Reboost Test Planned for Station

Reboost Test Planned for Station


A test firing of four Progress spacecraft thrusters is scheduled for today
at 4:12 p.m. EDT. The 114-second firing will raise the station's altitude
about 400 meters. Russian flight controllers are using this firing as a test
to determine the cause of an unexpected abort during last week's attempted
reboost procedure.

Aboard the station this week, Expedition 12 Commander Bill McArthur and
Flight Engineer Valery Tokarev are continuing preparations for a Nov. 7
spacewalk, which will be conducted out of the Quest airlock in U.S.
spacesuits. Spacewalk objectives include the installation of a new video
camera on the P1 truss structure and the retrieval of a probe attached to
the top of the P6 truss.

The station's Elektron oxygen-generating system was successfully restored to
service Oct. 22 after a five-hour troubleshooting session. Its primary pump
failed early Wednesday, but it continues to operate normally on the backup
pump.

On Monday, the crew talked with some special visitors to NASA's Johnson
Space Center, Houston. Rep. Ken Calvert (R-CA), Rep. Al Green (D-TX) and
Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX) spoke with McArthur and Tokarev from the
Mission Control Center.



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Jacques :-)

www.spacepatches.info

On-Orbit Status today:

The reboost test, on four thrusters on manifold #2 of Progress 19's DPO
propulsion system, is scheduled for later this afternoon at 4:12pm EDT, for
a 5-min burn generating ~0.25 m/s delta-V. [For the test, ISS attitude
control authority was handed over to the Russian MCS (motion control system)
and thrusters at 1:10pm, to be returned to U.S. CMG (Control Moment Gyros)
at 5:45pm. Attitude remains in XPOP (x-axis perpendicular to orbit plane)
until 11/6, when it will change to LVLH XVV (local vertical local
horizontal/x-axis in velocity vector) for the EVA next day.]