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ZL2VAL > SPACE 11.10.03 20:35l 92 Lines 4171 Bytes #999 (0) @ WW
BID : ISS03-50
Read: GUEST OE7FMI
Subj: ISS Status report, #03-50
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Sent: 031011/0631Z @:ZL2AB.#46.NZL.OC #:28098 [New Plymouth] FBB7.00g $:ISS03-5
From: ZL2VAL@ZL2AB.#46.NZL.OC
To : SPACE@WW
International Space Station Status Report #03-50
4 p.m. CDT, Friday, Oct. 10, 2003
Expedition 7 Crew
Expedition 7 Commander Yuri Malenchenko and NASA International Space
Station Science Officer Ed Lu formally began preparations to come home
this week, while continuing to work on several science experiments.
Flight controllers in Houston and Moscow began inserting about an hour a
day into the crew's timeline to concentrate on preparations for their
return to Earth on Oct. 28. Malencheno and Lu will ride home in the
Soyuz that delivered them to the Station and is docked to a port on the
Zarya control module.
Thursday, the duo put on their Sokol launch and reentry suits and
measured how well they fit into their custom seat-liners, which help
absorb shock during the reentry and brake rocket-aided landing. The fit
check is required because astronauts gain additional height during
long-duration stays on orbit as the absence of gravity allows their
spines to stretch slightly.
Similar fit checks were under way at the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training
Center in Star City, Russia, for Expedition 8 Commander and Science
Officer Michael Foale and Flight Engineer Alexander Kaleri. Along with
Spaniard Pedro Duque, who is flying to the Station under a commercial
contract between the European Space Agency and the Russian Aviation and
Space Agency. The trio is making final preparations for launch aboard
another Soyuz at 12:37 a.m. CDT Oct. 18 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in
Kazakhstan.
Friday, the two crews had an opportunity to converse by teleconference
about the upcoming week of joint operations, handover activities and
scientific investigations. The Expedition 7 crew also reviewed computer
training lessons on the operation of the Chibis lower body negative
pressure device that will be used by Malenchenko as part of his Russian
protocol for return to gravity.
Lu spent time inside the U.S. Destiny laboratory checking out
acceleration sensor systems and monitors, and making electrical
connections as part of the In Space Soldering Investigation, or ISSI.
That experiment is designed provide information useful to future Station
assembly and maintenance work, as well as fundamental scientific
information about the role surface tension plays in soldering on Earth.
He also exchanged ideas with Dr. Joshua Zimmerberg from the National
Institutes of Health about a Fluid Dynamics Investigation, about how to
alleviate problems with mixing samples for tissue growth experiments in
the Station's bioreactor, which allows three-dimensional tissue cells,
like those in the human body, to grow.
Late in the week, one of the remote power controller modules that is
used to route electricity and data throughout the station experienced a
failure in one of its circuits. The affected circuit is for the Destiny
Laboratory's video switching unit. The failure poses no serious
obstacles for the crew or the upcoming Soyuz rendezvous and docking, but
does disable a camera port in Destiny and eliminate some redundancy on
board. Flight controllers are working on a plan to troubleshoot the
failure and possibly replace the module.
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 Oct. 17 or sooner if events
warrant.
-end-
73 de Alan
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