International Space Station Status Report #40 - 2005

Allard Beutel
Headquarters, Washington Aug. 19, 2005
(Phone: 202/358-4769)

James Hartsfield
Johnson Space Center, Houston
(Phone: 281/483-5111)

INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION STATUS REPORT: SS05-039

International Space Station (ISS) Expedition 11 crew members completed
a spacewalk just days after the Station commander became the most
experienced space traveler.

Thursday's 298 minute spacewalk by Commander Sergei Krikalev and Flight
Engineer John Phillips was the 62nd to support Station assembly and
maintenance. It was the 34th from the Station and 16th from the Pirs docking
compartment.

The crew's first job was retrieval of one of three canisters from the
Biorisk experiment, a study of the impact of spaceflight on bioorganisms. It
was installed on the Pirs module by Expedition 10 in January; other
canisters will be retrieved on later spacewalks.

The crew moved to the large diameter section of the Zvezda module and
prepared two experiment payloads for removal. The Micro-Particles Capturer
uses aerogels and foam to collect natural and human-made orbital debris
outside the Station. The Space Environment Exposure Device has samples of
possible spacecraft materials like paint, insulation and lubricants, exposed
to the low Earth orbit environment. Matroshka is a biomedical experiment
collecting data on radiation absorption by crew members on long-duration
missions, especially when spacewalking.

The crew moved aft of Zvezda to install a backup TV camera to assist docking
the European Space Agency's Automated Transfer Vehicle, a new cargo craft
set to make its first flight next year. The crew documented the condition of
the Kromka experiment, which measures residue from firing nearby jet
thrusters. They also exchanged sample containers in the Russian materials'
exposure experiment called SKK.

By the time the crew transported the experiments and their tools inside
Pirs, they were about 45 minutes behind schedule. The estimated two hours
necessary to complete the last task, relocation of a Strela cargo crane
adapter from Zarya to Pressurized Mating Adapter 3 on the Unity node, caused
Russian mission managers to postpone it until a later spacewalk.

Yesterday's spacewalk was Phillips' first and Krikalev's eighth. He
collected 36 hours and 10 minutes spacewalking experience on seven
excursions during two missions on the Russian MIR space station.

On August 16, at 1:44 a.m. EDT, Krikalev's total time in space surpassed
Cosmonaut Sergei Avdeyev's record of 747 days, 14 hours and 14 minutes.
Krikalev flew two missions to Mir; two Shuttle missions; and two ISS
missions.

The Station's Russian Vozdukh carbon dioxide removal system has been shut
down since August 11. Russian specialists are working on a recovery plan.
The Carbon Dioxide Removal Assembly (CDRA) in the U.S. portion of the ISS,
which has been scrubbing the air since Vozdukh's shut down, failed Thursday
morning. It failed due to a stuck check valve, the latest instance of a
known and understood problem.

The CDRA is being managed back to operation by flight controllers in
Houston. The crew was informed carbon dioxide levels on the Station are well
below dangerous levels. Plans call for Krikalev to perform troubleshooting
on Vozdukh today.

For information about crew activities, future launch dates, previous status
reports and Station sighting opportunities on the Internet, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/station

For information about NASA and agency programs on the Internet, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/home/index.html


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Jacques :-)

www.spacepatches.info