International Space Station Status Report #34 - 2004

Report #34
4 p.m. CDT, Friday, June 25, 2004
Mission Control Center, Houston

Specialists in Moscow today continued to analyze the cause of an
unexpectedly high rate of pressure loss in the primary oxygen bottle on
Astronaut Mike Fincke's Russian space suit, which terminated Thursday's
spacewalk after 14 minutes.

Planners have retargeted the Extravehicular Activity (EVA) for no earlier
than Tuesday, June 29, based on Russian ground station communication
coverage. The date of the spacewalk is expected to be confirmed Tuesday
following the next meeting of the International Space Station's (ISS)
Mission Management Team.

Almost immediately after switching their Orlan spacesuits to internal power
and opening the Pirs Docking Compartment hatch to start the EVA, Fincke and
Expedition 9 Commander Gennady Padalka were told to terminate the spacewalk
and begin troubleshooting efforts to determine the cause of the pressure
loss in the primary oxygen tank on Fincke's suit.

Once the ISS was reconfigured for normal operations, the troubleshooting
began, which stretched into today with additional evaluations focusing on an
injector switch that increases the flow of oxygen into the Orlan spacesuit.
The crew cycled the switch on and off several times, while observing the
suit injector system's status light.

Though investigation into the cause of the injector switch problem will
continue throughout the weekend, Russian flight controllers assured the crew
that its procedures were executed properly and it could expect to use the
same suits when the spacewalk is rescheduled.

The objective of the spacewalk is to restore power to Control Moment
Gyroscope (CMG) #2 by replacing a Remote Power Controller Module (RPCM). CMG
#2 was taken off line April 21 by a failure of a circuit breaker in the
RPCM. Currently, because of the failure of CMG #1 about two years ago, the
attitude of the Station is being adequately controlled by the two remaining
CMGs.

Information on the crew's activities aboard the Space Station, future launch
dates, as well as Station sighting opportunities from anywhere on the Earth,
is available on the Internet at:

http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/

Details on 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 ISS status report will be issued as events warrant.


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Jacques :-)

www.spacepatches.info