Experiment activity, medical research and station housekeeping were among the activities of Mir cosmonauts Sergei Zalyotin and Alexander Kalery this weekend.
The crew has settled into an operational cycle of waking up in the evening hours and working through the following morning before retiring for the day.
Zalyotin and Kalery began their weekend activities on Friday evening, awaking at 18h30 GMT and starting with medical monitoring that involved a body mass and shin volume measurements.
These measurements are part of Russia’s extensive evaluations of the human body’s ability to adapt to space flight – which gives the country unmatched experience in long-duration orbital missions.
The Friday-Saturday activity on Mir also included exercise sessions for Zalyotin and Kalery using the exercise bike and other equipment. Russian cosmonauts who have followed rigorous exercise programs were found to be the most productive while in space, and were able to readapt more quickly to the gravity conditions on Earth following the completion of their missions. The current cosmonauts have demonstrated their will to follow such a regular program of exercise while on Mir.
Zalyotin also spent time working on Mir’s life support system today, switching on the Potok 15MK air revitalization unit. At the same time, Kalery was in the Mir station’s Priroda module to look at the Plasma Crystal 2 scientific equipment.
Kalery also carried out routine operations on the life support system, while Zalyotin worked on Mir’s electrical power equipment.
The Duza-1M leak detection unit was monitored by the crew, and the Signal-VM fire detection system was checked as well.
Other activity during the Friday-Saturday workday included transfer of cargo from the unmanned Progress cargo vehicle that is docked to Mir. The Progress preceded Zalyotin and Kalery to Mir, docking automatically to the station during February.
Saturday/Sunday was a day off from most of the cosmonaut’s work, providing a break from their busy schedule. Following their wakeup at 19h00 GMT, the cosmonauts conducted two exercise sessions and spent about an hour working on the life support system and air revitalization assembly.
