INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION STATUS REPORT: SS05-045

Melissa Mathews
Headquarters, Washington Sept. 23, 2005
(Phone: 202/358-1272)

INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION STATUS REPORT: SS05-045

NASA and Russian flight controllers outside Moscow are in control of
the International Space Station, after mission control in Houston was
evacuated ahead of Hurricane Rita. Aboard the station, Expedition 11
Commander Sergei Krikalev and Flight Engineer John Phillips have a key piece
of life support equipment up and running, just in time for the next space
station crew.

The crew activated the repaired Elektron oxygen generator this week. The
Elektron, which extracts oxygen from water, was put into service early
Monday. Krikalev and Phillips repaired the Elektron with a new liquids unit
that was brought up on a recent Progress spacecraft. Krikalev and Phillips
also performed maintenance on the on-board treadmill, a key piece of
exercise equipment to help keep astronauts' bones and muscles strong during
long stays in zero-gravity. They worked on an experiment designed to test
the effects of certain compounds on kidney stones, and they collected water
samples to be analyzed once they return to Earth.

The Expedition 11 crew is nearing the end of its six-month stay on the
station, and crew members spent part of the week packing up their return
spacecraft, the same Russian Soyuz that brought them to the station in
April. They also tested out their shock-absorbing seats for their landing,
scheduled for October 10, U.S. time.

With Hurricane Rita strengthening in the Gulf of Mexico and targeting the
Texas shoreline, the space station program activated a well-rehearsed plan
to allow flight controllers based at NASA's Johnson Space Center, Houston,
to evacuate. They transitioned full control of the station to Moscow, where
Russian mission control and a permanently staffed cadre of NASA flight
controllers, known as the Houston Support Group, are keeping the station
operating smoothly. Other agency resources were tapped to ensure the
station's safe flight. For example, at Goddard Space Flight Center,
Greenbelt, Md., two flight controllers arrived from Houston to maintain
communications with the station through Goddard's Network Integrated
Communications flight control room.

The next space station crew, Expedition 12's Bill McArthur and Valery
Tokarev, are beginning their journey toward launch. They traveled this week
from the Russian training facility at Star City to the Baikonur Cosmodrome
in Kazakhstan, where they'll launch to the station Sept. 30 aboard a Soyuz.
During their station stay, McArthur and Tokarev will mark five years of
continuous human presence in orbit and pursue the station's mission of
learning how to live and work for long periods in space.


For information about the space station on the Internet, visit:

www.nasa.gov/station

For information on NASA's preparations for Hurricane Rita on the Internet,
visit:

www.nasa.gov/rita

-end-

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Jacques :-)

www.spacepatches.info

Jacques van Oene wrote:
Melissa Mathews
Headquarters, Washington Sept. 23, 2005
(Phone: 202/358-1272)

[...]
Commander Sergei Krikalev and Flight Engineer John Phillips have a key piece
of life support equipment up and running, just in time for the next space
station crew.

Ahhh, finally...the news at the end of the week....

(Thanks, Jacques! But I did hope a little birdie would say something
ahead of the SR; no canaries out there, I guess)

/dps