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ISS On-Orbit Status 2/9/03

All ISS systems continue to function nominally, except as noted 
previously or below. Day 78 in space for the Expedition 6 crew. Ahead: 
Week 11 for Increment 6.

The crew had a very-light-duty Sunday, intended (and hoped) to provide 
them with well-deserved rest from a stressful week.

After breakfast (1:40am EST), FE-1 Nikolai Budarin started the day off 
with his daily checkup and watering of the Russian BIO-5 
Rasteniya-2/Lada-2 ("Plants-2") plant growth experiment.

FE-2/SO Don Pettit took the first of two carbon dioxide partial 
pressure (ppCO2) readings in Lab and Service Module (SM), to help 
clarify the persistent discrepancy between the SM gas analyzer (GA) 
readings and the MCA (major constituents analyzer) measurements in the 
Lab. [The proper functioning of the GA is in question, but there also 
appear to be problems with adequate IMV (intermodular ventilation), 
currently under investigation.]

Budarin collected the weekly data readings of the SVO water supply and 
SP toilet flush counters for calldown to MCC-Moscow via S-band.

Nikolai also completed the periodic inspection of the Elektron oxygen
generator's gas/liquid system (VM) for the air bubbles that usually 
linger after an IFM (in-flight maintenance).

On MCC-M Go-ahead, Budarin then terminated the bake-out/regeneration 
cycle for adsorption bed #2 of the BMP micropurification unit and 
switched it back to Purify mode. Both BMP channels are now again 
running in this mode. [The regeneration of the air purifier filter 
beds is repeated every 20 days. Each bakeout to space vacuum takes 
about 24 hours.]

All crewmembers performed their daily physical exercise program on the
treadmill (TVIS), resistive device (RED) and cycle ergometer (CEVIS). 
CDR Kenneth Bowersox subsequently transferred the TVIS/RED/CEVIS data,
accumulated on the devices' PCMCIA (personal computer memory card
international association) cards, to the medical equipment computer 
(MEC) for subsequent downlink to MCC-H.

Other daily routine maintenance tasks today, performed by Don Pettit, 
were SOSh life support systems servicing and IMS delta file updating 
for auto export/import.

Since MCC-H could not establish a video link for Bowersox's PFC 
(private family conference) yesterday, his family requested MCC-H to 
try again. The aborted PFC was reactivated on the CDR's timeline 
today.

For "Diatomeya" world ocean observations, on the Russian task list, 
Budarin today was to observe and image seawater bloom features (TsKO) 
and cloud structures in the waters of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. 
[Bioproductive areas were identified in the West Wind Drift frontal 
portions, eddy structures in the Falkland-Patagonia Region, colored 
waters in the Sargasso Sea central part, and the Gulf Stream "delta". 
In the Pacific, the focus was on the Peruvian Upwelling.]

Today's targets for the Russian "Uragan" (hurricane) earth observation
experiment, also a task list item using the Nikon D1 digital still 
camera (f80-400 zoom lens), were the Himalayas (convergence shooting, 
i.e., a series of consecutive frames while keeping the target at the 
center of the camera's field of view), the cities of Kabul and Salang, 
the Medvezhi Glacier, the Chekelen Peninsula, and the Aral Sea.

Progress 10P unloading will continue tomorrow. Reboost with Progress 
is scheduled for Tuesday (2/11), as reported before. Also planned for 
Tuesday:  transfer of 20 liters of condensate water to a CWC, and 
conference on MSG (microgravity science glovebox) with Science Officer 
Pettit, for Wednesday's troubleshooting.

Among today's ground-controlled activities without crew involvement 
was the regular software dump of the counter within the GNC (guidance, 
navigation and control) MDM to check whether a NaN (not-a-number) 
condition has been output by the GPS (global positioning system) 
receiver in the previous week.  [GPS is being used by ISS for attitude 
and state data. On 9/24 last year, a problem with GPS firmware, 
involving NaN values, caused both GNC MDMs to fail. This was 
subsequently fixed with new s/w patches. The patches were uplinked 
right after Soyuz docking on 11/1/02 and both GPS systems were powered 
on and configured to calculate attitude and state information 
(position & velocity). The GNC MDM today is using the GPS data as its 
primary state vector and attitude source. Attitude rates are provided 
by the U.S. RGA-1 (rate gyro assembly #1).]

Today's targets for the CEO (crew earth observations) program were
Hyderabad, India (scientists have few useful images of this Indian 
mega city located in the Deccan Plateau, roughly 150 mile NW of the 
mouths of the Godavari River. Looking carefully just right of track), 
Urumqui, China (this difficult target city is located in western China 
near a pass at the northern base of the snowy Tienshan Mountains and 
the southern edge of the arid Dzungarian basin), Kinshasa, Zaire 
(thunderstorm and cloudiness was much diminished over equatorial 
Africa in recent days. Crew was to use this chance for a nadir view of 
this major city located on the south bank of the Congo River), Sao 
Paulo, Brazil (the crew should have had an excellent nadir view of 
this Brazilian megacity located just inland from the coast), Recife, 
Brazil (this port is also Brazil's easternmost city. ISS had a nadir 
pass in fair weather and high sun), Dakar, Senegal (this important 
city is located near the tip of Cape Verde, the westernmost point of 
the African continent), Rome, Italy (the crew had a very nice nadir 
pass over the "Eternal City" located just inland from the west coast 
of Italy), Eastern Mediterranean Smog (this pass offered a fine 
vantage point to document smog formation and dispersion from northern 
Italy's Po River valley. As ISS crossed the Italian peninsula, crew 
was to look obliquely left of track towards the Alps, Venice, and the 
northern Adriatic Sea), Lower Amazon River Basin (with improving 
weather, this pass offered particularly good opportunities to enhance 
the details of water bodies with sun glint. ISS pass was NW of the 
Amazon estuaries), Caracas, Venezuela (the Venezuelan capital is 
located just inland from the coast and was slightly right of track), 
Havana, Cuba (the crew had an excellent fair weather pass over the 
Cuban capital. As ISS crossed western Cuba, the crew was to look for 
this city on the north coast, just left of track), Tuamotu Archipelago 
(an international effort to map an inventory the Earth's coral reefs 
continues to request imagery in this target area. Crew was to use the 
long lenses of the digital camera for nadir views of the details of 
the reef structures and islands of this extensive archipelago), Los 
Angeles, California (this ISS pass over sunny southern California 
included LA just to the left of track), and Las Vegas, Nevada (less 
than a minute after LA, ISS track continued over southern Nevada. Crew 
was to look just left of track for a good view of the Las Vegas 
Valley.

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

ISS Orbit (as of this morning, 6:08am EST [= epoch]):
Mean altitude -- 386.0 km
Apogee -- 389.7 km
Perigee -- 382.3 km
Period -- 92.27 min.
Inclination (to Equator) -- 51.64 deg
Eccentricity -- 0.0005462
Orbits per 24-hr. day -- 15.60
Mean altitude loss in last 24 hours -- 170 m
Revolutions since FGB/Zarya launch (Nov. '98) -- 24107

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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