International Space Station Status Report #65 - 2004

Report #65
4 p.m. CST, Friday, December 3, 2004
Mission Control Center, Houston

The International Space Station's Expedition 10 crewmembers completed the
first 50 days of their six-month mission this week, highlighted by a short
flight in their Soyuz spacecraft.

To put the Station in the preferred configuration for two spacewalks out of
the Russian Pirs Docking Compartment next year, Commander Leroy Chiao and
Flight Engineer Salizhan Sharipov moved their ISS Soyuz 9 spacecraft Monday
from Pirs to the Earth-facing docking port on the Zarya module during a
21-minute flight. The work to prepare the Station for possible autonomous
operations, and then to reconfigure it for normal operations, stretched from
Sunday afternoon until early Monday afternoon.

After getting off duty time Tuesday and Wednesday to rest, Chiao and
Sharipov spent the rest of the week on routine maintenance tasks, such as
the regeneration of filter cartridges in the Elektron oxygen generation
system. They also completed audits of on board computer hardware and food as
mission managers finalize the appropriate manifest for the next Russian
cargo craft. The ISS Progress 16 spacecraft will ferry food, fuel, clothing
and other supplies to the Station. The audit of food supplies aboard the
Station confirmed that sufficient food remains for the crew until arrival of
the next supply craft. Managers have adjusted the amount of food to be
carried on the Progress, however, to ensure onboard stores are fully
replenished.

Included in the cargo are three laptop computers that will return the
Station Support Computer network to full functionality. This week, one of
the computers that crewmembers use to access messages while working at the
Zvezda module's command post, failed. Another computer is being temporarily
moved from Sharipov's sleep station to the command post until the new
laptops are delivered.

The new Progress cargo ship is targeted for launch from the Baikonur
Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 4:19 p.m. CST on Dec. 23 (2219 GMT), and is due
to arrive at the Station just after 6 p.m. CST on Christmas night (0005 GMT
on Dec. 26).

Chiao and Sharipov will spend time over the next three weeks loading
unneeded materials from throughout the Station into the Progress currently
mated to the Zvezda module. It will be undocked and deorbited on Dec. 22.

On Tuesday, Sharipov located a missing component of an American spacesuit's
cooling pump. The shim, a washer-shaped piece of metal that is custom fit
for each spacesuit, was missing last month at a time when Chiao was
repairing the spacesuit's pump assembly. The shim was planned to be
installed in a portion of the spacesuit in a pure oxygen environment to
ensure it is in pristine condition and free of contamination. Spacewalk
specialists at the Johnson Space Center decided further spacesuit repair
attempts will utilize a new shim to be delivered on the upcoming Progress to
avoid any potential contamination from the shim that was temporarily lost.

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 Dec. 10, or sooner if events
warrant.




--
--------------

Jacques :-)

www.spacepatches.info