ISS Status Report, 18-02-2005

Allard Beutel
Headquarters, Washington Feb. 18, 2005
(Phone: 202/358-4769)

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

INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION STATUS REPORT: SS05-008

The International Space Station crew is preparing for the arrival of
fresh supplies aboard a Russian cargo ship. The seventeenth Progress to go
to the Station is set to launch on Feb. 28 from Baikonur, Kazakhstan. It
will dock with the orbiting laboratory March 2.

Expedition 10 Commander and NASA Station Science Officer Leroy Chiao and
Flight Engineer Salizhan Sharipov are in the fifth month of a six month stay
in orbit. The Progress cargo spacecraft attached to the Station will be
undocked, reenter the atmosphere and burn up on Feb. 27.

This week several steps were taken to ensure all supplies are used from
aboard the docked Progress before it is jettisoned. On Tuesday, Russian
flight controllers fired the Progress engines for about seven and one half
minutes, boosting the Station's orbit by approximately two miles. Additional
propellant was transferred from that craft into tanks aboard the Station.

Oxygen from tanks aboard the Progress is the primary method for refreshing
Station cabin air. Several repressurizations of the cabin are planned to
deplete those tanks before the craft is jettisoned. The Elektron, a device
that normally generates oxygen for the cabin by recycling wastewater, has
been intentionally turned off.

On Friday, Sharipov removed equipment associated with the Kurs automatic
docking system from the Progress craft and stored it aboard the Station for
reuse. Next week the crew will spend several hours stowing unneeded gear and
trash aboard the Progress.

Other tasks completed by the crew this week included a semi-annual, thorough
inspection of the special exercise treadmill. Over the course of several
days, the crew partially disassembled the treadmill, which includes a
special vibration isolation system to prevent exercise from disturbing
sensitive experiments on the Station, to inspect its components.

All was found in good condition, except for the loss of one small,
non-essential battery used to operate a timer.

Mission Control powered up the Mobile Base System, a type of rail car base
for the Station's robotic arm that allows it to move up and down the truss,
to check its operation. Controllers found they could not receive video from
a television camera mounted on a mast on the base system, nor would the
camera respond to pan and tilt commands.

Engineers are evaluating the problem and planning possible troubleshooting.
The camera is among several exterior Station cameras planned for use next
week during a test of ground-commanded remote control of the robotic arm
from Mission Control.

The Expedition 10 crew served as test subjects this week in a successful run
of the Advanced Diagnostic Ultrasound in Microgravity (ADUM) experiment.
Chiao set up the equipment. Chiao and Sharipov performed ultrasound bone
scans and abdominal imaging on each other by taking turns as operator and
subject. The bone scans were taken of the subject's shoulder, elbow, knee
and ankle, monitored remotely from the ground, videotaped and photographed
for down link.

ADUM investigates the diagnostic capability of ultrasound in medical
contingencies relevant to the space environment and demonstrates the ability
of minimally trained crew members to perform and interpret advanced
ultrasound examinations. The images are down linked to the ground for
interpretation. This
"telemedicine" has important applications to emergency medical care in
remote areas of Earth, as well as for astronaut crews traveling beyond low
Earth orbit. The payload operations team at NASA's Marshall Space Flight
Center coordinates science activities on the Station.

Chiao and Sharipov took time out from their activities to speak with
attendees at the European Space Agency Conference on Space in Brussels,
Belgium, this week.

Information about crew activities on the Space Station, future launch dates
and sighting opportunities from Earth, is available on the Internet at:

http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/

For information about NASA and other agency programs and missions on the
Web, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov

-end-


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

Jacques :-)

www.spacepatches.info

AP - The state attorney general plans to file paperwork this week to
seek the Republican nomination for Florida governor, sources close to
the attorney general said Sunday.brbr'View the Entire Article'
(http://tinyurl.com/85g7c)


--
Yahoo


------------------------------------------------------------------------
Yahoo's Profile: http://forums.yourdomain.com.au/member.php?userid=10
View this thread: http://forums.yourdomain.com.au/showthread.php?t=42962