International Space Station Status Report #03-58
4 p.m. CST, Friday, Nov. 7, 2003
Expedition 8 Crew

The Expedition 8 crew settled into life aboard the International Space
Station this week, squaring away their new home in orbit and beginning work
with several different experiments.

Commander and NASA ISS Science Officer Michael Foale and Flight Engineer
Alexander Kaleri began their week by making room inside the habitable volume
of the Station. After equalizing pressure with the Destiny Laboratory, they
opened Pressurized Mating Adapter 2 (PMA2) and stowed a variety of supplies
and equipment that will not be needed on short notice. They then closed the
hatch to PMA2 and depressurized the module.

Foale slipped on a specially instrumented glove as part of an Italian
scientific investigation into how hand and arm muscles are used differently
for reaching and grasping in microgravity. The Hand Posture Analyzer also
will attempt to quantify muscle fatigue associated with long-duration space
flight. Measurements taken with a Posture Acquisition Glove on the hand, an
Inertial Tracking System on the wrist and Hand Grip and Pinch Force
Dynamometers will be compared with those taken before and after flight.

Foale and Kaleri also began taking either potassium citrate pills or
placebos and recording their food, water and medication intake as part of
the Renal (Kidney) Stone Risk During Spaceflight experiment. Previous
on-orbit experiments have shown an increased risk in the development of
kidney stones during and immediately after space flight, and the experiment
is testing a proven Earth-based remedy in space.

Finally, Foale set up the Earth Knowledge Acquired by Middle Schools digital
camera in Destiny's optical-quality window so that students in grades six
through eight could take photos of the Earth and downlink them for analysis
by the student science team.

Meanwhile, Expedition 7 Commander Yuri Malenchenko and NASA ISS Science
Officer Ed Lu are at the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center in Star City,
Russia, continuing their immediate post-flight medical evaluations and
debriefings. They are expected to return to Houston on Nov. 18. They landed
on Oct. 27 after spending 183 days aboard the Station. Joining them on the
returning ISS Soyuz 6 spacecraft was European Space Agency astronaut Pedro
Duque of Spain, who conducted eight days of intensive research after
launching with the Expedition 8 crew.

Information on the crew's activities aboard the Space Station, and
instructions on how to view the Space Station from anywhere on Earth, is
available at:

http://spaceflight.nasa.gov

Details on Space Station science operations can be found on an Internet site
administered by the Payload Operations Center at NASA's Marshall Space
Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., at

http://scipoc.msfc.nasa.gov/

The next International Space Station status report will be issued Friday,
Nov. 14, or sooner if events warrant.


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Jacques :-)

Editor: www.spacepatches.info