Thu, Apr 29, 2004
What Are Those Guys Up To, Anyway?
The five-crew members
aboard the International Space Station are busy with hand over
briefings and scientific experiments following their arrival early
last Wednesday. The outgoing Expedition 8 crew and incoming
Expedition 9 crew held a Change of Command Ceremony Tuesday.
Expedition 9 Commander Gennady Padalka and NASA ISS Science
Officer Mike Fincke docked their Soyuz spacecraft to the port of
the Zarya Control Module at 1:01 a.m. EDT Wednesday April 21. They
opened hatches and boarded the Station about an hour later,
beginning their six-month stay.
With them on the Soyuz was European Space Agency Astronaut Andre
Kuipers of the Netherlands. He will spend nine days aboard the
Station conducting scientific investigations. Kuipers will return
to Earth with Expedition 8 Commander Michael Foale and Flight
Engineer Alexander Kaleri.
Foale and Kaleri arrived on the Station October 20, 2003. The
Expedition 8 Soyuz capsule is scheduled to undock from the Pirs
Docking Compartment, where it has been during their mission, at
4:52 p.m. EDT, Thursday. The landing is scheduled for Thursday
night at 9:09 p.m. EDT, on the steppes of Kazakhstan.
Early last Thursday, during
their Daily Planning Conference, crew members were told one of the
Station's three operating Control Moment Gyroscopes, CMG 2, had
gone off line at about 4:20 p.m. EDT on Wednesday. The CMGs use
power from the solar arrays to control the Station's orientation.
Flight controllers traced the problem to a Remote Power Controller
Module (RPCM), a kind of remotely controlled circuit breaker that
had malfunctioned and cut off power to the gyroscope. The RPCM is
mounted on the top of the Station's central truss segment, above
the U.S. Laboratory Destiny.
Two CMGs continue to operate and are sufficient for controlling
the Station's orientation until the RPCM is replaced. Flight
controllers are planning a spacewalk. It will likely happen within
the next month. Crewmen will replace the RPCM with a spare unit and
restore operation of CMG-2. A spare RPCM is aboard the Station.
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