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ISS On-Orbit Status 3/2/03

All ISS systems continue to function nominally, except as noted 
previously or below. Space Day 99 for Expedition 6. Ahead: Week 14.

A regular off-duty Sunday, except for a few scheduled tasks, with 
congrats for the station residents by the ground on a great past week. 
Tomorrow: the crew's 100th day in space!

FE-1 Nikolai Budarin completed the weekly routine tasks of collecting 
SP toilet flush counter and SVO water supply readings in the Service 
Module for calldown, as well as the periodic inspection of the 
Elektron oxygen generator's VM gas/liquid system for the air bubble 
that usually lingers after an in-flight maintenance.

Afterwards, Budarin took care of the daily routine maintenance of the 
SOSh life support system, incl. ASU toilet subsystem, and FE-2/SO Don 
Pettit prepared the IMS inventory database for automated file 
import/export.

All crewmembers had their weekly PFCs (private family conferences)
scheduled, via S-band. [For Nikolai, this works over a Houston-Moscow 
link.]

The crew also performed their daily physical exercise program on TVIS, 
RED, CEVIS, and VELO with load trainer.

Prior to the morning physical exercise and before lunch (7:30am EST),
Budarin was up for his fourth session of the MBI-9 "Pulse" experiment,
working off the Russian task list. [Execution of the medical 
cardiological assessment is controlled from the Russian laptop 3, 
using a set respiration rate (without forced or deep breaths) and 
synchronizing respiration with computer-commanded "inhale" commands. 
Before the experiment, arterial blood pressure is measured with the 
"Tensoplus" sphygmomanometer. The first "Pulse" session
by Nikolai was 
performed on 11/30/02, the second on 12/30/02, the third on 2/2/03.]

One of the highlights of the current Increment 6 are the weekly 
"Saturday Morning Science happenings", improvised and conducted by 
Science Officer Dr.  Don Pettit, with subsequent video downlink. 
Yesterday's session of these on-the-spot observations of interesting 
phenomena in space, strikingly illustrating the value of human 
presence, was another big hit with ground watchers at MCC-H.

The software patch to correct the RGA (rate gyro assembly) "data 
staleness" problem was uplinked to both GNC MDMs last night. Ground 
specialists are evaluating the performance of the U.S. GPS navigation 
system through the weekend. [The patch uploading required swapping 
between the two GNC MDMs, attitude control handovers between US and 
Russian segments, and regaining communications with GPS 1 &2 and RGA 
1&2.]

The upgrade of the Russian BVS onboard computer system to the new 
Vers. 7.01 software is continuing, having fallen behind schedule by 
two days (i.e., using built-in reserve days). The second set of 
matching units (US-21-2 and -4) will be upgraded tonight during crew 
sleep. [This is a ground-only activity, initiated over a Russian 
ground site, requiring about 1.5 hours per matching unit].

Looking ahead: Tomorrow: SM Ethernet OpsLAN testing, installation of 
SUBA cables, and MSG (microgravity science glovebox) troubleshooting. 
Tuesday:  SSRMS robotics ops. Wednesday: FOOT ops, MSG 
troubleshooting, Russian Central Post laptop (KTsP) reloading.

Today's targets for the CEO (crew earth observations) program were 
Lake Nasser, Toshka Lakes; Egypt (this was a nice pass with sun glint
possibilities to document the continued unexpected spread of the 
Toshka Lakes west of the Nile. Looking right of track), Lake Chad in 
Sun Glint (DYNAMIC EVENT TARGET: Crew was asked to take advantage of 
sun glint enhancement this pass to document surface water features in 
this still, mostly dry, lake and its dune-filled lakebed), Tropical 
Storm Japhet (DYNAMIC EVENT TARGET: Today's pass should have placed 
this storm system right of track. No further strengthening was 
expected, but it should remain intact, offshore of Mozambique), and 
Industrialized Southeastern Africa (looking obliquely either side of 
track this pass to document the formation and distribution of smog 
plumes over South Africa.

CEO images can be viewed at the website
http://eol.jsc.nasa.gov

ISS Orbit (as of this morning, 7:22am EST [= epoch]):
Mean altitude -- 390.6 km
Apogee -- 398.6 km
Perigee -- 382.6 km
Period -- 92.37 min.
Inclination (to Equator) -- 51.63 deg
Eccentricity -- 0.0011796
Orbits per 24-hr. day -- 15.59
Mean altitude loss in last 24 hours -- 160 m
Revolutions since FGB/Zarya launch (Nov. '98) -- 24436

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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