NASA ISS On-Orbit Status 13 October 2008

STATUS REPORT Date Released: Monday, October 13, 2008 Source: NASA HQ - Comments

All ISS systems continue to function nominally, except those noted previously or below. Columbus Day - off-duty for CDR Volkov, FE-1 Kononenko, FE-2 Chamitoff. Underway: Week 26 of Increment 17.

Soyuz TMA-13 (17S) with Exp-18 crewmembers CDR Michael Fincke, Soyuz CDR/ISS-18 FE-1 Yuri Lonchakov, and SFP (Spaceflight Participant) Richard Garriott, 15th guest cosmonaut for the RS (Russian Segment), continues to catch up with the ISS for the docking tomorrow morning at ~4:33am EDT. [FD2 activities, started yesterday afternoon with Soyuz crew wakeup on Orbit 12, include systems & crew health status reports to TsUP, preparation of the Soyuz Habitation Module (SA) workspace, building attitude for and executing the DV3 burn, placing Soyuz back in its sun-spinning "barbecue" mode (ISK), and swapping CO2 absorption cartridges (LiOH) in the BO. Afterwards, the crewmembers put on their Sokol suits and PKO biomed harnesses, transferred to the SA, activated its air purification system (SOA) and closed the hatch to the Descent Module (BO). After activation of the active Kurs-A system on Soyuz and of the passive Kurs-P on the Service Module (SM), with a short Kurs-A/P test and several additional adjustment burns during automated rendezvous, station fly-around to align with the FGB nadir port will begin tomorrow morning at ~4:05am at ~400m range, followed by station keeping at ~160m (~4:14am) and docking at the FGB at ~4:33am. Fincke & Lonchakov will replace Exp-17 CDR Volkov & FE-1 Kononenko. FE-2 Dr. Gregory Chamitoff remains on the station, joining Exp-18 until next month (November) when he is replaced by U.S. Astronaut Sanda Magnus, arriving on STS-126/ULF2. Richard Garriott, the son of veteran U.S. Astronaut Owen Garriott (Skylab, Shuttle), will return with Sergey & Oleg on 10/23 in Soyuz TMA-12/16S.]

FE-2 Chamitoff started out with his third week-long session of the SLEEP (Sleep-Wake Actigraphy & Light Exposure during Spaceflight) experiment, using payload software for data downloading and filling in questionnaire entries in the experiment's session file on the HRF-1 laptop. [To monitor the crewmember's sleep/wake patterns and light exposure, Greg wears a special Actiwatch device which measures the light levels encountered by him as well as his patterns of sleep and activity throughout the Expedition. The log entries are done within 15 minutes of final awakening for seven consecutive days, as part of the crew's discretionary "job jar" task list.]

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