[sarex] ISS STATUS REPORT #05-38 - 22 JULY 2005

["ARTHUR Z. ROWE" <N1ORC@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

SUBMITTED BY ARTHUR N1ORC - AMSAT A/C #31468

*International Space Station Status Report #05-38*
*3 p.m. CDT, Friday, July 22, 2005*
*Expedition 11 Crew*

Expedition 11 Commander Sergei Krikalev and Flight Engineer John 
Phillips got ready this week for two upcoming Space Shuttle launches and 
a Space Station spacewalk, and supported two different continuing 
science investigations.

With the 100th day of their six-month mission coming up on July 23, the 
International Space Station crew members reported in a Friday interview 
that they are eagerly anticipating Discovery’s arrival next week with 
tons of supplies, a new experiment rack and a replacement Control Moment 
Gyroscope (CMG) for the Station’s navigation system. They have been 
packing equipment that will return home on Discovery to free up 
much-needed space inside the outpost, and this week they began packing 
for the STS-121 mission of Atlantis that will follow.

Earlier in the week, Krikalev and Phillips made a short foray in their 
Soyuz return craft, moving it from the Pirs docking port, which doubles 
as an airlock for Russian-suit spacewalks, to a Zarya docking port to 
configure the Station for an August excursion. The pair undocked from 
Pirs at 5:38 a.m. CDT Tuesday, and smoothly redocked at the nearby Zarya 
control module’s Earth-facing port at 6:08 a.m. CDT.

The post-Discovery spacewalk by Krikalev and Phillips will involve 
retrieval of materials exposure experiments, installation of a 
television camera for the European Space Agency’s cargo-carrying 
Automated Transfer Vehicle and relocation of a cargo boom adapter.

Phillips supported research this week by setting up a digital still 
photo camera in the Destiny Laboratory’s window for the continuing 
EarthKAM student experiment. After the crew mounts the window camera, 
middle school students research requests for specific geographic 
targets, and with the help of university students, uplinks commands to a 
laptop computer connected to the camera. The camera takes pictures at 
specified times, and the images are downlinked to the ground to be 
posted on the Internet for the public and participating classrooms 
around the world. The current EarthKAM run has taken photo requests from 
43 schools.

Krikalev spent time setting up and activating a plasma crystal 
experiment so that it could conduct automated experiments using radio 
frequency waves to affect crystal formation in microgravity. The 
experiment is a joint project of the Russian and German space agencies.

Information on the crew's activities aboard the Space Station, future 
launch dates, as well as Station sighting opportunities from anywhere on 
the Earth, is available on the Internet at:

http://www.nasa.gov/station

The next Station status report will be issued after STS-114, or on 
Friday, July 29, if there is a launch delay.

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