Updates ISS UPDATES

[Orbinaut Pete]

Roscosmos PAO: "Progress M-09M was Sunk in the Pacific".

Russia's Progress M-09M cargo spacecraft was sunk in the remote area in southern Pacific Ocean on Tuesday after it undocked from the International Space Station on April 22.
Following the undocking the spacecraft participated in a five-day geophysical scientific experiment codenamed Radar-Progress. Unburnt parts of the freighter were sunk at the "spaceship cemetery" at about 17:23 Moscow time (13:23 GMT).
The next Progress is to fly to the ISS today.

 

[Orbinaut Pete]

Check this out - a recent ISS tour by Paolo Nespoli, outlining the current stowage situation on the station.

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-3gxY4wY8I4"]YouTube - ISS Expedition 27 Stowage on Station for STS-134 Crew 22.04.11[/ame]

 

[Orbinaut Pete]

From ISS On-Orbit Status Report for 27/04/2011.

At the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, the new cargo ship Progress M-10M/42P (#410) was launched today on time at 1:05 PM GMT on a Soyuz-U rocket fuelled with 392 tons of LO2, over 80 tons of kerosene, and nearly 70 tons of LN2, H2O2 and other elements. Ascent was nominal, and all spacecraft systems were without issues. All arrays and antennas deployed nominally (2 solar arrays, 5 KURS antennas, 1 Rassvet-M antenna for TORU, 1 SBI/M-BITS onboard measurement / telemetry system antenna). Docking to the ISS at the DC-1 (Docking Compartment-1) Nadir port is planned for Friday, 29/04, at ~2:29 AM GMT.

TVIS Update:
TVIS (Treadmill with Vibration Isolation System) troubleshooting last Saturday (23/04) was not successful. VIS (Vibration Isolation System) stabilizer has been cleared. The crew found the broken wire rope which could have contributed to a gyro failure. Teams are continuing to assess this. [Bearings were changed out on TVIS early on during the two-crew timeframe but this signature does not seem to point to bearings.]

 

[Suzy]

New Russian Treadmill to be Delivered to the ISS in Early 2012– Roscosmos
:: 25.04.2011

New Russian treadmill is to be delivered to the International Space Station in early 2012, Roscosmos Human Spaceflight Directorate Head Alexey Krasnov told RIA Novosti.

The treadmill is to replace US TVIS which is now in use by Russian cosmonauts in the station.

"TVIS is rather obsolete, and out of its lifetime. IBMP prepares a new treadmill to be delivered to the station by Progress in early 2012, and commissioned in mid year”, Krasnov said.

 

[Cosmic Penguin]

Interesting, this video shows the current construction progress of the Nauka science module (a.k.a. the MLM):

Can any Russian members here help to transcribe the narration? :tiphat:

Edit: Great to see this module finally takes shape: it (which has served for the basis for several module concepts before) has been partly built for launch for close to twenty years! Hopefully the Russians can have enough Rubles for adding additional modules to the ISS. :thumbup:

 

[Wishbone]

I suspect there are enough rubles to do a lot of fascinating things, but not enough controls to prevent them being embezzled...

 

[Orbinaut Pete]

From ISS On-Orbit Status Report for 30/04/2011.

Short crew day:
With last night's late crew bedtime (3:00 AM GMT), wakeup this morning allowed for a 5.5 hours sleep-in, to 11:30 AM GMT. Sleep cycle gets back to normal tonight – 9:30 PM GMT.

Progress 42P Deliveries:
The new cargo drone Progress M-10M/42P delivered 2.7 metric tons of cargo consisting of 2,976 lbs (1,350 kg) "dry" goods (food, spares, life support supplies, experiment hardware), 1,940 lbs (880 kg) refuelling propellants for transfer to the SM (Service Module), 926 lbs (420 kg) of water, and 110 lbs (50 kg) of oxygen.

 

[diogom]

One thing I don't get is if this video is recent, why does it still say it'll dock to Zarya? Unless they've changed their minds again, what is the point of getting the Rassvet up there and de-orbiting it 2 years later?

 

[garyw]

Who says they will deorbit it two years later? What'll happen is Zarya will get a 5 or 10 year extension to bring it into line with the rest of the ISS. Just like Atlantis was supposed to go into OMDP and didn't so parts were recertified for longer life so will Zarya.

 

[diogom]

No, I meant is that in the video, they say the Nauka will dock to Zarya, though I think the current plans are de-orbiting Pirs and docking the Nauka to Zvezda, I may be mistaken but I've seen that plan mentioned in some places. If it would be like in the video, what would happen to Rassvet? Removed from the station, after only about 2 years there, unless they would find another place for it.

Edit: This Nauka thing can be a little more confusing, but as an example of what I mean: on NASA's official website, there's a game, maybe a year old, where the exterior of the ISS is noticebly different than the real one, with the really bad one being the Soyuz's are the old versions, reaaly old, like 7k, not TMAs.

 

[Orbinaut Pete]

No, I meant is that in the video, they say the Nauka will dock to Zarya, though I think the current plans are de-orbiting Pirs and docking the Nauka to Zvezda, I may be mistaken but I've seen that plan mentioned in some places. If it would be like in the video, what would happen to Rassvet? Removed from the station, after only about 2 years there, unless they would find another place for it.

Edit: This Nauka thing can be a little more confusing, but as an example of what I mean: on NASA's official website, there's a game, maybe a year old, where the exterior of the ISS is noticebly different than the real one, with the really bad one being the Soyuz's are the old versions, reaaly old, like 7k, not TMAs.

The animation in the video is wrong - Nauka will be docked to Zvezda Nadir, where Pirs is now. Pirs will be de-orbited by a Progress prior to Nauka's arrival. Nauka was originally planned to go on Zarya Nadir, but the plan was later changed to Zvezda Nadir. Rassvet is carrying lots of external cargo for Nauka (experiment airlock and radiator), so de-orbiting Rassvet prior to Nauka's arrival would be pretty silly.

 

[diogom]

Thanks, that's what I meant. They're making videos, recent, and giving info that's not true, that can mislead people who are not so much into spaceflight and already know these things.
Though this isn't important at all, and here I am making a big deal of it :facepalm:.

 

[IronRain]

Yahoo news: Mother dies as Italian astronaut son is in orbit

MILAN – The mother of Italian astronaut Paolo Nespoli, who is in orbit on the International Space Station, has died in her hometown near Milan, officials said Tuesday.

Maria Motta died following an illness at her home Monday evening. She was 78.

Verano Brianza Mayor Renato Casati told The Associated Press that family members have been in touch with Nespoli, who arrived on the space station in December for a six-month stint.
{More}

My thoughts to him and his family

 

[Donamy]

I feel so bad for him. I can't imagine anyone being in his situation.

 

[Ripley]

It must be bad to be up there in such a circumstance!

 

[Orbinaut Pete]

That's bad news. I can only imagine how helpless one must feel in such a situation. My thoughts are with Paolo.

 

[Orbinaut Pete]

From ISS On-Orbit Status Report for 04/05/2011.

ISS Reboost:
Tomorrow morning at 11:20 AM GMT, a one-burn ISS reboost with ATV-2 (Automated Transfer Vehicle-2) "Johannes Kepler" OCS (Orbit Correction System) thrusters will be conducted for a duration of 4 minutes 3 seconds and a delta-V of 0.6 m/s (1.97 ft/s). Altitude gain is expected to be ~1.04 km (0.56 nmi). Purpose of the reboost is to set up phasing for Soyuz TMA-20/25S landing on 23/05.

 

[IronRain]

 

[Ripley]

Touching.

 

[Orbinaut Pete]

From ISS On-Orbit Status Report for 05/05/2011.

FE-5 Paolo Nespoli spent the better part of his workday in Node 2 installing brackets and fittings on racks and standoffs. [After Flight STS-128/17A, the Node 2 rack bays were reconfigured to stay out of the sway space required for T2 treadmill operations at location Deck 5. Now that T2 has been relocated to Node 3, today's procedure placed the 4 Node 2 rack bays back on K-BARS (Knee-Brace Assembly Replacements) and Pivot Fittings to support quicker and easier rack rotations. The Node 2 ELPS-2 (Emergency Lighting Power Supply-2) was also removed, making the EEGS (Emergency Egress Guidance System) the primary egress path marker in Node 2. The task came in three parts: 1. Gathering equipment; 2. Installing brackets and closing out; 3. Configuring rack hardware at Deck 5 for FE-3 Ron Garan's CQ (Crew Quarters).]

Paolo gathered hardware items for the upcoming installation of the new ISSAC (ISS Agricultural Camera), a successor of the earlier AgCam, stowing them temporarily in the Lab near bay Deck 3. [ISSAC will be operational along with EarthKAM, both to conduct simultaneous but independent operations in the relatively new WORF (Window Observation Research Facility) rack in the Lab. AgCam was a multi-spectral camera for taking images, in visible and infrared light, of vegetated areas on the Earth, principally of growing crops, rangeland, grasslands, forests, and wetlands in the northern Great Plains and Rocky Mountain regions of the United States. It was found to have operational problems and was discontinued in 2009.]

ISS Reboost Update:
This morning at 11:20 AM GMT, a one-burn ISS reboost was successfully performed by the ATV-2 (Automated Transfer Vehicle-2) "Johannes Kepler" with its OCS (Orbit Correction System) thrusters, for a duration of 4 minutes 3 seconds and a delta-V of 0.6 m/s (1.97 ft/s). Altitude gain was expected 1.043 km (0.56 nmi). Purpose of the reboost was to set up phasing for the Soyuz TMA-20/25S landing on 23/05.