ISS Status Report No. 68 - 2004

International Space Station Status Report #04-68
4:45 p.m. CST Thursday, Dec. 23, 2004
Expedition 10 Crew

A Russian cargo spacecraft is on its way to the International Space Station.
The Progress resupply ship launched at 4:19:31 p.m. CST from the Baikonur
Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan, and less than 10 minutes later settled into orbit.
Moments after that, automatic commands deployed its solar arrays and
navigational antennas.

As the Progress launched, Expedition 10 Commander and NASA Station Science
Officer Leroy Chiao and Flight Engineer Salizhan Sharipov were a few minutes
from the start of their sleep period. The Station was flying over western
Chile at an altitude of 225 statute miles at the time of lift off.
Engine firings are scheduled overnight to raise and refine the Progress'
orbit and its path to the Station for an automated docking at 5:31 p.m. CST
Dec. 25. It will dock to the aft port of the Station's Zvezda living
quarters module. This will be the 16th Progress spacecraft to dock with the
Station. The Christmas Day docking will be broadcast live on NASA Television
beginning at 4:30 p.m. CST. The Johnson Space Center newsroom will be open
concurrent with the NASA TV coverage of docking.
The Progress is carrying 5,000 pounds of food, fuel, oxygen, water, spare
parts and holiday presents to the crew. It's loaded with 1,234 pounds of
propellant, 110 pounds of oxygen and air, 926 pounds of water, and more than
2,700 pounds of spare parts, life support system components and experiment
hardware. The manifest also includes about a 112-day supply of food in 69
containers to replenish the Station pantry. Other items on the Progress
include new laptop computers, replacement parts for the U.S. spacesuits and
additional components for the arrival next year of the European Automated
Transfer Vehicle, another type of automated cargo craft.
Chiao and Sharipov are scheduled to open the hatch to the Progress shortly
after 12 p.m. CST Sunday to begin unloading the cargo.
The Progress spacecraft that had been at the Station since August was
undocked yesterday by Russian flight controllers at 1:37 p.m. CST. Filled
with discarded items, it was commanded to deorbit about four hours later and
burned up in the Earth's atmosphere.
The crew also continued their science research this week. Chiao and Sharipov
conducted another in a series of tests of the Advanced Diagnostic Ultrasound
in Micro-G experiment.
On the first day, they took turns performing bone and dental scans on each
other. One day later, after six hours of fasting, Sharipov was the subject
for abdominal scans. Chiao also performed an abdominal scan on Sharipov to
recover from a previous session during which data was lost.
They also used the Crew Medical Restraint System for positioning the subject
and electrodes for electrocardiogram recording. The scanning and post-scan
activities were videotaped and photographed for downlinking to the ground
for interpretation. The experiment tests the diagnostic capability of
ultrasound for medical contingencies that could occur in a space environment
Later in the week, Chaio and the ground team conducted their post-session
analysis to discuss the successful ultrasound scans and in particular the
abdominal scan conducted on Salizhan. Conducting the scans repeatedly
increases the proficiency of crewmembers.
The experiment has already demonstrated the capability of non-medical
personnel to downlink diagnostic information for evaluation by medical
specialists on the ground. This "telemedicine" technique has application to
emergency medical care in remote areas of the earth, as well as for
astronaut crews traveling beyond low earth orbit.
Information about crew activities on the Space Station, future launch dates
and Station sighting opportunities from Earth, is available on the Internet
at:
http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/
For information about NASA and other agency missions, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov
-end-

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Jacques :-)

www.spacepatches.info