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25 Mar 2003

FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY

ISS On-Orbit Status 3/22/03

Part 2 of 2

Materials ISS Experiment (MISSE): In progress. Deployed outside.
Nominal and collecting data.

Zeolite Crystal Growth (ZCG): ZCG has finished science operations for
Inc 6. 

EarthKAM (EK): The students are looking forward to another cycle of
activities with this crew in early April. Since the SSRMS robotarm
will obstruct the view out of the Lab's science window during the
currently planned session, the ground is looking at other options for
this session. 

Crew Earth Observations (CEO): The crew's rate of imagery production
continues to exceed the ground's rate of review at this time.
However, the Cities at Night views are of particular interest. An
excellent daytime view of Page, AZ was published this week on GSFC's
Earth Observatory website (see below).

Today's targets for the CEO program (not using the Lab window due to
Flight Rule restriction of no exposure to direct sunlight) were
Industrialized Southeastern Africa (weak high pressure is setting up
over southern Africa with light winds and few clouds. This was the
first pass of the day and it was descending [i.e., Northern to
Southern hemisphere]. While the industrialized areas were probably
still cloud covered, on this pass the crew was to look right of track
for aerosol layers banking against the Great Karroo mountain range to
the south. The second pass for this target was probably the better
one. As the ISS crossed the coast from the SW, the crew was to look
obliquely left of track for evidence of aerosols over the Vaal and
Orange River valleys), and Rio de la Plata in Sun Glint (DYNAMIC
EVENT TARGET: As the rainy season ends for the Rio Parana watershed,
the wetlands north of Buenos Aires are saturated. Looking left of
track using sun glint to enhance detecting the water surface area. A
few seconds later the large Uruguayan reservoir, Embalse del Rio
Negro should also have been visible in sun glint).
CEO images can be viewed at the websites

http://eol.jsc.nasa.gov and
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov

ISS Orbit (as of this morning, 2:29pm EST [= epoch]):
Mean altitude -- 390.3 km
Apogee -- 395.8 km
Perigee -- 384.8 km
Period -- 92.36 min.
Inclination (to Equator) -- 51.63 deg
Eccentricity -- 0.0008155
Orbits per 24-hr. day -- 15.59
Mean altitude loss in last 24 hours -- 150 m
Revolutions since FGB/Zarya launch (Nov. '98) -- 24752

For more on ISS orbit and worldwide naked-eye visibility dates/times,
see http://www.hq.nasa.gov/osf/station/viewing/issvis.html

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