[sarex] ISS STATUS REPORT #42

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Submitted by Arthur - N1ORC

Report #42 
4 p.m. Friday, Sept. 20, 2002 
Mission Control Center, Houston, Texas 

Expedition 5 Commander Valery Korzun, NASA International Space Station
Science Officer Peggy Whitson, and Cosmonaut Sergei Treschev wrapped up a
busy workweek on Friday, their 107th day in space.  The week began with a
Monday repair by Whitson, with help from Korzun, of the Carbon Dioxide
Removal Assembly (CDRA) in the U.S. laboratory Destiny.  The device,
which scrubs carbon dioxide from the space station's atmosphere, had not
functioned at full capacity since its launch aboard Destiny in February
2001.

The problem was an elusive leak.  Initial reports indicated the repair
was a success.  On Thursday flight controllers at Mission Control Center
activated the device for a 24-hour run.  Friday morning they said
telemetry indicated it is capable of functioning on both its sorbent beds
for the first time since it arrived on the station.  

Whitson was named NASA ISS science officer Monday during a
space-to-ground conversation with NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe,
speaking with her from the International Space Station Flight Control
Room in the Mission Control Center. O'Keefe said it was time to increase
the station's main mission, scientific research.

Through the week, Korzun and Treschev spent time each day loading the
Progress 8 unpiloted supply spacecraft.  It will undock from the station
on Tuesday with its cargo of trash and unneeded equipment and supplies. 
After about two weeks during which Russian flight controllers will use
its cameras capture and downlink images of smog and smoke over
northeastern Russia, it will be deorbited to burn up in the Earth's
atmosphere. NASA TV coverage of the 8:58 a.m. CDT undocking will begin at
8:30 a.m.  Coverage of the docking of Progress 9, scheduled to reach the
aft docking port of the Zvezda Service Module at 12:07 p.m. on Sept. 29,
will begin on NASA TV at 11:30 a.m. that day. Progress 9 is to be
launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan Sept. 25.

On Tuesday Whitson activated the lab's Microgravity Science Glovebox in
preparation for a new series of experiments.  Those experiments called
Pore Formation and Mobility Investigation (PFMI) melt a transparent
substance to study how bubbles form and move in molten materials. She
activated the first in that series of experiments on Thursday.

Also on the crew's schedule was packing of items to be returned to Earth
on the shuttle Atlantis.  The spacecraft is scheduled to launch no
earlier than Oct. 2 on STS-112, bringing the Starboard 1 (S1) Truss to
the station.  Atlantis crewmembers will do three spacewalks during the
shuttle's visit, focusing on connecting fluid, power and data lines
between the S1 and the rest of the station.  The spacewalks will be
performed from the station's Joint Airlock, and E5 crewmembers devoted
some of their attention this week to spacewalk preparations.

Flight controllers did a major exercise with the station's Canadarm2 on
Wednesday. The arm is functioning well after replacement of its
wrist-roll joint by spacewalkers during the STS-111 flight in June.  This
exercise involved simulating a failure - essentially turning off power to
an arm joint -- then devising a way to work around the problem.  The
exercise was completed satisfactorily.

Late in the week, the crew completed repressurization of the station's
atmosphere with oxygen from Progress 8.  

Friday activities included additional work toward arrival of Atlantis,
packing  transfer items and talking by radio with Atlantis crewmembers
about the spacewalks. Friday science focused on the Advanced Astroculture
experiment, which looks at soybean growth in space and wrapping up the
first of the PFMI experiments.  

As science activity, station maintenance and crew medical and health
activities, including about two hours of exercise for each member daily,
continued through the week, Korzun, Whitson and Treschev did manage to
take time out on Tuesday to talk with students at Ashland, Wis., area
schools. Crewmembers showed a video of exercise devices aboard the
station and answered questions from the students.

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://www.scipoc.msfc.nasa.gov

The next ISS status report will be issued on Wednesday, Sept. 25, after
the Progress 9 launch, or sooner if events warrant.


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