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The Expedition One crewmembers installed backup rendezvous equipment and conducted the first exercise on board the International Space Station as they near the end of the first week of their four-month mission. Expedition One Commander Bill Shepherd, Soyuz Commander Yuri Gidzenko and Flight Engineer Sergei Krikalev also pressed ahead with additional cable installations for the Elektron oxygen generation system and continued work to set up laptop computers and their computer network system, which will enable them to send e-mail and other files to flight controllers in Moscow and Houston in the weeks ahead. Shepherd indicated that the crew was having some trouble booting up some of the computers on board, as well as locating compatible cables for the various U.S. and Russian computers. Flight controllers are working on solutions to enable the crew to have a complete e-mail capability within the next few days. Meanwhile, Gidzenko and Krikalev completed the installation of hand controllers and a television monitor for the TORU system in the Zvezda module. TORU is a manual rendezvous system used by the crew in the event that the automated rendezvous system failed on final approach of an unmanned Progress resupply ship. The equipment was successfully tested in advance of the launch of the next Progress November 16. It is scheduled to dock automatically November 18 to the Earth-pointing docking port of the Zarya module. The Elektron system may be activated later this week to generate oxygen for the crewmembers. It was installed and tested over the weekend. In the meantime, they are activating three oxygen-generating canisters each day inside Zvezda, as had been planned preflight. The Elektron’s early activation is possible because of the restoration of a seventh battery in Zvezda, which had previously experienced a problem holding the proper voltage. Only one battery in Zvezda remains off-line, and may be restored with spare parts being delivered on next Progress vehicle. All three Expedition crewmembers exercised for the first time today, pedaling around the world on a bicycle ergometer in Zvezda. Tuesday the crew will use a treadmill for the first time that was installed by Atlantis’ astronauts on the STS-106 mission in September. The treadmill is equipped with special gear to eliminate vibrations from exercise, which would disturb sensitive microgravity experiments underway inside the station’s laboratories in the future. With the ISS flying smoothly at an altitude of 237 statute miles, the crew began its sleep period early this afternoon and will be awakened at about 10 p.m. Central time tonight. Mission commentary on NASA Television will resume at 11 p.m. -END- NASA Johnson Space Center Shuttle Mission/Space Station Status Reports and other information are available automatically by sending an Internet electronic mail message to majordomo@listserver.jsc.nasa.gov. In the body of the message (not the subject line) users should type "subscribe hsfnews" (no quotes). This will add the e-mail address that sent the subscribe message to the news release distribution list. The system will reply with a confirmation via e-mail of each subscription. Once you have subscribed you will receive future news releases via e-mail. |
