EVA 9 program-related activities performed by the ISS Expedition Crew 8

OFFICIAL PRESS RELEASE
about EVA 9 program-related activities
performed by the ISS Expedition Crew 8



February 27, 2004. Korolev, Moscow Area.
The Expedition Crew 8 (ISS-8) of the International Space Station (ISS)
performed an egress into space.
This is the ninth EVA of the ISS crews from the Russian Segment from the
beginning of its operation.
The EVA objective is to perform operations under the extravehicular
activities (EVA 9) program including installation of the Russian-European
suited human body phantom on the external surface of the Russian Service
Module Zvezda, which is designed for conduct of the Matroshka space
experiment.
The egress hatch of the Russian docking compartment-module Pirs was opened
at 0:15 Moscow time.
Space operations were performed by the Russian cosmonaut Alexander Kaleri
(flight-engineer) and American astronaut Michael Foule (commander), who
prior to the EVA closed the Space Station inter-module hatches, including
the hatches between the Russian and US Segments.
The operations were performed under control of the Lead Operational Control
Team (LOCT) in Moscow Mission Control Center (MCC-M), which controls the ISS
Russian Segment flight in interaction with the American Mission Control
Center (Houston, the USA). The Flight Director is Pilot-Cosmonaut V.A.
Soloviev.
In the course of the final EVA phase the telemetry showed a degradation of
A. Kaleri's spacesuit cooling support system, that was voiced down by him.
To assure the cosmonaut safety a decision was taken to reduce the time of
the crew spacewalk, taking into account that the main objective of the EVA
was achieved, and major part of the planned activities was completed.
Upon completion of the partially reduced EVA program A. Kaleri and M. Foule
came back to module Pirs, having closed the egress hatch at 4:13.
The EVA program was performed in the Russian ground site coverage. Outside
this coverage the data exchange between the ISS and Moscow Mission Control
Center (MCC-M) was performed through the U.S. facilities.
The off-nominal situation on-line analysis performed by LOCT together with
the crew after spacesuits doffing showed that a comment about A. Kaleri
spacesuit performance was mostly likely caused by a decrease of the cooling
water flow rate through the spacesuit water cooling suit resulted from a
partial pinching of the flexible plastic tube supplying a coolant to the
suit. This gave rise to a cooling reduction, thermal discomfort of the
cosmonaut and increase of humidity in the spacesuit atmosphere.
RSC Energia technical panel is currently working. Its task is to make a
comprehensive analysis of possible reasons for this situation and develop
adequate actions to exclude similar situations in the future.
The ISS on-orbit complex of about 181.6 tons (consisting of Functional Cargo
Module Zarya, Service Module Zvezda, docking compartment-module Pirs, manned
spacecraft Soyuz-TMA-3, logistics vehicle Progress M1-11, modules Unity and
Destiny, airlock Kvest, multi-link truss structure with deployed solar
arrays) continues its operation in a low near-earth orbit.
The station orbit parameters are as follows: period of revolution of 91.8
min., inclination of 51.65°, maximum altitude of 383.6 km, minimum altitude
of 361.0 km.
According to the crew and LOCT reports, after completion of the EVA the crew
feels well, and the ISS onboard systems operate normally.



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Jacques :-)

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