The International Space Station’s Expedition 9 crewmembers are now past the halfway point of their six-month mission. This week, they prepared for a third
spacewalk and joined the world in observing the 35th anniversary of the first landing of humans on the moon.
July 19 was the midpoint of the flight for ISS Commander
Gennady Padalka and Flight Engineer Mike Fincke, who
launched Apr. 19 and are targeted to return Oct. 19. On
Monday Fincke spoke with Charles Gibson of ABC-TV’s “Good
Morning, America” about the birth of his daughter, Tarali,
in June while he was in space. Fincke’s wife and children
joined the discussion from Houston.
This week the crew continued packing unneeded equipment and
trash in the Progress vehicle, scheduled to undock July 30.
Undocking the Progress from Zvezda’s aft docking port will
clear the area for the next spacewalk, targeted for Aug. 3.
Wearing Russian spacesuits and exiting from the Pirs Docking
Compartment, Padalka and Fincke are to install
retroreflectors and communications equipment needed for the
docking of the Automated Transfer Vehicle, a European Space
Agency cargo spacecraft scheduled to make its first flight
next year. Yesterday, Padalka and Fincke maneuvered the
Station’s Canadarm2 into position so its cameras can view
the spacewalk, and today they wrapped up a thorough review
of the spacewalk timeline with specialists in Moscow.
Fincke and Padalka also continued their support this week of
an experiment that looks at the interactions between the
crew and the ground teams. This experiment involves a
questionnaire on a laptop computer, which the crew and
members of their ground support team complete once a week.
The data is being used to examine issues involving tension,
cohesion and leadership roles in both the crewmembers and
their support team. The information gained will lead to
improved training and in-flight support of future space
crews.
As part of Fincke’s Saturday Afternoon Science, he conducted
another session of the Educational Payload Operations or
EPO. This EPO activity demonstrated what crewmembers can
observe about pollution and the environmental problems on
Earth. Fincke showed the window where he observes the Earth,
and described what types of pollution can be seen — such as
air pollution in urban areas, smoke from wildfires,
deforestation and strip mining.
The activity was videotaped and will be used later in
classrooms and NASA educational products. EPO is an
education payload designed to support the NASA Mission to
inspire the next generation of explorers.
Meanwhile, flight controllers in Houston are continuing to
investigate why two U.S. spacesuits are not providing the
proper cooling. This week, Fincke conducted troubleshooting
of a motor in the water pump of one of the spacesuits as
engineers on the ground monitored. An analysis of photos and
video from that work is underway. Two spare water pumps will
be launched in the next Progress supply ship, due to lift
off Aug. 11 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
The failure of a computer on the Station’s inactive
starboard thermal radiator on Monday has no significant
impact on current operations. The radiator is not in use in
the present Station configuration, although the computer had
assisted flight controllers with monitoring of temperatures
and pressures of the unused equipment. The radiator is not
scheduled to be used until several missions after the Space
Shuttle’s return to flight.
Tuesday, Padalka and Fincke celebrated the anniversary of
the Apollo 11 moon landing and discussed the past, present
and future of space exploration — and the role to be played
by the International Space Station in future exploration —
during in an interview with CBS News.
For information about NASA and agency missions on the
Internet, visit:
Information about crew activities on the Space Station,
future launch dates and Station sighting opportunities from
Earth, is available on the Internet at:
Details about Station science operations are available on an
Internet site administered by the Payload Operations Center
at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala.,
at:
