New Status: Change of Command: On Sunday, off-going ISS Commander (CDR) Chris Hadfield handed ISS command responsibilities over to CDR Pavel Vinogradov, making the 34 Soyuz (S) crew the prime crew in the event of an ISS emergency. 33 Soyuz (S) Cargo Return and Undock Preparations: FE-6 Marshburn collected and packed Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) …
New Status: Channel 2B to Channel 2A Power Transfer: Due to the loss of cooling on the 2B channel, ground controllers successfully performed a seamless power channel handover. Channel 2A is now supplying power to the 2B loads with no impact to powered equipment. Channel 2B is isolated and dormant. USOS Extravehicular Activity (EVA) Preparations: Tomorrow Flight …
New Status: This afternoon the crew noticed white flakes floating outside on the port side of the vehicle. At the same time ground teams noticed a drop in the 2B Photovoltaic Thermal Control System (PVTCS) ammonia pressure, indicating an external ammonia leak. The 2B PVTCS has had a known slow leak for several months, but …
New Status: Node 3 Carbon Dioxide Removal Assembly (CDRA) Air Selector Valve (ASV) 102 Remove & Replace (R&R): On April 25 the Node 3 CDRA valve 102 failed to reach its commanded position. Over the following 24 hours the CDRA shut down 6 more times due to valve 102 not reaching position. Engineering teams reviewed the …
New Status: Robonaut Taskboard/Teleops: Following yesterday’s procedures review and camcorder setup, today Cassidy and Marshburn retrieved Robonaut and supporting hardware, installed Robonaut to a seat track and connected the cables for powered/commanded operations. Today and tomorrow will be the 3rd 2-day session of these activities. The Robonaut Tele-operation System is used to demonstrate the ability to …
A composite image of 13 Eta Aquarid meteors from the NASA All Sky Fireball Network station in Mayhill, New Mexico the morning of May 6, 2013. Clouds seriously hampered our view of the ETAs this year. Observations reported to the International Meteor Organization indicate an outburst in the early hours of May 6th UTC.(Credit: All Sky …
Despite interference from the moon and clouds (and rising sun!), this morning we snagged our first observations of the 2013 Eta Aquarids. Here’s an image of one from the all sky camera in Tullahoma, Tennessee. The Eta Aquarids peak in the pre-dawn hours on May 6 and are material from Halley’s comet. They zoom around …
New Status: Spinal: Hadfield and Marshburn conducted their 3rd and final session of this experiment with Cassidy as operator and remote guidance from ground teams. Spinal Ultrasound uses ground and space-based studies to characterize spinal changes during and after spaceflight. Ground based pre- and post-flight Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) and high fidelity ultrasound, combined with in-flight …
New Status: improved Payload Ethernet Hub Gateway (iPEHG)-1 and -2 Installation: Commander (CDR) Hadfield upgraded PEHG-2 Wednesday and PEHG-1 today by removing the legacy PEHGs and installing two new iPEHGs. The new iPEHGs have enhanced configuration capabilities over the legacy PEHG, improved Gateway modes of operation and improved network protocols to support integration into Joint Station …
New Status: Burning and Suppression of Solids (BASS) Experiment (BASS): Cassidy conducted the 7th of 13 sessions planned for this experiment. BASS examines the burning and extinction characteristics of a wide variety of fuel samples in microgravity and will guide strategies for extinguishing fires in microgravity. BASS results contribute to the combustion computational models used …
