ISS On-Orbit Status, 06-12-2003

ISS On-Orbit Status 6 Dec 2003

All ISS systems continue to function nominally, except as noted previously
or below. First crew rest day this weekend.

CDR/SO Michael Foale and FE Alexander Kaleri performed the regular 3-hr.
Saturday task of station cleaning. [The "uborka stantsii" focuses on
removal of food waste products, cleaning of compartments with vacuum
cleaner, wet cleaning of the Service Module (SM) dining table and other
surfaces with disinfectants ("Fungistat") and cleaning of fan screens to
avoid temperature rises.]

Kaleri completed the third experiment run of the current Russian TEKh-20
Plasma Crystal-3 (PK-3) experiment series, activating the turbopump for work
chamber evacuation, setting up the hardware and preparing the video
coverage, while tagging up with ground specialists. During the run, Alex
periodically monitored pressure readings and reported result during comm
passes. Finally, the PK-3 hardware was dismantled. [The experiment is
performed on plasma, i.e., fine particles charged and excited by RF/radio
frequency power inside the evacuated work chamber. The experiment is
conducted in automated mode.]

For the 30-Year Anniversary of MCC-Moscow's Main Real-Time Mission Control
Group, Kaleri and Foale downlinked cordial greetings, to be replayed on
12/19 at the celebration at the M.I.Kalinin Cultural Center of Korolev, near
Moscow. [TsUP has invited RSC-Energia management, employees of other
departments of its organization, specialists of IBMP (Institute of
Biomedical Problems), GCTC (Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center), Khrunichev
Center, and colleagues from NASA and ESA. The crew's downlink was prepared,
Russian-style, in poetic verses. For example, Mike Foale (roughly
translated): "You're 30 now -- quite an age. You have created a lot. As time
goes by, stations are flying, Changing orbit by orbit."]

Working off the Russian task list, Kaleri conducted another session of
the Russian Uragan earth imaging program, using the Kodak 760 DSC (digital
still camera) from SM window #9. [Today's task featured imagery of the city
of Lagos, the island of Rhodes, the coastlines of Crete and Turkey, Ankara,
cities on the Black Sea, Caucasian spa cities Kislovodsk, Pyatigorsk, etc.,
the Waskaran volcano, the Andes mountains and cities along the Cuban
coastline.]

Also on Sasha's discretionary task list for today was another set of
observations for the Diatomeya ocean research program. [He used the Nikon
F5 with f/80 mm lens and the Sony DVCAM-150 digital camcorder, fixed at SM
window #7, to shoot nadir images of seawater blooms on the ocean surface,
anomalies in cloud fields, and surface manifestations of water dynamics.
Recommended targets were the SE Atlantic, with the bioproductive area over
the northern slope of the underwater Kitoviy sea range, the Guinea region of
the E Atlantic, the Black Sea, and the SW Atlantic, with the shelf and slope
waters of the Brazil and Argentina coastline.]

The crew worked out according to their regular daily physical exercise
program of 2.5 hrs on the TVIS treadmill, RED exerciser, CEVIS cycle
ergometer and VELO bike (with load trainer).

A task has been added to the discretionary U.S. "job jar" task list for the
crew to locate a number of video cables that can be strung together to
extend about 90 ft from the U.S. video recorder (VTR) equipment to the TVIS
treadmill in the Service Module (SM), in response to CDR Foale's request for
real-time video downlink during next Tuesday's TVIS IFM (in-flight
maintenance). In preparation for the IFM, MCC-H also uplinked two TVIS gyro
videos.

Kaleri conducted the daily routine maintenance of the SM's SOZh life support
system. [Besides general inspection of pipes and joints, this task includes
necessary maintenance of the water supply system, toilet facilities and
Elektron oxygen generator system.]

The crew had their regular weekly PFCs (private family conferences), via
S-band/audio and Ku-band/video.

In a repeat of last week's special ARISS (Amateur Radio International Space
Station) ham radio event, Mike Foale today was provided pass times to
downlink words of condolence and sympathy for former NBC News correspondent
Roy Neal, who died last week at a North Carolina hospital at age 82
following heart surgery performed last August. [For background on Roy Neal,
see 11/29 Status Report.]

At 10:10am EST, the station changed its flight attitude, maneuvering from
earth-oriented LVLH (local vertical/local horizontal) to solar-pointing XPOP
(x-axis perpendicular to orbit plane). The next change will be on Monday
(11/8), when ISS will maneuver to YVV (y-axis in velocity vector) attitude,
flying "broadside into the wind". [Today's maneuver was conducted by the
Russian MCS (motion control system) on SM and Progress thrusters, with the
U.S. CMGs standing by for subsequent attitude hold if needed. All maneuver
steps were designed to minimize the CMG gimbal rates (i.e., stress). PPLs
(preplanned loads) were put in place to ensure that 5Hz vibratory data of
all three gyros were captured and that data stored on the ZOE
(zone-of-exclusion) recorder were downlinked for all LOS (loss-of-signal)
periods occurring during the three hours following initialization of the CMG
's momentum manager. Use of RS thrusters for maneuvers will continue
through January 15, 2004.]

Soyuz Update: Evaluation of Soyuz TMA-2/6S performance during the 10/28
undocking led to the decision to plan for a more rigid thruster control
switch guard on the next Soyuz, to prevent a repetition of the accidental
thruster firing. For the Soyuz TMA-3/7S CRV, which experienced two small
anomalies during its flight to ISS on 10/18-20, it appears that (a) the
higher than expected humidity in the cabin atmosphere (18 mmHg) during
stand-alone flight resulted from a failed fan in the Descent Module; a
replacement may be flown in 13P (fan #2 is operational); (b) the small
helium leak between the He pressurization tanks and the prop tanks of
manifold #2 of the KDU integrated propulsion system still provides
functionality of the affected string 2, although manifold #1 will be used as
primary string. [After the leak was discovered, check valves in the leaking
manifold were closed. Manifold #1 remains ready for undocking & deorbit,
and there is also sufficient helium and prop for undocking & deorbit in the
closed-off manifold #2. For the six-month period until TMA-3 deorbit, only
manifold #1 will be used, the first time in April next year.]

Weekly Science Update (Expedition Eight -- 5th):

GASMAP: Next scheduled GASMAP health check is next week, 12/12. There
will be no real-time sampling this time; rather, Mike will be performing the
nominal 30 day health check he was originally trained on.

Human Research Facility/Workstation (HRF WS): Continuing.

Advanced Ultrasound: Planned.

Hand Posture Analyzer (HPA): Next session is planned for mid-increment, and
a third late in the increment.

In-Space Soldering Investigation (ISSE): Planned.

Pore Formation and Mobility Investigation (PFMI): Ground teams are gearing
up for the session next week (11/8). They are currently looking for a spot
to schedule a requested crew conference.

Space Acceleration Measurement System (SAMS): SAMS changed the frequency
setting of F02, F04 and F08 to 400Hz to support PFMI on Monday (11/8).

Microgravity Acceleration Measurement System (MAMS): MAMS continues to
measure the quasi-steady (below 1 Hz) acceleration environment using the OSS
sensor. HiRAP telemetry downlink was enabled to support TVIS testing..

Protein Crystal Growth-Single Locker Thermal Enclosure System (PCG-STES):
Behaving nominally.

Investigating the Structure of Paramagnetic Aggregates from Colloidal
Emulsions (InSPACE): Planned.

Renal Stone: Next scheduled in-flight collection is at the turn of the
year. The Renal Stone team continues to work on resolutions and
work-arounds for the hardware anomaly experienced during the first in-flight
operation. Additionally to the excellent pictures taken by the crew, the
ground will have some more questions in the near future to discern some
details.

Synchronized Position Hold, Engage, Reorient, Experimental Satellites
(SHERES): Completed.

Foot (Foot/Ground Reaction Forces during Space Flight): Looking forward to
the new sessions next year.

Materials ISS Experiment (MISSE): In progress. Deployed outside. Nominal
and collecting data.

Cellular Biotechnology Support Systems-Fluid Dynamics Investigation
(CBOSS-FDI): The Principal Investigator (Dr. Zimmerberg) was "really excited
about the outcome of the conference" with Mike Foale this week. A lot of
useful information was gained that is believed to contribute to the success
of future operations.

Earth Knowledge Acquired by Middle School Students (EarthKAM): Students are
looking forward to the next session later this Increment.

Earth Science Toward Exploration Research (ESTER): Looking forward to the
sessions next year.

Coarsening in Solid-Liquid Mixtures-2 (CSLM-2): Planned.

Commercial Generic Bioprocessing Apparatus (CGBA): Completed.

Educational Payload Operations (EPO): The video from the demonstrations
this week was excellent. The ground is looking forward to creating the
lessons for the students with this new video.

Crew Earth Observation (CEO): A recent ISS/CEO image illustrating the
formation of sediment plumes in the Rio de la Plata estuary will be
published on Earth Observatory this weekend (see link below). In that
session the crew also got some excellent sun glint views of the complex and
possibly flooded drainage pattern of the Pampas region southwest of Buenos
Aires. These patterns are linked to the position and evolution of known
megafan features to the west. A sizeable backlog of CEO imagery is still
under review, but three other significant sessions have been noted. First,
is one of the crew's Himalayan encounters which includes the best Mount
Everest view captured to date with the 400mm lens. The second session
includes some excellent views of the dynamic Betsiboka River delta in
western Madagascar. A third discovery is your imagery of the large plankton
bloom off the Argentine coast.

Today's CEO (crew earth observation) targets, valid for the station's LVLH
attitude before today's change to XPOP at 10:10am EST, wereGanges smog,
India (Dynamic event: Regional smog event continues, with visibilities in
cities on the Ganges reduced to one mile. Pointing left and right,
especially obliquely towards the Himalayas, where smog depth can be
estimated),Muglad basin deltas, S Sudan (a series of inland deltas,
extending hundreds of miles west from the Nile, are the focus of a research
effort. Pointing left and right. Patterns of streams that generate these
features are of major interest. Modern stream patterns often fail to match
local maps. This basin has buried hydrocarbons, and modern inland deltas
may be analogs for buried, oil rich rocks), Khartoum, Sudan (this
hard-to-see city is easily located where the White and Blue Niles meet.
Nadir pass),Lagos, Nigeria (no major storms: looking a touch right on the
coast), New impact crater field, Libya(newly discovered impact craters lie
in ancient rocks between the Tibesti massif and the highly visible Black
Haruj volcano. Although the impacts are hundreds of millions of years old,
they were buried and preserved, only to be re-exposed in recent geological
time. Nadir pass. Looking for circular features),Eastern Mediterranean
Dust and Smog(pointing left for possible dust being generated in the Sirte
Gulf [Libya] just left of track as a storm approached from the W), Araguaia
Swampland, Brazil (Dynamic event: Sunglint opportunity for highly mobile
stream patterns in one of Brazil's largest wetlands: pointing right near the
glint point, where the Araguaia River valley [Amazon southside tributary]
widens), and Lower Amazon River Basin (nadir pass over the center of the
estuary: looking left and right for detailed views).

CEO images can be viewed at the websites.

http://eol.jsc.nasa.gov
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov

See also the website "Space Station Challenge" at

http://voyager.cet.edu/iss/

ISS Orbit (as of this morning, 7:23am EST [= epoch]): Mean altitude --
372.3 km Apogee -- 376.4 km Perigee -- 368.1 km Period -- 92.0 min.
Inclination (to Equator) -- 51.63 deg Eccentricity -- 0.0006183 Orbits per
24-hr. day -- 15.65 Mean altitude loss in last 24 hours -- 125 m Revolutions
since FGB/Zarya launch (Nov. '98) -- 28794 For more on ISS orbit and
worldwide naked-eye visibility dates/times, see
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/osf/station/viewing/issvis.html



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

Jacques :-)

Editor: www.spacepatches.info

"Jacques van Oene" wrote in message ...
ISS On-Orbit Status 6 Dec 2003
[snip]

Soyuz Update: Evaluation of Soyuz TMA-2/6S performance during the 10/28
undocking led to the decision to plan for a more rigid thruster control
switch guard on the next Soyuz, to prevent a repetition of the accidental
thruster firing.

Comment: Evaluation of Soyuz TMA-2/6S performance or the *crew's*
performance?

For the Soyuz TMA-3/7S CRV, which experienced two small
anomalies during its flight to ISS on 10/18-20, it appears that (a) the
higher than expected humidity in the cabin atmosphere (18 mmHg) during
stand-alone flight resulted from a failed fan in the Descent Module; a
replacement may be flown in 13P (fan #2 is operational); (b) the small
helium leak between the He pressurization tanks and the prop tanks of
manifold #2 of the KDU integrated propulsion system still provides
functionality of the affected string 2, although manifold #1 will be used as
primary string. [After the leak was discovered, check valves in the leaking
manifold were closed.

Comment: Check valves were closed?? Manually? Remotely? I thought
check valves only allowed one way flow, used to prevent unwanted
backflow...and they aren't typically manually operated.


[snip]