Updates ISS UPDATES

[Chipstone306]

Crew Does Robotics Work, Awaits Progress 30

Image above: Italy’s Aeolian Islands are featured in this photo by an Expedition 17 crew member on the International Space Station. Credit: NASA

Along with their continued science and maintenance work aboard the International Space Station, the Expedition 17 crew members did a routine fire drill, inspected hatch seals and stowed the Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV) control panel Monday. They also practiced using the station’s robot arm to maneuver and grapple the External Stowage Platform-3 in preparation for its relocation on a future increment.

The Jules Verne ATV undocked from the aft port of the Zvezda service module Friday, setting the stage for the upcoming launch of the Progress 30 cargo craft. Progress 30, which is slated to launch Wednesday at 3:50 p.m. EDT from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, will carry more than 2.6 tons of food, fuel and supplies to the Expedition 17 crew. The cargo ship is scheduled to dock with the station Friday.

Jules Verne was the first European Space Agency (ESA) cargo craft to visit the orbiting laboratory. The ATV will deorbit on Sept. 29 to burn up over the Pacific Ocean. ESA will conduct an imagery experiment with Jules Verne during its re-entry.

The ISS Progress 29 cargo ship, which undocked from the station a week ago, conducted a deorbit burn Monday at 4:47 p.m.

 

[Chipstone306]

Hurricane Ike Delays Progress Docking

Hurricane Ike has delayed the scheduled Friday arrival of a Russian Progress cargo ship to the International Space Station, orbiting 220 miles above Earth.

The Progress docking was postponed when space station mission control at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston closed Thursday due to the approaching storm.

Control of the space station was handed to flight controllers at backup facilities near Austin, Texas, and Huntsville, Ala. Since Mission Control Center in Houston is solely responsible for some commanding of station systems, U.S. and Russian officials agreed to delay the docking.

Russian flight controllers will execute a maneuver to place the spacecraft into a safe orbit away from the station until docking, which is planned for Wednesday, Sept. 17. If Johnson is not restored to full capability for docking, one of the backup facilities may be used to command station systems.

Station Commander Sergei Volkov and Flight Engineers Oleg Kononenko and Greg Chamitoff are awaiting the arrival of the cargo ship, which is carrying more than 2 tons of supplies including a new shipment of food and fuel.

 

[SiberianTiger]

The ISS Expedition XVIII poster

The same in high resolution

 

[tblaxland]

False Fire Alarm

From the Daily Report 2008-09-30:

COL False Fire Alarm: Yesterday, a smoke detector (SD1) in the Columbus module erroneously annunciated an emergency, probably triggered by some dust particles floating close to the sensor. Since no controlled air flow was in place at the time (due to an ongoing air loop characterization test), the SD1 reading was not reliable, and a False Fire alarm was declared. SD readings went back to nominal after 10 seconds, and no further suspect behavior was detected afterwards.

Would have caused some excitement for a few moments


-----Posted Added-----


From the Daily Report 2008-10-01:

ISS Reboost Preview: Tomorrow’s ISS reboost by Progress M-65/30P is scheduled for a TIG (Time of Ignition) of 7:33am EDT and duration of 4min 41s, to yield an expected delta-V of 0.7 m/s (2.3 ft/s). Projected mean altitude increase is 1.2 km (0.7 n.mi.). The purpose of the reboost is to set up orbital phasing for the 17S/16S Soyuz launch & landing.

Soyuz TMA-13 (17S/16S?) will launch 2008-10-12 and dock 2008-10-14.

 

[Chipstone306]

Expedition 18 Launch Preparations Continue

Image above: The Expedition 18 crew members sit in front of their Soyuz TMA-13 capsule during a suited fit check Tuesday. Credit: NASA / Victor Zelentsov

The Expedition 17 crew members focused on maintenance activities and medical training aboard the International Space Station Wednesday while the Expedition 18 crew continued preparations for their launch a little after 3 a.m. EDT Oct. 12.

Expedition 18 Commander Mike Fincke, Soyuz Commander and Expedition 18 Flight Engineer Yury Lonchakov and spaceflight participant Richard Garriott participated in the ceremonial raising of the Russian, U.S. and Kazakh flags at the Cosmonaut Hotel crew quarters in Baikonur, Kazakhstan.

+ Read more about Expedition 18

Meanwhile on the station, Commander Sergei Volkov and Flight Engineer Greg Chamitoff relocated the Human Research Facility Rack from the Destiny lab to the Columbus lab to accommodate European biomedical experiments.

Chamitoff also performed routine medical officer proficiency training to refresh the skills he would need for an emergency medical situation.

The engines of the Progress 30 cargo craft will fire for a second time Thursday at 7:33 a.m. EDT to reboost the station to the correct altitude for the launch of the Soyuz TMA-13 spacecraft on Oct. 12. With the Expedition 18 crew aboard, the Soyuz TMA-13 will dock to the station's Zarya module on Oct. 14.

 

[tblaxland]

Reboost Cancelled Due to Debris Avoidance

Reboost Cancelled Due to Debris Avoidance:

ISS Reboost Cancellation: This morning’s planned ISS reboost by Progress M-65/30P was cancelled shortly before its scheduled time due to a post-reboost conjunction conflict. [Planning of the reboost maneuver originally looked at five options, each with its respective potential for creating a conjunction with Kosmos-2421 satellite pieces and other debris. The five options were then narrowed down to two with the least likelihood for a conjunction (they showed ~1 km radial miss distance). Both options were acceptable as of 24h before the reboost since they stayed out of the “forbidden” box, defined by 0.75 km radial miss distance, and both were pursued. But at about 2-3 h before the maneuver, the pieces’ predicted flight paths had moved into the box, passing at ~0.71 km -- which triggered the cancellation for today. Backup date for the reboost is now 10/4 (Saturday), with all options being screened starting 48 hrs before. Significantly (fortunately), the cancellation occurred before attitude control authority was handed over to Russian MCS (Motion Control System). The purpose of the reboost is to set up orbital phasing for the 17S/16S Soyuz launch & landing. The number of conjunctions has increased in the recent past, both due to the Kosmos-2412 debris cloud and the currently unusually quiet sun with the resulting reduced atmospheric density at high altitudes causing less orbital drag, i.e., less orbit clean-up.]

 

[tblaxland]

Number of burned-out lamps on Japanese space lab nears half

Number of burned-out lamps on Japanese space lab nears half:
http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/news/20080915p2a00m0na003000c.html

 

[SiberianTiger]

Number of burned-out lamps on Japanese space lab nears half:
http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/news/20080915p2a00m0na003000c.html

They must urgently haul up there a load of fireflies in transparent lab boxes then!

 

[dougkeenan]

If only we had a light-emitting diode, or something like that.

 

[tblaxland]

If only we had a light-emitting diode, or something like that.

From the article:

JAXA is developing a lighting system using light-emitting diodes that will not burn out, but it cannot get it to the Kibo module until after 2010, officials said.

"Will not burn out" is a bit optimistic - LEDs have a half-life of about 50k hours in real-life applications (I know, you will see 100k hours quoted but that only happens in lab conditions at present).

 

[Aleinikov]

"Lord British" in space

Hi all,
I just wonder that the the fact that "Lord British" Sir Richard Garriott, the designer of the first ever serious online-multiplayer-role-playing-game "Ultima Online", is flying to the ISS now has not a big impact in this forum.
As I can see the launch was ok, and they are docking today.
Chipstone306 wrote:

the Soyuz TMA-13 will dock to the station's Zarya module on Oct. 14.

I hope to see something about the mission here, cause I am get not the players installed to watch NASA TV. :compbash:

 

[SiberianTiger]

I hope to see something about the mission here, cause I am get not the players installed to watch NASA TV. :compbash:

Hi,
The Soyuz TMA-13's flight was covered in the neighbouring topic:
http://orbiter-forum.com/showthread.php?t=863

Can't really get it how you are going to see anything if you got no players installed?..

 

[Aleinikov]

Hi,
The Soyuz TMA-13's flight was covered in the neighbouring topic...Can't really get it how you are going to see anything if you got no players installed?..

Oh thanks SiberianTiger did not see the other thread before...sorry..and maybe my english is so bad, that I could not point out what I meant: When I try to use NASA TV it just comes up with a screen telling me to download a player (Windows MediaPlayer, RealPlayer or QuickTime). When I installed the RealP or QuickT it doesnt work. So as I cannot watch NASA TV I hoped to see some still standing pictures of the mission here in the forum. But ok..thanks..going to the other thread now...

 

[SiberianTiger]

When I installed the RealP or QuickT it doesnt work. So as I cannot watch NASA TV I hoped to see some still standing pictures of the mission here in the forum. But ok..thanks..going to the other thread now...

Which operating system do you use? There might be different ways to install the necessary software in different systems.

I, in turn, would appreciate anybody's advice on how to effectively acquire images from a video stream and post them onto the forum.

And, btw, it's best to continue here, in the current thread, until a Soyuz undocks...


-----Posted Added-----


The video footage about arrival of the new expedition to the ISS:

BBC News (Eng): http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7668965.stm
Vesti (Rus): http://tvroscosmos.ru/frm/kosmostv/vesti/vesti141008_1.php

 

[Aleinikov]

...the video footage about arrival of the new expedition to the ISS:
BBC News (Eng): http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7668965.stm

That was what I was looking for...a video which I can watch on my PC. Many thanks for posting the link here. :speakcool: The russian site needs Microsoft´s MediaPlayer 11 installed which I will NOT never ever use ...(for reasons I will not explain here)

 

[tblaxland]

@Aleinikov, I use VLC to view the NASA Windows Media stream. Get it here:
http://www.videolan.org/vlc/

The address of the stream is:
http://www.nasa.gov/55644main_NASATV_Windows.asx

@SiberianTiger, VLC allows you to easily capture snapshots of whatever video you are playing as well as record and transcode the stream to a local disk. Very powerful little tool.

 

[Aleinikov]

Richard Garriott onboard the ISS

Richard Garriott, famed video game developer, is following in his father’s footsteps and has launched aboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft to the International Space Station. Richard’s father Owen Garriott is a former NASA astronaut who completed two space missions during his career. Richard is the the first second generation American in space, and also the sixth private astronaut client of Space Adventures.
Watch a video about his life onboard the ISS:
Watch Video
(This needs QuickTime Player installed)
This video footage is from his website:
http://www.richardinspace.com/
Next interesting event coming up is:
Crew farewell and Soyuz hatch closing: 23 OCT 2008, 4:45 P.m. EDT

 

[Orbinaut Pete]

The Progress 30 has undocked from Zvezda today. It will orbit the Earth until December, when it will de-orbit & burn up in the atmosphere. A new Progress is scheduled to launch from Baikour on Nov 26, docking to ISS on Nov 30.

 

[SpaceCowboy]

Have a nice flight to the crew of Endeavour!

 

[Orbinaut Pete]

Have a nice flight to the crew of Endeavour!

I second that!