSO experiment, which looked for glow phenomena, called “sprites”, sometimes observable above thunderstorm clouds.]

Also in the SM, Malenchenko started the regeneration cycle on absorbent bed #2 of the BMP harmful impurities unit and switched channel #1 from Regeneration back to Purify mode. [The “bakeout” cycle in the filter beds is repeated every 20 days. Each bakeout to space vacuum takes about 24 hours.]

After deactivating the Vozdukh carbon dioxide (CO2) scrubber at 4:00am EDT (Daily Orbit 15), MCC-Moscow performed additional KOB thermal loop troubleshooting, activating the KOB-2 pump (4SPN1) to run in parallel to KOB-1. To prevent another load shed power-down due to thermal failures during the test, the “Survival Mode” transition commands were temporarily inhibited.

Later in the day, Moscow conducted the regular standard test of the critical linear accelerometer (BILU) of the 6S/Soyuz-212 (TMA-2) crew return vehicle, via BITS2-12 onboard telemetry system in VD-SU control system mode.

After the Russian GIVUS high-accuracy state sensors and BOKS star sensors of the SM were inhibited by S-band ground command, at 11:18am EDT the ISS maneuvered to XPOP attitude (x-axis perpendicular to orbit plane). Attitude control was then handed back to the US segment (USOS) motion control system and CMGs..

Late in the afternboon of 8/7, the crew reported that a toilet status light was lit, indicating low preservative quality. They were instructed to cycle the toilet six times in the closed position to clear the indicator light. The MCC-M will analyze the data. On last report, the system was again functioning nominally.

The Russian SKV-1 air conditioner remained powered off all day yesterday. [MCC-H was closely watching the dew point and humidity levels to avoid condensate issues in the US Airlock (A/L). Once condensate collection begins in the US Lab, Flight Rules require action within 8 hours in order to avoid A/L condensation issues.]

Plasma Contactor Unit #1 (PCU-1) continues in Discharge mode to support data collection for plasma hazard evaluation. [The data will be used to develop and verify a Plasma Interaction Model (PIM) in support of future operation of the Floating Potential Measurement Unit (FPMU). PCU-1 can be transitioned to Standby mode 24 hours after today’s transition of ISS to XPOP. PCU-2 will remain in standby mode.]

Starting on 8/5, MCC-H engineers coordinated with a larger test team across multiple sites to test the ISS Ku system’s ability to operate at 150 Mbps (megabytes per second). The tests, which concluded today, were successful and demonstrated that the onboard Ku system has greater margin than expected. [The test data will be analyzed over the next few weeks to specifically determine the operating envelope. This test supports future upgrades to the ground systems that will provide increased ISS bandwidth.]

Prior to the EMU activities on 8/7, the crew attempted to reinstall some panel fasteners in the A/L which had been removed previously. Hole misalignment made the planned fastener installation impractical. [Specialists will meet next week to determine next steps. These fasteners provide necessary structural integrity on two A/L panels to resist potential damage that could be inflicted by kick loads.]

Yuri had his weekly PFC (private family conference), via S- and Ku-band, with prime topic probably being his upcoming “remote” wedding to Ekaterina Dmitriev, scheduled for tomorrow, Sunday (8/10). [http://www.spacewedding.net/]

Weekly Science Update (Expedition Seven — 14th):
The crew was thanked for their work on CSLM-2 (Coarsening in Liquid/Solid mixtures #2), particularly for getting the hardware installed, especially with a bent plate: “Thus far, everything looks good; the current draw from the MSG ESEM was steady and did not vary after the first few minutes of operations. This indicated that the chamber was not leaking or experiencing out-gassing from within. Also, the current draw was slightly less than expected compared to what we have experienced during our ground testing. We believe this is indicative of a better than anticipated vacuum within the furnace. Initial review of the downlinked data on 8/8 shows that the run was flawless.” The onboard activities have concluded the engineering verification tests for CSLM-2 on this Expedition. The other SPU unit will likely not be run, but CSLM-2 has an analysis team to determine what went wrong and if there are workarounds.

GASMAP: The 30-day health check for July was completed successfully. Next 30-day check is scheduled for next week.: mid-August.

Human Research Facility/Workstation (HRF WS): Continuing.

Ultrasound (USND): Next Ultrasound session is planned for mid-September.

Pore Formation and Mobility Investigation (PFMI): Last PFMI on-orbit experiment was 11/20/02. Ground is looking forward to beginning operations again next week.

Space Acceleration Measurement System (SAMS): SAMS has been offline since 7/31 (3:21pm EDT) and a troubleshooting plan has been developed. The SAMS team is looking forward to working closely with the crew during upcoming recovery efforts.

Microgravity Acceleration Measurement System (MAMS): MAMS instrument was nominal throughout the week. The HiRAP accelerometer has been activated to make vibratory measurements until SAMS is restored to nominal operations.

Protein Crystal Growth-Single Locker Thermal Enclosure System (PCG-STES): The PCG-STES team expressed their appreciation for the professional way the crew got the STES up and running after the power-down event “event” last week.

Investigating the Structure of Paramagnetic Aggregates from Colloidal Emulsions (InSPACE): Current test matrix is complete.

Materials ISS Experiment (MISSE): In progress. Deployed outside. Nominal and collecting data.

Cellular Biotechnology Support Systems (CBOSS): CBOSS-FDI investigation will be scheduled sometime after 12P docking.

Earth Knowledge Acquired by Middle School Students (EarthKAM): Activities are completed for Increment 7.

Coarsening in Solid-Liquid Mixtures-2 (CSLM-2): Activities have been concluded for this Expedition.

Educational Payload Operations (EPO): The deferred EVA/IVA tool demonstration has been rescheduled for next week.

Crew Earth Observation (CEO): One of the CEO noctilucent cloud photos with the crescent moon is being published this week on Earth Observatory. The volume of CEO imagery continues to increase and ground specialists are working harder to keep up with reviewing and cataloging it. They are pleased to report that you thoroughly “nailed” the site of the Colossus of Rhodes with a beautiful series of near-nadir 800mm views of the northeast coast of the island. Another target of PAO interest was identified as the large forest fires near the Flathead River in northern Montana, British Columbia, and Alberta. ISS/CEO views were outstanding! The crew’s fine imagery of, and around Xiamen was cataloged this week. Their 800mm views near nadir are now excellent for their resolution, but are still a bit dark. It will be attempted to uplink more image files to help visualize and locate the more challenging targets on the list.

Today’s CEO targets (optional), 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 Lahore, Pakistan (nadir pass), Mausoleum at Halicarnassus (nadir or a touch left), Recife, Brazil (pointing a touch left for this ancient coastal city), Rome, Italy (nadir pass), Chao lava mass, Chile (nadir pass. Looking for a wrinkled mass of dark lava, one of the planet’s unique features), Lower Amazon River Basin (nadir pass over the estuary. Pointing left and right for detailed views), Caracas, Venezuela (nadir pass), London, England, Great Britain (nadir pass. Good weather persists as a high blocks the westward movement of the next Atlantic storm), Berlin, Germany (looking a touch left of track), and Monterrey, Mexico (nadir pass over Mexico’s major industrial city).
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, 8:07am EDT [= epoch]):