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2003
Report #6 
4 p.m. CST, Friday, Feb. 7, 2003 
Mission Control Center, Houston, Texas 

As they complete their eleventh week on orbit, the International Space 
Station's Expedition 6 crewmembers are unpacking a new shipment of 
supplies while helping mission managers plan for the remainder of
their time in space. 

A Russian Progress resupply ship docked to the aft docking port of the 
station's Zvezda service module at 8:49 a.m. CST Tuesday, delivering a 
ton of food, fuel, clothing and other materials that should sustain 
Commander Ken Bowersox, Flight Engineer Nikolai Budarin, and NASA ISS 
Science Officer Don Pettit through the end of June.  The hatches into 
Progress were opened Tuesday afternoon, and unloading of supplies 
began Wednesday morning. 

Among the equipment inside the Russian cargo ship were two power
modules critical to the recovery of the science operations in the
Microgravity Science Glovebox, located in the U.S. laboratory module
Destiny.  MSG, developed by the European Space Agency in cooperation
with NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., had been 
inoperative since late last November when a power distribution
controller and an exchangeable electronics module failed.  The units
were returned to Earth by the last shuttle to visit ISS, sent to ESA
for repair, and after certification testing at MSFC were loaded on the 
Progress for delivery. 

Flight controllers are discussing a possible reboost of the ISS with
the Progress engines on Tuesday.  If the reboost is agreed to, it
would increase the stations average altitude from 239 statute miles to 
246 statute miles.  That would leave the ISS at the proper altitude 
for the launch of a new Soyuz return craft in April. 

Pettit installed the new components in the glovebox Wednesday, but
when he activated the science rack a circuit breaker tripped.  Payload 
controllers reported that the response to activation was similar to 
what was seen shortly before the MSG failed back in November, and they 
had Pettit shut down MSG to protect the new components.  
Troubleshooting by specialists from ESA and the Payload Operations 
Center at MSFC will continue over the weekend. 

Due to the hold on NASA's space shuttle launch schedule, mission
managers are studying how best to provide supplies to the crew on
board ISS until the shuttle returns to service.  To aid that effort,
Bowersox and his crew spent time this week conducting a thorough audit 
of supplies on board, while the flight control teams in Houston and 
the Russian mission control center outside Moscow began charting
statistics on actual usage.  Both sets of data will be reviewed in
developing the manifest for the next Progress ship, targeted for
launch to the International Space Station in June. 

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 Friday, Feb. 14, or
sooner if events warrant. 

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