ISS Status Report, 08-10-2004

Melissa Mathews
Headquarters, Washingto Oct. 8, 2004
(Phone: 202/358-1272)

INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION STATUS REPORT: SS04-034

As Expedition 9 nears the end of its mission, the crew aboard the
International Space Station prepared for the trip home by wrapping up
science experiments, rehearsing, and continuing maintenance operations
on the vehicle.

Commander Gennady Padalka and NASA ISS Science Officer Mike Fincke
donned their entry spacesuits and slid into the ISS Soyuz 8 (TMA-4)
spacecraft docked to the Station to check for a good fit.

Next Friday, the crew will greet its first visitors in six months.
Expedition 10 Commander Leroy Chiao, Expedition 10 Flight Engineer
Salizhan Sharipov and Russian Space Forces Test Cosmonaut Yuri Shargin
are preparing for their launch to the Station. The Expedition 10 crew
also conducted an inspection and fit check of their ISS Soyuz 9 (TMA-5)
spacecraft at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

Chiao, Sharipov, and Shargin are scheduled to launch from Baikonur at
11:06 p.m. EDT Oct. 13. Their Soyuz will dock with the Station at 12:24
a.m. EDT Oct. 16. Padalka, Fincke and Shargin will land in Kazakhstan
at 8:32 p.m. EDT Oct. 23.

In preparation for the next crew's arrival, Fincke inspected the U.S.
carbon dioxide removal system, so it can be activated in addition to
the Russian system. During the docked mission, it will remove the
additional carbon dioxide produced when more people are onboard. He
also worked with the flight control team to discuss improvements to
procedures for future routine maintenance work on the system.

Fincke also continued work on the U.S. spacesuits to restore cooling
operations in two of the three suits. He recently restored cooling in
one of the suits and started the same procedures on the other. He
replaced a gas trap and pump inlet filter in the internal cooling
system this week. He will work with Chiao during the docked mission to
perform a procedure to replace a rotor pump, which is what ultimately
restored cooling in the first suit. Next week, the third, fully
operational, suit will be hooked up and used to flush water lines in
the Quest Airlock in advance of the final repair work.

The Expedition 9 crew served as test subjects for the Advanced
Diagnostic Ultrasound in Microgravity (ADUM) experiment. Fincke set up
the equipment, and he and Padalka performed ultrasound bone scans on
each other by taking turns as operator and subject.

Bone scans were taken of their shoulders, elbows, knees and ankles,
monitored remotely from the ground, videotaped and photographed for
downlink. This research will be used to determine the accuracy of
ultrasound in novel clinical conditions including: orthopedic,
thoracic, ophthalmic injury and dental/sinus infections and to assess
ultrasound as a feasible option for monitoring changes in bone during
flight.
For his Saturday Science activities, Fincke conducted a session with
the Educational Payloads Operation. The demonstrations were videotaped
for later use in classrooms and NASA educational products.
The crew also continued photographing interesting geologic,
environmental and other sites on Earth. The images are transmitted to
the ground and available on the Web, at:

http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/gallery/.../ndxpage1.html

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 details about ISS science operations on a Web site administered by
the Payload Operations Center at MSFC, visit:

http://scipoc.msfc.nasa.gov/


-end-


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Jacques :-)

www.spacepatches.info