ISS On-Orbit Status 03/07/10 All ISS systems continue to function nominally, except those noted previously or below.
Sunday – crew day off. Ahead: Week 15 of Increment 22. At wake-up, FE-4 Kotov did the regular daily early-morning check of the aerosol filters at the Russian Elektron O
2 generator which Suraev had installed on 10/19 in gaps between the BZh Liquid Unit and the oxygen outlet pipe (filter FA-K) plus hydrogen outlet pipe (filter FA-V).
[FE-4 again inspects the filters tonight before bedtime, currently a daily requirement per plan, with photographs to be taken if the filter packing is discolored.] CDR Williams & FE-6 Creamer continued their current week-long session of the experiment SLEEP (Sleep-Wake Actigraphy & Light Exposure during Spaceflight), donning their Actiwatches, from which to log data to the HRF-1 (Human Research Facility 1) laptop.
[To monitor the crewmembers’ sleep/wake patterns and light exposure, the crewmembers sometimes wear a special Actiwatch device which measures the light levels encountered by them as well as their patterns of sleep and activity throughout the Expedition and use the payload software for data logging and filling in questionnaire entries in the experiment’s laptop session file on the HRF-1 laptop. The log entries are done within 15 minutes of final awakening for seven consecutive days.] After breakfast, the CDR & FE-5 Noguchi supported the weekly U.S. “Bisphosphonates” biomedical countermeasures experiment, ingesting an Alendronate pill before breakfast.
[The Bisphosphonates study should determine whether antiresorptive agents (that help reduce bone loss) in conjunction with the routine in-flight exercise program will protect ISS crewmembers from the regional decreases in bone mineral density documented on previous ISS missions. Two dosing regimens are being tested: (1) an oral dose of 70 mg of Alendronate taken weekly starting 3 weeks prior to flight and then throughout the flight and (2) an intravenous (IV) dose of 4 mg Zoledronic Acid, administered just once approximately 45 days before flight. The rationale for including both Alendronate and Zoledronic Acid is that two dosing options will maximize crew participation, increase the countermeasure options available to flight surgeons, increase scientific opportunities, and minimize the effects of operational and logistical constraints. The primary measurement objective is to obtain preflight and postflight QCT (Quantitative Computed Tomography) scans of the hip. The QCT scans will provide volumetric bone density information of both cortical and trabecular (spongy) bone regions of the hip.] FE-4 Kotov performed the usual leak checking on the now empty Progress M-03M/35P Rodnik BV2 water tank by setting up pumping equipment and initiating the compression of the tank bladder, monitoring air flow to check for hermeticity.
[Each of the spherical Rodnik tanks BV1 & BV2 consists of a hard shell with a soft membrane (bladder) composed of elastic fluoroplastic. The bladder is used to expel water from the tank by compressed air pumped into the tank volume surrounding the membrane and is leak-tested before water transfer.] In the new Node-3, Jeff Williams accessed the OGS (Oxygen Generator System) Rack for the monthly maintenance with the HOPA (Hydrogen Sensor ORU Purge Adapter), disconnecting the O
2 outlet hose from the N
2 (nitrogen) purge ORU and later, after the purging, reconnecting the H
2 sensor and closing out the rack.
After Noguchi had set up the High Definition TV gear (G1 camcorder, MPC/Multipurpose Converter, IPU/Image Processing Unit), at ~4:45am EST the entire crew downlinked a video message of greeting, recorded on the ground, for the HOA (Heads of Agency) meeting taking place tomorrow in Tokyo/Japan.
At ~9:25am, the five-member crew downlinked two congratulatory PAO TV messages, one with greetings to Yuri Nikolayevich Koptev for his 70
th birthday on March 13, the second to the participants and guests of the 37
th International Social & Scientific Readings, to be held on March 9 in honor of Yuri Gagarin’s birthday (9 March 1934) at the town of Gzhatsk, near his birthplace, since renamed Gagarin.
[Yuri Koptev, well known and highly respected in the international space community, was for many years the Director General of Roskosmos. Col. Yuri Gagarin was born in the little village of Klushino in Smolensk Oblast (province) and died in a crash of a MIG-15 test airplane near Chkalovsky airfield of today’s GCTC (Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center) at Star City where he was deputy training director at the time of his death.] CDR, FE-4, & FE-5 had their weekly PFC (Private Family Conference), via S-band/audio and Ku-band/MS-NetMeeting application (which displays the uplinked ground video on an SSC laptop), Oleg at ~6:20am, Soichi at ~3:35pm, Jeff at ~4:10pm.
The crewmembers worked out with their regular 2-hr physical exercise on the TVIS treadmill (FE-1, FE-4), ARED advanced resistive device (CDR, FE-5, FE-6), T2/COLBERT advanced treadmill (CDR, FE-5, FE-6) and VELO ergometer bike with bungee cord load trainer (FE-4).
No CEO (Crew Earth Observation) photo targets uplinked for today.
ISS Orbit (as of this morning, 6:34am EST [= epoch])
Mean altitude – 348.3 km
Apogee height – 353.5 km
Perigee height – 343.0 km
Period -- 91.50 min.
Inclination (to Equator) -- 51.65 deg
Eccentricity -- 0.0007757
Solar Beta Angle -- 30.3 deg (magnitude decreasing)
Orbits per 24-hr. day -- 15.74
Mean altitude loss in the last 24 hours -- 70 m
Revolutions since FGB/Zarya launch (Nov. 98) – 64,745
Significant Events Ahead (all dates Eastern Time and subject to change):
03/12/10 -- Dedicated Thruster Firing for TMA-16/20S
03/14/10 --
Daylight Saving Time begins (EDT) 03/18/10 -- Soyuz TMA-16/20S undock/
4:03am; landing/7:25am, local: 5:25pm. (M. Suraev/J. Williams) --------------Three-crew operations-------------
04/02/10 -- Soyuz TMA-18/22S launch –
Skvortsov (CDR-24)/Caldwell/Kornienko – 12:04:34am EDT 04/04/10 -- Soyuz TMA-18/22S docking –
~1:28am 04/05/10 -- STS-131/Discovery/19A – MPLM(P), LMC
--------------Six-crew operations-----------------
04/27/10 -- Progress M-03M/35P undock
04/28/10 -- Progress M-05M/37P launch
04/30/10 -- Progress M-05M/37P docking
05/14/10 -- STS-132/Atlantis/ULF4 – ICC-VLD, MRM-1 “Rassvet”
05/10/10 -- Progress M-04M/36P undock
05/31/10 -- Soyuz TMA-17/21S undock/landing
--------------Three-crew operations-------------
06/14/10 -- Soyuz TMA-19/23S launch –
Wheelock (CDR-25)/Walker/Yurchikhin 06/16/10 -- Soyuz TMA-19/23S docking
--------------Six-crew operations-----------------
07/xx/10 -- US EVA-15
07/xx/10 -- Russian EVA-25
06/28/10 -- Progress M-06M/38P launch
07/02/10 -- Progress M-06M/38P docking
07/26/10 -- Progress M-05M/37P undock
07/27/10 -- Progress M-07M/39P launch
07/29/10 -- Progress M-07M/39P docking
07/29/10 -- STS-134/Endeavour (ULF6 – ELC3, AMS-02)
08/30/10 -- Progress M-06M/38P undock
08/31/10 -- Progress M-08M/40P launch
09/02/10 -- Progress M-08M/40P docking
09/15/10 -- Soyuz TMA-18/22S undock/landing
09/16/10 -- STS-133/Discovery (ULF5 – ELC4, PMM)
09/18/10 -- STS-133/Discovery (ULF5 – ELC4, PMM) docking
09/22/10 -- STS-133/Discovery (ULF5 – ELC4, PMM) undock
09/30/10 -- Soyuz TMA-20/24S launch –
Kelly (CDR-26)/Kaleri/Skripochka 10/xx/10 -- Russian EVA-26
10/26/10 -- Progress M-07M/39P undock
10/27/10 -- Progress M-09M/41P launch
10/29/10 -- Progress M-09M/41P docking
11/15/10 -- Soyuz TMA-19/23S undock/landing
11/30/10 -- Soyuz TMA-21/25S launch –
Kondratyev (CDR-27)/Coleman/Nespoli 12/15/10 -- Progress M-08M/40P undock
02/08/11 -- Progress M-09M/41P undock
02/09/11 -- Progress M-10M/42P launch
02/11/11 -- Progress M-10M/42P docking
03/30/11 -- Soyuz TMA-22/26S launch –
A. Borisienko (CDR-28)/R, Garan/A.Samokutayev xx/xx/11 -- Progress M-11M/43P launch
05/30/11 -- Soyuz TMA-23/27S launch –
M. Fossum (CDR-29)/S. Furukawa/S. Volkov 12/??/11 -- 3R Multipurpose Laboratory Module (MLM) w/ERA – on Proton.
