STS-94, July 3 1997, MET:1/16:06 and 1/16:39 (approximate). Basic fluid physics in low gravity - the Internal Flows in a Free Drop (IFFD) experiment - was carried out in the Middeck Glovebox facility earlier today. The left photo shows the horn used in the experiment (bottom cone-shaped device), and the photo on the right shows the hollow rod (needle of a syringe) that forms the droplet. Scientists designed IFFD to levitate and deform the water droplet using acoustic energy (ultrasound). This experiment will give scientists a better understanding of how to improve containerless processing on the ground using this technique.

MOVIES! Three mpeg movies of IFFD runs showing typical behavior of a free drop:

1. spinning droplet (144KB)
2. needle withdrawal and subsequent behavior (228KB) and
3. large deformations of the droplet (118KB) the rapid oscillations of the drop cause the "ghost image" in this movie.

STS-94, July 2 1997, MET:0/18:30 (approximate). The three protein crystal growth experiments were activated by the crew in the middeck. These experiments will run untended but for occasional observations by the crew. Some photographs may be lost because of a problem with a polarizing filter used to show internal structures of crystals, the same as Polaroid sunglasses darken the sky. However, loss of this filter will not have any impact on the ultimate science goal, which is to grow the crystals in space in order to decipher their structure on the ground - after MSL-1 comes home.

Astronauts continued their work activating Spacelab (left picture). The views of Earth are terrific!