ISS Status Report No. 10 - 2004

International Space Station Status Report #04-10
4 p.m. CST, Friday, February 20, 2004
Expedition 8 Crew

All systems remain "go" for the only planned spacewalk by the International
Space Station's Expedition 8 crewmembers. Commander Mike Foale and Flight
Engineer Alexander Kaleri, who observed the four-month anniversary of their
launch to the Space Station on Wednesday, finished up a long list of tasks
this week to be ready for a spacewalk to be staged from the Pirs Docking
Compartment Thursday, Feb. 26, starting at 3 p.m. CST. NASA Television
coverage of the spacewalk will begin at 2 p.m. CST.

This week, the crewmembers worked closely with specialists at the Russian
Mission Control Center in Korolev, near Moscow, as they unpacked their
Russian Orlan spacesuits, tested them, demonstrated their ability to enter
the Soyuz spacecraft from Pirs while wearing the suits, and completed a
thorough review of the spacewalk plan. Foale and Kaleri are now shifting
their daily schedule to maximize communications with Russian flight
controllers through Russian ground stations during Thursday's excursion.

The tasks planned during the five and a half hour long spacewalk include the
retrieval of a set of retroreflectors from the aft end of the Zvezda Service
Module. Retrieval of the retroreflectors will assist the preparation of
navigational data for next year's maiden arrival of a new European supply
ship. While outside the Station, the spacewalkers also will deploy an
experiment test bed designed to study the radiation environment and change
sample packages in a Japanese materials exposure experiment. They also will
change sample packages in a Russian apparatus that is used to study the
residue created from Station thruster firings.

All systems on board the Station are in good condition, including the
Elektron air-generating system, which was shut down for part of the week.
The Elektron separates oxygen out of water to supply breathing air for the
Station crewmembers. It shut off unexpectedly on Tuesday. After evaluation,
the Elektron was restarted Friday morning and has been running fine since.
Spare parts for Elektron are on board ISS along with other plentiful backup
sources of oxygen for the crew if required.

This week, Russian specialists positively identified a piece of debris seen
floating by the Station's port side on Sunday. Photographs taken by Foale
and Kaleri through a window in the Zvezda module showed a bolt and an
accompanying washer. From a part number that was visible in the picture, the
items were identified as coming from a mechanism that held the Progress ship
's starboard solar array in place during launch. Those items, which served
no purpose after the array was deployed prior to its arrival at ISS, drifted
slowly away from the Station and pose no danger. Russian specialists are
studying how to prevent similar bolts on other ships from coming loose in
the future. Plans described in prior reports for Foale to vent residual
condensation from the inner panes of the main window in the Destiny
laboratory module last weekend were put on hold due to spacewalk
preparations. Venting that moisture, and installing a new flex hose to
prevent condensate buildup between those panes in the future, is expected to
be assigned to the crew's task list in early March.

Information on the crew's activities aboard the Space Station, future launch
dates, as well as Station sighting opportunities from anywhere on the Earth,
is available on the Internet at:

http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/

Details on Station science operations can be found on an Internet site
administered by the Payload Operations Center at NASA's Marshall Space
Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., at:

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

The next ISS status report will be issued Feb. 26, after the spacewalk, or
sooner if events warrant.


###



--


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

Jacques :-)

Editor: www.spacepatches.info

"Jacques van Oene" forwarded:

International Space Station Status Report #04-10
4 p.m. CST, Friday, February 20, 2004
Expedition 8 Crew

[...]
This week, Russian specialists positively identified a piece of debris seen
floating by the Station's port side on Sunday. Photographs taken by Foale
and Kaleri through a window in the Zvezda module showed a bolt and an
accompanying washer. From a part number that was visible in the picture, the

!!!!!


items were identified as coming from a mechanism that held the Progress ship
's starboard solar array in place during launch. Those items, which served
no purpose after the array was deployed prior to its arrival at ISS, drifted
slowly away from the Station and pose no danger. Russian specialists are
studying how to prevent similar bolts on other ships from coming loose in
the future.


Wow -- that must have been a pretty good picture!

Was the previous debris sighting related to a Progress event?

/dps