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2003
Report #26 
2 p.m. CDT, Friday, June 6, 2003 
Mission Control Center, Houston, Texas 
 
Expedition 7 Commander Yuri Malenchenko and NASA International Space
Station Science Officer Ed Lu completed their sixth week in orbit
with a varied slate of science experiments, robotics and preparations
for the arrival of a resupply ship next week. 

Preparations stepped up this week for the launch and docking of a new
unmanned Progress spaceship carrying about 5,300 pounds of supplies
for the Space Station crew. Today, Malenchenko and Lu reconfigured
stowed items in the Pirs Docking Compartment to which the Progress
ship will link up next Wednesday. Malenchenko also completed a
successful test of a backup docking system that would allow him to
manually control the Progress' docking from inside the station in the
unlikely event the primary automated docking system was not
available. 

Early this morning, the Soyuz rocket carrying the new Progress
resupply vehicle was moved to its launch pad at the Baikonur
Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan for its scheduled launch Sunday. 

The 11th Progress supply ship destined for ISS is set to lift off
Sunday at 5:34 a.m. CDT (1034 GMT) and is scheduled to dock at the
Pirs at 6:17 a.m. CDT (1117 GMT) Wednesday. NASA Television coverage
of the docking will begin at 5:30 a.m. CDT on Wednesday. 

Another Progress vehicle is currently docked to the aft port of the
Zvezda Service Module, and the crew's Soyuz TMA-2 return craft is
docked to the nadir port of the Zarya Module. 

Lu conducted additional operations with the InSPACE experiment
(Investigating the Structure of Paramagnetic Aggregates from
Colloidal Emulsions) this week and had a conference with the
experiment's principal investigator to provide her with a first-hand
report on recent activities as well as discuss future experiment
runs. Located in the Microgravity Sciences Glovebox in the Station's
Destiny Laboratory, the InSPACE experiment investigates how particles
capable of being magnetized react to a pulsed magnetic field. The
results are hoped to provide insight that will contribute to the
development of better fluids for systems that are exposed to such
conditions on Earth, such as automobile braking systems and vibration
damping systems.

On Wednesday, both crewmembers had an opportunity for some hands-on
experience flying the Canadarm2 robotic arm. Malenchenko and Lu each
guided the 58-foot-long, double-ended arm through the capture and
release of a fixture on the exterior of the Destiny lab. The
operations served not only as training for the crew but also as a
successful test of an adjustment made to the arm's software to
improve its grappling procedure. 

Tomorrow, the crew, on a request from engineers involved with
planning for the Space Shuttle's return to flight, will calibrate and
focus cameras aboard the Station on several ISS locations to test
lighting and imagery capabilities for future inspection of the
Shuttle's thermal protection system as the vehicles approach the ISS
for docking. Imagery will be downlinked to flight controllers for
analysis. The inspection procedures are expected to be included in
return to flight requirements being developed for future Shuttle
missions to the Station. 

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 following the launch of the
Progress on Sunday June 8, or earlier, if events warrant. 

- -end-

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