Category The International Space Station

In 1997, Brazil had signed a $200 million contract with NASA to provide an EXPRESS Pallet for launch on a Shuttle flight now planned for 2005. Brazil’s contract had included the selection of a Brazilian astronaut who would fly on a Shuttle flight to ISS. In mid-2002 Brazil informed NASA that it would be unable to produce the Pallet, citing budget difficulties as the reason for their failure to deliver.

Shortly after Brazil’s decision, Japan announced that the Japanese Experiment Module (JEM) Kibo would not now be delivered to NASA’s Space Station Proces­sing Facility at KSC until 2006, one year later than scheduled, due to budget difficulties. The JEM Centrifuge Accommodation Module (JEM CAM) would be delivered to NASA in 2006. The delay meant that the ESA Columbus Laboratory Module might be launched earlier than planned, as might the Canadian Special Purpose Dexterous Manipulator, Dextere.

At the same time the speculation over who would fill the third couch on the October Soyuz TMA-1 taxi flight came to an end. Lance Bass’ training came to an abrupt end when he failed to make the relevant $20 million payments to the Russians. Russian cosmonaut Yuri Lonchakov would now be the third crew member.

China launched its first crewed spacecraft on October 15, 2003. The Soyuz-based ShenZhou-5 was launched from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Centre in Gansu Province, on a Long March II-F launch vehicle. The single taikonaut (astronaut), Yang Liwei, made 14 orbits before returning to Earth and landing in Inner Mongolia on October 16, after a flight lasting 21 hours 23 minutes. China had become only the third nation to develop the ability to launch a crewed spacecraft into orbit.

Following the Chinese launch, Houston had told the Expedition-7 crew, “We have a news item to pass on. The world’s spacefaring nations have been joined by a new member tonight. For the next few hours, Russia and the United States will share the heavens with China.’’

Lu replied, “That is very good news. From one spacefaring nation to another, we wish them congratulations.’’ When discussing the Chinese flight, both of the Expedi­tion-7 crew members were positive. Lu stated, “Personally, I think it’s a great thing. The more people in space, the better off we all are.’’

Malenchenko added, “I’m glad to have somebody else in space (besides) Ed and me. It was great work by thousands and thousands of people from China. I congratulate all of them.’’

NASA Administrator Sean O’Keefe was equally positive, “They are developing a capability—this can’t be understated—to accomplish something that only two other nations on the planet have ever done. That’s a rather historic, hallmark achieve­ment.” Despite these positive words, in the coming years NASA would reject China’s attempts to become part of ISS.

Krikalev and Phillips watched Progress M-53 undock at 06: 26, September 7. The fully laden Progress was commanded to re-enter Earth’s atmosphere, where it was heated to destruction. Progress M-54 was launched at 09: 08, September 8, 2005. The heavily loaded spacecraft docked to Zvezda’s wake at 10: 42, September 10. Among its 2,414 kg of cargo, it carried a new liquids unit for the Russian Elektron oxygen generator, oxygen, water, propellants, clothing, food, and experiments for the Expedition-12 crew, William McArthur and Valeri Tokarev, scheduled to launch in Soyuz TMA-7 on October 1. The following week began with a day of unloading Progress, followed by a day of entering everything on the station’s computerised inventory using the barcodes on each item. The third day was spent dismantling the ESA Martoshka experiment retrieved from the station’s exterior during the EVA. On September 22, the crew replaced the liquids unit in the Elektron, thereby returning the unit to full use.

Meanwhile, Hurricane Katrina had flooded New Orleans, including the plant where the Shuttle’s ETs were made. As the month ended, Hurricane Rita threatened JSC, in Houston, which was evacuated and Korolev assumed primary control of the station. JSC resumed normal operations on September 26. The following day, Krikalev celebrated his birthday. He spoke to his family in Korolev and opened private packages that had been delivered on Progress M-54. The Expedition-11 crew spent the week ending September 30 unloading Progress M-54, and the following
week preparing for the arrival of Soyuz TMA-7 with the Expedition-12 crew, as well as preparing for their own departure from ISS. Throughout everything they con­tinued their daily exercise regime, regular maintenance of the ISS systems and the station’s experiment programme.

Japan’s National Aeronautical Laboratory was established in 1955, gaining a new Aerospace Division and changing its name to the National Aerospace Laboratory (NAL) in 1963. The Institute of Space and Aeronautical Science (ISAS) was also established in 1955, within the University of Tokyo. This led to co-operation between a number of Japanese universities on aerospace projects, including Japan’s infant space programme. In 1984 the ISAS name was changed to the Institute of Space Aeronautical Science. Also, the National Space Development Agency of Japan (NASDA) was formed in 1969 and assumed overall responsibility for the national space programme, including development of launch vehicles, payloads, and a launch, tracking, and support infrastructure. Finally, on October 1, 2003, these three organisations were merged to form the Japan Aerospace and Exploration Agency (JAXA). Japan has maintained an autonomous space programme, developing a series of sounding rockets and space launch vehicles since the mid-1960s. In the intervening decades it has developed a series of launch vehicles, initially of American designs under licence, but then of its own design, the latest of which is the general-purpose H-IIB, and it has also built a wide variety of satellites and deep-space probes. Despite plans for development of the HOPE mini-Shuttle, which was the victim of budgetary constraints, the Japanese have never developed their own crewed spacecraft, prefer­ring to co-operate with the Americans from the earliest years of Space Station Freedom. From the outset Japan announced that it would develop a laboratory module for ISS, which would be launched and installed on the station by American Shuttle crews. In 2007, Japan maintains an astronaut group of six men and two women. The first Japanese astronaut flew on the Shuttle in September 1992. Since then four other Japanese astronauts have made Shuttle flights. Two more have been assigned to Shuttle flights relating to the launch and installation of the various sections of the Kibo laboratory module to ISS, and the first Japanese Expedition crew member has been named. Koichi Wakata would fly as part of the Expedition-18 crew.

Kibo would require three separate Shuttle launches before all of its separate parts were installed in ISS. STS-123 would launch the Experiment Module and place it in a temporary location on the exterior of ISS; STS-124 would deliver the Kibo labora­tory module and install it on Harmony. After the Shuttle’s departure the experiment module would be positioned on Kibo’s zenith. Finally, STS-127 would deliver the Exposed Facility. All of the Kibo elements were at Cape Canaveral, Florida, awaiting launch when this was written in mid-2007. Kibo arrived at the Space Station Proces­sing Facility in May 2003 and was joined by the Exposed Facility in March 2007. Despite being the smallest module in the Original Space Station Freedom design, the dimensions of Kibo have not changed, while the size of the American and European modules has been decreased. Kibo is now the largest of the three laboratory modules in the American sector of ISS.

In the first instance Kibo would house three major experiments:

• Monitor of All-sky X-ray Image (MAXI)

• Superconducting Sub-Millimeter-wave-limb Emission Sounder (SMILES)

Progress M-46 was launched from Tyuratam at 13:37, June 26, 2002. While the spacecraft carried out a standard Soyuz rendezvous Korzun and Treschev rehearsed the back-up manual docking procedures using the TORU equipment set up in Zvezda. An automated docking occurred at 02: 23, June 29, and the hatches between the two vehicles were opened at 05: 30. The Expedition-5 crew began the long job of emptying the Progress and logging all of its contents on to the ISS’ computerised monitoring system. They also performed standard maintenance inside Zarya.

The first week of July was one of light duties with lots of free time for the three astronauts. On July 3, Whitson repaired the MCOR and bought it back on-line following a 3-week outage.

In a pre-flight interview Whitson had described the future tasks planned for the MT and the SSRMS:

“So, currently our arm is sitting on the Laboratory module. The shoulder is sitting on the Laboratory module, and we’ll use the arm off the Laboratory, grab the Mobile Base System out of the payload bay, and attach it to the Mobile Trans­porter. And then once the Shuttle’s gone… one of the things we’ll do is we’ll check out the Mobile Base, make sure it’s working correctly, and then we’re going to do the step-off procedure, which means we’ll grab one of the Payload and Data Grapple Fixtures with the arm and then release [it] from the Laboratory, so our new shoulder becomes on this Mobile Base System. And that allows us the capability of moving the arm along the truss. And that’s important for the next phase, when [STS-112] arrives with the next piece of truss, because from that Mobile Base on the end of the truss of S-0, we will reach down into the payload bay and grab the S-1 Truss and pick it up and attach it to S-0. And then during [STS-113] we’ll do the same from the other side, except because of the config­uration … the Shuttle arm will pick it up out of the payload bay and then we’ll grab it from the Shuttle and attach it to the station. So it’s going to be an interesting assembly complex, and the Mobile Base is key in positioning the arm in the appropriate place and it is a platform for the arm from which to work.’’

Whitson walked the SSRMS off Destiny for the first time on July 10, when she commanded the free end of the arm to attach itself to a fixture on the S-0 ITS. Following the walk-off, Korzun and Whitson put the SSRMS through the manoeuvres that would be required to support the installation of the S-1 ITS, during the flight of STS-112. Two days later the SSRMS was moved to a series of alternative PDGFs, in order to ensure the power and data flows required for the installation of the S-1 and P-1 ITS elements were functioning correctly.

On July 15, Korzun and Whitson worked together to replace the Desiccant/ Sorbent Bed Assembly in the Carbon Dioxide Removal Assembly (CDRA), in Destiny. While one bed had been performing normally, the bed being replaced had been malfunctioning since Destiny’s launch, in February 2001. A valve between the desiccant and sorbent sides of the bed was stuck in the open position. The replacement took 4 hours to complete, but when the unit was activated on July 20, the new bed showed a similar leak to the original bed, but at a lower rate.

Two days later, the entire crew performed a medical operations drill, to maintain their training in that vital area of crew performance. On the same day, Whitson worked with engineers on the ground to work out a repair procedure for a spacesuit battery that had failed to discharge prior to being recharged. During the week the crew continued with their science programme, working with the Micro-encapsulation Electrostatic Processing Experiment (MEPE), the ADVASC, and the Microgravity Science Glovebox (MSG). Whitson described the importance of the glove box as follows:

“Well, I think science advances a lot slower than any of us would like it to; but specifically during Expedition 5 we’re getting the Microgravity Sciences Glovebox up… this is a facility payload that is going to allow various different investigators to do materials science inside of a confined environment. In the environment of the Space Station, if we do things that involve toxic materials, we need to have several layers of containment, because obviously we can’t just open the window if we have a little toxic fluid escape. So, the Microgravity Sciences Glovebox provides us a level of containment. It allows us to work inside with the rubber gloves up on our arms, and we can manipulate and set up experiments inside a contained environment. And it would be experiments that we couldn’t possibly do without that additional level of containment… We’ve had other smaller glove – boxes flying, which have flown before either on the Shuttle, in Spacelab, and even one on Mir. So there have been previous ones; this is a kind of a facility-class payload, very large, and I think it’s going to really enhance our capabilities in the materials science world.’’

They also participated in an educational broadcast called “Toys in Space’’, whereby they used a number of simple toys to explain the basic principles of physics involved in spaceflight and present on ISS. The scientific work continued throughout the following week, with the crew working on the Solidification Using A Baffle in Sealed Ampules (UABSA) experiment, which was designed to grow semiconductor crystals in microgravity. Whitson activated the MSG and televised the heating and cooling processes involved in heating a semiconductor to melting point and then allowing it to cool. Whitson also monitored the ADVASC, where soybean plants had started growing. All three astronauts performed PuFF experiments in advance of the EVAs planned for mid-August. There was also the Renal Stone Experiment. Whitson said:

“Our experiment is based on some previous data that we’ve collected on the Shuttle and on the NASA/Mir science program, and there we found that crew­members are at a greater risk of forming renal or kidney stones… And that’s a big deal in spaceflight because, if you’ve ever known anybody who’s formed a kidney stone, it is excruciatingly painful if that stone begins to move, and in essence it will incapacitate a crewmember, and you would probably have to abort the entire mission. So we are interested in trying to reduce that risk of stone formation. We’ve had crewmembers form stones after flight, and there’s one case where they aborted a Russian mission because of a crewmember who formed a stone during flight… that moved. And so… we’re looking at a countermeasure to try and alleviate some of those effects. We’re using a drug that’s commonly used on the ground to inhibit calcium-containing stones, and based on the results of our previous research we’re going to be using potassium citrate in the crewmembers on a daily basis to see if that actually reduces the risk of forming renal stones, and collecting the same data that we collected… before and see if the risk is actually decreased… Our research shows that there really is a higher risk, and it has to do with the fact that the crewmembers tend to be somewhat more dehydrated, as well as the fact that their bones are demineralizing, so there’s a greater level of calcium and phosphate in the urine, which can form crystals and form the nucleus of the stone that could occur.’’

Meanwhile, they continued their repair and maintenance work, replacing remote power converter modules in the Quest Airlock after they had shown the initial signs of malfunction. On July 22, the crew’s treadmill began making “clanking noises’’ when they ran on it. Investigation revealed that the problem lay in one of the rollers that the belt ran over, where a ball bearing had seized. The crew also worked on the Elektron oxygen-generating system, but failed to improve its performance.

Following a review of the ISS programme, the director of the US government’s Office of Management and Budget described ISS as one of the Bush government’s “most inefficient and wasteful programmes.” The programme was further described as one of the “biggest [budget] over-runs ever in the federal government.”

The NASA Advisory Council, which had also been tasked to review the ISS programme agreed with the conclusions of the Young Committee. Its report stated that the huge budget over-runs in the ISS programme “cannot be excused and must not be ignored.’’ The Council also agreed that NASA must complete the ISS pro­gramme without further budget over-runs for at least two years, during which NASA could not hope to expand the Expedition crew beyond three people. Beyond the criticism, the Advisory Council suggested that NASA begin assigning a modest budget to revive the American Habitation Module and an American CRV.

In March Sean O’Keefe had established a task force to review the station’s ability to support science of merit. On July 10, the force recommended that 15 of the 35 areas of research reviewed be pursued as “first priority’’. The task force also recommended that NASA stop referring to ISS as a “science-driven programme’’, until the size of the Expedition crew was raised to six people. Meanwhile, a Rosaviakosmos spokes­man stated that the international agreements on which the ISS programme were based were “deteriorating seriously’’. He suggested that Russia should demand those agreements be renegotiated, and suggested that, if it wished, Russia could build and launch a “European’’ space station as an alternative to ISS.

Following the publication of the Columbia Accident Investigation Board’s (CAIB) Final Report, NASA began preparing for the Shuttle’s Return to Flight. One idea that was developed was the idea of a safe haven on ISS for the crew of any future Shuttle that was damaged during ascent into orbit.

In keeping with the CAIB report’s recommendations, all future Shuttle flights would use cameras mounted on a new Orbiter Boom Sensor System (OBSS) to inspect the previously inaccessible areas of the orbiter’s Thermal Protection System (TPS). Additional photographs would be taken by the ISS Expedition crew as the Shuttle performed a nose-over-tail pitch manoeuvre prior to docking. The photo­graphs and videos would then be downloaded to MCC-Houston, where engineers would study them and declare the TPS fit, or unfit, for re-entry. If the TPS was damaged and declared unfit for re-entry, the Shuttle crew would dock with ISS, which would then serve as a safe haven until a new means of recovery could be launched to recover them. This might be a second Shuttle, or in extreme cases, additional Russian Soyuz spacecraft.

With a two-person Expedition crew and a seven-person Shuttle crew onboard, supplies available on ISS would be limited. Under existing conditions a Shuttle crew would be able to utilise the safe haven for up to 86 days, at which point NASA would have to be able to launch the rescue vehicle, a second Shuttle. Excess water and food from the crippled Shuttle would be transferred to the station to support the additional astronauts. In addition, the launch schedule for Progress cargo vehicles would have to be sustained.

Prior to the loss of STS-107, the Expedition-8 crew consisting of Michael Foale, William McArthur, and Valeri Tokarev was due to be launched to ISS on STS-116, with a Shuttle crew consisting of:

COMMANDER: Terrence Wilcutt

PILOT: William Oefelein

MISSION SPECIALISTS: Robert Curbeam, Christer Fuglesang

STS-116 was to have returned the original (three-man) Expedition-7 crew to Earth at the end of their mission.

When the two-person caretaker crews were named on February 24, 2003, Foale and Alexander Kaleri (the third member of the original Expedition-7 crew) were named as the new Expedition-8 crew, with McArthur and Tokarev serving as their back-up crew. Spaniard Pedro Duque was flying under the Roscosmos contract that offered the third couch on a Soyuz flight to ESA if it was not filled by a commercial spaceflight participant. Duque would return to Earth in Soyuz TMA-2 with the Expedition-7 crew. Foale was on his sixth spaceflight, Kaleri his fourth, and Duque his second.

Discussing his training for flying the Soyuz spacecraft during his various crew allocations, Foale has said:

“Well, I’ve had a lot of experience, compared to other U. S. astronauts training for Soyuz flight. First of all, on Mir we had to train for Soyuz emergency descent, and that was basically as a passenger cosmonaut-astronaut in the right seat. On this last training flow before Columbia I was training for the left seat emergency descent with a cosmonaut in the center seat. After Columbia, Sasha and I were named to be the backups to Ed Lu and Yuri Malenchenko that are on orbit right now, and there I had to train both for launch in the left seat, rendezvous, and then descent. And then at the same time I had to take the same classes that Sasha, the Commander, was taking and do those in the centre seat. So I have seen the whole smorgasbord of crew roles and responsibilities on board the Soyuz.’’

Asked about the possibility that he might also have to return to Earth in a Soyuz spacecraft at the end of the Expedition-8 crew’s occupation, Foale remarked:

“I think, to be quite honest, I’d like to come home in the Soyuz. And that’s mostly because it’s well understood right now. Its ballistic entry was demonstrated by Ken Bowersox and Don Pettit and Nikolai Budarin on the last entry. People called that off-nominal—it certainly was not an expected entry—but it demon­strated yet another aspect of the Soyuz, which is its robustness… [H]owever, I do want the Shuttle to succeed… But I don’t believe… that the Shuttle’s architecture will allow it to be significantly safer without adding crew escape to it.’’

Soyuz TMA-3 was launched at 01: 38, October 18, 2003. Kaleri served as Soyuz Commander, with Foale assuming command only after entering the station. Docking to Pirs nadir occurred at 03 : 16, October 20, as ISS passed over Central Asia. Mean­while, in orbit, pressure and leak checks were followed by the opening of the hatches between the two spacecraft at 05: 19, and the new crew entered the station, where the

Expedition-7 crew, who were on their 177th day in space, greeted them. The flags of Spain and ESA were displayed on the station alongside those of America and Russia. After eating lunch, the three newcomers received the standard safety brief before Duque’s couch liner was transferred to Soyuz TMA-2. Meanwhile, NASA announced details of two minor problems with the flight. The potentially more serious of the two was a small helium leak between the helium pressurisation tank and the propellant tanks of Manifold 2 in the Soyuz propulsion system. Manifold 1 would be used for the remainder of the Soyuz TMA-3 flight.

After Soyuz TMA-3 had safely docked to Pirs, the Washington Post released details of how two “mid-level scientists and physicians” had refused to sign the initial approval for the launch due to their concerns over the deterioration of environmental monitors and the medical and exercise equipment on ISS. The report also claimed that ISS was running low of medicines and intravenous fluids, and the noise levels in the Russian sector of the station were greater than desired, and required a noise – deadening programme. NASA Administrator Sean O’Keefe stated publicly that the he did not believe the crew to be in any danger. Both the Expedition-7 and Expedi­tion-8 crews acknowledged the difficulties, but stated that they believed they were in no immediate danger. These reports led to a number of politicians jumping on the bandwagon and using the incident as an excuse to attack NASA and its Adminis­trator. Representative Sheila Jackson Lee (Democrat-Houston) stated, “Safety, above all, has to be the highest priority. After the Columbia Accident Investigation Board’s report came out, I asked specifically about the safety of the Space Station and the response coming back was not as strong as I wanted. Now it seems there is not only a problem, there is a crisis.’’ NASA also had its supporters, Dana Rohrabacher, head of the House Space and Aeronautics subcommittee, told the press, “I have faith Mr. O’Keefe is doing his best and shouldn’t be second-guessed by politicians.’’ Meanwhile, the two individuals concerned told the media that they had not identified any immediate threats to crew safety, but were concerned over the deteri­oration and long-term failure of equipment measuring the environment on the station since the loss of STS-107, and the grounding of the Shuttle fleet. They stated that they had spoken to NASA officials from JSC and were content that NASA was taking their concerns seriously and had begun to address the issues that they had raised.

When the issues were first raised and became public, in the second week of October, O’Keefe had been blunt. He told the media that if the situation reached a point where the crew was at risk then.. the answer is, get aboard the Soyuz, turn down the lights and leave.’’

Docking was followed by 8 days of joint operations, with Malenchenko and Lu handing over to Foale and Kaleri, while Duque performed his “Cervantes” experiment programme. This consisted of 24 experiments to be completed, in both the Russian and American sectors of the station, over 40 hours. Foale described his feelings on what would happen during the hand-over in the following terms:

“[Tjhere are a number of goals to be achieved during the joint operations… of the oncoming crew and the off-going crew. First and foremost … Spain, through ESA… are paying the lion’s share of this Soyuz flight, and they have serious

science objectives to accomplish during the five days that Pedro is planned to be on board the Station with us. And so, to be honest… I feel obliged, just as Sasha does, to help Pedro get kicked off to a running start as soon as we arrive. There is nothing more important than getting Pedro running. The remaining four days I will spend my time with Ed Lu, and I hope to learn everything he has learned about the Destiny module, about the Airlock, the Node, and all of our stowage there and all of our equipment there, and its operations with the control center here in Houston. However, I must not ignore what’s going on in the Russian segment, where Sasha Kaleri will be spending a lot of time with Malenchenko and learning about Russian operations, work in the Service Module and in the FGB, and in their docking module… By the time four days have gone by, I will know just the bare minimum to be able to find my clothes, wash my body, do my exercise, and work the radio… but the practical knowledge will be there after four days. And at that point, we will be ready to say, Pedro, you’re going to that spacecraft; your seat liner’s in that spacecraft—the old one, the returning one— with Ed Lu and Yuri Malenchenko, and then we’ll close the hatch and breathe a sigh of relief, because joint ops is a very hard time because everybody has a lot to do in a short time.’’

The ceremonial change of command ceremony took place on October 24. Three days later Malenchenko and Lu and Duque sealed themselves in Soyuz TMA-2. They

were preparing to undock when the complex rolled unexpectedly. This caused the thrusters on Zvezda to fire, to correct the station’s attitude. NASA described the incident:

“At 2.57 pm, while ISS was in the XPOP momentum management mode, the station experienced a large unexpected roll manoeuvre event, with momentum increasing from 16 percent to 90 percent in four minutes. As 90 percent triggers a de-saturation of the CMGs, with Service Module thrusters, several de-saturation burns followed, using several kilograms of propellant. Proper attitude control was re-established for the undocking… Troubleshooting by Moscow determined that the cause of the torque was a crewmember, during ingress, contacting the Soyuz hand controllers, which are not supposed to be active at that time. TsUP further determined that the override commands to activate the hand controllers were inadvertently initiated by a Soyuz control panel pushbutton, while the crew was loading return items.’’

As usual TsUP had managed to put the blame on the crew, despite the fact that no one in the Russian control room had noticed that the Soyuz hand controllers had been inadvertently activated.

Soyuz TMA-2 undocked at 18: 17, October 27. The de-orbit burn took place at 20: 47, and the re-entry module touched down on target in Kazakhstan at 21: 41. The

Expedition-7 crew had spent 184 days 22 hours 46 minutes and 9 seconds in flight. Duque had been away from Earth for 9 days 21 hours 1 minute 58 seconds. Initial medical examinations at the landing site showed all three men to be in good health, but the Expedition-7 crew underwent the usual 45-day rehabilitation programme at Korolev, where Malenchenko’s new wife was waiting to welcome him back to Earth.

Japan’s second major input into the ISS programme would be the H-II Transfer Vehicle (HTV). The automated logistics carried would be launched on a Japanese H-IIB launch vehicle and would carry logistics to ISS. Following launch, the HTV would carry out an automated rendezvous and station-keeping with ISS, before being grasped by the Space Station Remote Manipulator system and being docked to Unity for unloading. Following unloading, the HTV would be filled with rubbish and unwanted materials before being undocked from Unity and performing a separation manoeuvre. Once clear of ISS the HTV would perform a retrofire manoeuvre and re­enter Earth’s atmosphere, where it would be heated to destruction.

JAXA maintains three principal centres for their operations relating to ISS.

• JAXA Headquarters is in Tokyo and oversees the management of the Japanese space programme.

• Tsukuba Space Centre (TKSC), where Kibo was developed, constructed, and tested. It is also the location of the Kibo Control Centre.

• Tanegashima Space Centre contains the Osaki Range where the H-II launch vehicles for the HTV will be launched from.

The suggestion that NASA might reconsider developing ISS beyond Core Complete, including the CRV, came as no surprise to many inside the Administration. In 2002, an internal JSC report suggested that NASA could not expect to increase the Expedi­tion crew beyond three people before 2008. The report included a statement that a seven-person CRV (X-38?) should be included in the plans for increased operations. The report stated, “Succeeding with the CRV is key to our long term vision for NASA… Maintaining our ability to design, build, test, and fly a spacecraft like the CRV is key. This is recognised by every senior manager at JSC, and elsewhere in NASA.” The X-38 CRV had been officially subject to cancellation since the Bush Senior Administration’s attempt to bring the ISS budget under control.

Despite the X-38 programme’s alleged cancellation in mid-2001, Congress had instructed that funding for the programme should be reinstated in November of the same year. In 2002, Aerojet delivered the De-orbit Propulsion Stage (DPS) for the X-38, for use on CRV-201, which had been built for the “ironbird” flight, the return from orbit after delivery into space in the payload bay of the Shuttle Columbia. The eight-thruster DPS would fire to slow the X-38 down, allowing gravitational attraction to pull it back into the atmosphere.

In June 2002, NASA Administrator Sean O’Keefe cancelled the rejuvenated X-38 programme, in advance of a new change in direction: the Integrated Space Trans­portation Plan (ISTP) and the Orbital Space Plane (OSP) Crew Transfer Vehicle (CTV). The term Crew Return Vehicle was slowly being dropped from NASA’s vocabulary, just as the X-38 was being dropped from ISS. Even as the X-38 was finally cancelled, NASA was criticised for not including the budgetary effects of that cancellation in their reports. Rather, some politicians felt that the cancellation announcement had been made in such a way as to suggest that the only reason for the cancellation was so that NASA could present their plans for the new OSP in a better light, in that OSP could perform both the CTV and CRV roles, while X-38 was more narrowly focused on the CRV role.

Foale and Kaleri spent their first week in space completing experiments and familiarising themselves with ISS. Their experiment programme included 42 Russian experiments, 38 of which had been used on previous Expedition occupations. They quickly established a daily routine of briefings, exercise, experiments, and maintenance. October 28 was a light work day for the new crew, offering them a chance to rest after the intensity of their Soyuz flight and the hand-over week. Kaleri donned a compression cuff on his upper thigh as part of the Russian Braslet-M/ Anketa microgravity adaptation experiment. He also donated blood for the Hematokrit experiment. At the start of the new week they performed well in an emergency evacuation drill, before performing maintenance and station configura­tion tasks. The day after that was a full workday, with both men performing their own countries’ medical experiments, and an inspection of the station’s exercise devices, and maintenance.

After a quiet weekend the crew began work with the Body Mass Measurements experiments before stowing the EarthKam. Foale spoke to former Skylab astronauts who were meeting at MSFC, in Huntsville, to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the launch of Skylab-4, the final crewed flight in that programme. During the week a series of solar flares erupted from the Sun, sending radiation towards Earth, where the planet’s magnetic field directed some of it into the upper atmosphere, causing aurorae. At various times the two astronauts sheltered in Zvezda and the third sleep station in Destiny as the station passed close to areas of high activity within Earth’s ionosphere. Korolev made it clear to the public that ISS orbited between 1,000 km and 2,000 km below the areas of highest activity in Earth’s atmosphere, and that the station’s radiation shielding was sufficient to protect the crew. Despite this and the fact that broken radiation-monitoring equipment had been part of the general deterioration of ISS complained about before the Soyuz TMA-3 launch, radiation levels outside and inside the station were carefully monitored.

Throughout all of this the crew continued to perform their experiments, with Kaleri performing Russian medical and physiological experiments in Zvezda, while Foale worked on American experiments in Destiny. On October 31, the Russian veloergometer, a vital exercise machine mounted in Zvezda, failed. Engineers in Korolev began an investigation into what had happened and how to repair it. The veloergometer was part of the crew’s daily exercise routine to ward off the effects of prolonged microgravity, so its speedy repair was important to them. On November 2, ISS passed its third year of permanent occupation.

Both men continued with their national experiment programmes, while also spending time trying to find suitable storage for all of the items on the station. This even included pressurising PMA-2, which was normally kept in a vacuum state, opening the hatch between Destiny and the PMA, and mounting items around its internal walls, before closing the hatch once more. Foale installed the EarthKam in Destiny’s nadir window and activated the Protein Crystal Growth experiment. He also used a special glove to measure hand muscle action in microgravity. The Hand Posture Analyser was an Italian experiment flown by ESA in an attempt to “quantify muscle fatigue associated with long-duration spaceflight.”

Foale had discussed some of the experiments during his pre-launch interview:

“we have… one experiment that looks at the melting and then the re-solidifica­tion of metal analogues in the glovebox facility in the Destiny Laboratory Module. We have a very interesting experiment that looks like it’s straight out of Star Wars called SPHERES… And this experiment is, the set of spheres— actually polyhedrons—that manoeuvre themselves in relation to each other and fly in formation to each other. We do this inside… the Node [Unity], and I’ll be doing that at different times during the mission. And then we have experiments that are life science-oriented. There’s an experiment that measures how I move in space… for a number of days I’ll be wearing some pretty fancy, expensive tights that are fully instrumented with instrumentation that measure how my muscles are moving, how the nerves that are triggering my muscles are firing, and indeed, the actual resulting position of my leg. It’s called FOOT. Although, actually it’s not only the foot that it’s studying, it’s studying the whole leg. And so that will then bring data back on basically how a human being adjusts, or just naturally assumes a neutral position in space during a normal workday.’’

In mid-November Kaleri reconfigured the TORU cabling inside Zvezda. Meanwhile, spikes in the current vibration lasting approximately 30 minutes were noted in CMG-3, on November 8. Three gyroscopes, mounted in the Z-1 Truss, were used to control the Station’s attitude, but were taken off-line when large manoeuvres were required. The fourth gyroscope had been taken off-line in 2002, following a malfunction, and a replacement gyroscope was waiting in Florida for the Shuttle to resume flying, because it was too big to fit in Progress.

November 11 saw the crew completing periodic hearing tests, while inspecting the Thermal Vibration Isolation System (TVIS) and checking the batteries for the station’s defibrillator. The following day they worked on reorganising equipment on ISS. November 12 was spent changing ten smoke detectors in the station and inspecting equipment at the request of mission control. The crew ended the week by commencing a course of potassium citrate pills, or placebos, in advance of a study of renal (kidney) stone development, an ongoing problem in long-duration spaceflight. Foale prepared the CBOSS experiment and its Fluid Dynamics Investigation experi­ment for later operations when it would be used to grow three-dimensional cell cultures. At the same time Kaleri worked with the Russian Profilakita experiment to study the effects of long-duration spaceflight on the human body. The week ended

with the crew making preparations for the following week’s rehearsal for the Stage EVA that was planned for February 2004.

Both men spent the beginning of the week evaluating emergency procedures to be used if Pirs failed to pressurise at the end of the planned EVA. In that event they would have to move directly from Pirs to Soyuz TMA-3 while still wearing their Russian Orlan suits. On November 18, Kaleri donned an Orlan EVA suit and attempted to make the transfer through the hatch from Pirs to the orbital module of Soyuz TMA-3. Clearances between the suit’s Life Support System and the hatch rim were minimal and, even with the unsuited Foale pushing him from behind, the attempt took much longer than expected and was abandoned with Kaleri only partway through the hatch.

November 20 was the fifth anniversary of Zarya’s launch. Representatives from all 16 countries participating in the ISS programme celebrated the launch of the first element. Foale completed a computer-guided refresher course on the use of the SSRMS on November 21. He also completed alterations to the instrumented suit that was part of the FOOT experiment.

At one point the crew heard an unusual noise from the treadmill’s Vibration Isolation System (VIS). They were told to stop using the treadmill while the noise was investigated. The cause was later established as a possible gyroscope failure within the treadmill. They began running the treadmill with the VIS powered off a few days later, as part of a Russian experiment to see exactly what vibrations were present and how they affected the station’s other experiments. Following this, the crew were given permission to use the treadmill, with the VIS powered off, for their daily exercises over the weekend.

At 02: 59, November 26, both Foale and Kaleri heard what they initially believed to be an external impact on the aft end of Zvezda. Foale later explained how he had been immediately sure that ISS had not been ruptured because his ears had not popped, due to a drop in internal air pressure, as they had when he was onboard the Russian Mir station and a Progress vehicle had collided with one of its modules. The SSRMS was used to scan the area, but no signs of an impact were found. Internal pressure readings and the coolant system were monitored both on the ground and in space, but no leaks were discovered. The crew ultimately went back to work, while Houston and Korolev continued to investigate the noise. In the wake of the STS-107 investigation and the criticism that they had received on that occasion, NASA asked the Pentagon to turn a reconnaissance satellite’s cameras on ISS, to image the area where the impact was thought to have taken place.

Foale set up video cameras in Destiny to document the Fluid Dynamics Investigation, as part of the CBOSS experiment. He also installed equipment in the MSG for the PFMI experiment. Finally, he completed the alterations to the FOOT experiment’s instrumented suit. November 27 was American Thanksgiving Day. The crew enjoyed a light workload and some free time to listen to music and watch films. NASA Administrator Sean O’Keefe spoke to both men by telephone.

Foale spent much of December 2 participating in the FOOT experiment. He had to wear the Lower Extremities Monitoring Suit which was fitted with 20 sensors to measure the wearer’s daily activities. During the same day Kaleri worked on the veloergometer, stripping it down and reassembling it. Although the device worked normally after reassembly, Kaleri found no cause for the earlier malfunction. The exercise machine malfunctioned again six days later. On December 4, Kaleri completed the first run on the Russian Plasma Crystal-3 experiment, after spending the earlier part of the week setting it up. The automated experiment studied crystallisation of plasma dust subjected to high-frequency radio waves in a vacuum chamber. Both men also inspected the TVIS on the treadmill in Zvezda, before they both ran on the treadmill with its Vibration Isolation Stabilisation turned off. Instruments in Zvezda and Unity measured the resulting vibrations.

On that day NASA announced that, due to the malfunction of one CMG in the Z-1 Truss and the recent vibration experienced by a second, “ISS attitude hold and all attitude manoeuvres will be performed on Russian thrusters only, between now and mid-January.’’ During the week the crew also discharged and re-charged the batteries in the various pressure suits on the station, reloaded the station laptop computers, and participated in the ongoing Renal Stone Experiment.

December 8 saw Michael Foale set a new record for an individual American astronaut’s cumulative time in space, passing the previous record of 230 days 13 hours 3 minutes 38 seconds set by Carl Walz. Thirty Russian cosmonauts had spent longer cumulative times in space than Foale, including Kaleri, who had spent 415 days in space, even before commencing his Expedition-8 flight to ISS. The Russian record was held by Sergei Avdeyev’s cumulative time of 748 days. Carl Walz, the previous holder of the American record telephoned Foale to pass on his congratula­tions. The following two days were spent stripping down the treadmill and confirmed that a bearing in one of its gyroscopes was the cause of the problem. A replacement would be carried up to ISS on Progress M1-11, due for launch in January 2004. The following day the Elektron oxygen generator’s prime and back-up pumps failed, causing the machine to shut down. Engineers suggested that an air bubble had caused the problem, and Elektron was later powered on for 10 hours to clear it. Foale used the SSRSM on December 9 to continue the inspection of the station’s exterior following the crew’s report of an external sound earlier in the flight. Its cameras were also used to inspect the exterior of the station to search for any changes, a task usually carried out by Shuttle crews during their post-undocking fly-around of the station.

NASA announced four new ISS Expedition crews on December 17, 2003. The details released at the time were

The Shuttle launch dates were subject to the Shuttle returning to flight following the loss of STS-107.

When McArthur was temporarily medically disqualified, Chiao was teamed with Tokarov on Expedition-9. In time McArthur returned to flight status and the original pairings were reinstated with Padalka, Fincke, and Kuipers being teamed up on Expedition-9, Chiao and Sharipov on Expedition-10 and McArthur and Tokarev slipped to Expedition-11, giving McArthur time to catch up on lost training.

Prior to the STS-107 tragedy, the Expedition-9 and Expedition-10 crews had

December 17 was the 100th anniversary of powered flight. Foale and Kaleri were given the day off, although they did talk to schoolchildren at the Wright Brothers’ Memorial at Kitty Hawk. Some aerospace journalists had expected President Bush to make an announcement regarding the future of the American human spaceflight programme during the day, but he did not do so. The ISS crew ended the week by sending down the results from some of their experiments. Their weekend of light duties was interrupted by the Elektron shutting down a further three times. The unit was turned down to the lowest power setting, reducing atmospheric pressure on the station. The atmosphere was supplemented with oxygen from tanks in Progress M-48. NASA announced:

“The Elektron has been operating only intermittently, shutting down when air gets into pumps that help separate liquid and gas. The problem is believed to be one that is sometimes experienced as membranes in that unit age. A replacement is onboard, but flight controllers plan to continue operations as they are for as long as possible before using the new equipment. Oxygen also is being provided to the cabin air from tanks aboard the Progress craft that is docked to the complex. The oxygen in those tanks must be used in the next few weeks to prepare for the undocking of that supply craft in January. With the Progress oxygen being used, continuous use of the Elektron is not necessary.’’

Two days later Foale and Kaleri completed their ninth week in space. Foale began the week by performing a leak check on the seal between Quest and Unity. The connecting hatch was sealed and the airlock’s internal pressure reduced and left overnight. No leaks were detected. At the same time Kaleri worked to replace a faulty heat exchanger in Zvezda’s back-up air-conditioning system. He successfully removed the old unit, but then experienced difficulty aligning the new one. The work was left while controllers in Korolev diagnosed the problem. The primary system
continued to function flawlessly. Troubleshooting also took place on Zvezda’s Elektron system.

The two days before the Christmas holidays were spent repairing various experiments and taking sound level measurements in Zvezda. On December 24, Christmas Eve, Kaleri worked on the Elektron system in Zvezda, replacing filters, but the system failed to restart at the end of his efforts. The sensors in the tanks that were supposed to fill with water indicated that they were full when they were in fact empty. Meanwhile, Foale stowed clothing in Unity, including many items that had been used by previous crews and would not be used again. Both men had the holiday period off, although they had to perform their daily exercises, and routine house­keeping and maintenance on the station. They had a smoked turkey dinner, received a call from Sean O’Keefe, and Foale spoke to his family. On December 26, it was back to work, carrying out routine maintenance on the station.

Kaleri spent three hours on December 29, removing no longer needed attitude control equipment from Zarya; the equipment would be discarded in Progress M-48 in late January. He also worked with the Russian Harmful Impurities Removal System, which helped to purify the station’s atmosphere. Foale spent the day working with the CBOSS experiment. The following day, Foale completed some soldering and repacked the ISS medical kit with fresh supplies from Progress M-48. On December 31, both men completed 1 hour of emergency medical training. They also turned off the Elektron and activated their first SFOG candle, in an attempt to use up those candles that were approaching their use-by date. NASA explained:

“Each candle releases 600 litres of O2, enough for one person per day. There are

142 SFOGs on board, and the certified lifetime of all of them expires today.

Russian formalities required for extending their lifetimes are being expedited as

much as possible.’’

The pair exchanged New Year greetings with each of their many control rooms as they passed around the planet. They celebrated New Year at midnight gmt.

As 2003 ended Sean O’Keefe made it clear that STS-114, the Shuttle Return to Flight mission, would not fly in 2004. He stated that the requirement to develop the OBSS, required to inspect the Shuttle’s TPS on each flight, and the requirement to develop a TPS repair kit, as demanded by the CAIB, were the principal causes of the delay. O’Keefe said that the cost of returning the Shuttle to flight had risen from the $280 million estimated in November 2003, to the present figure of $400 million.

January 1, 2004 was a day off for the crew. Both men spoke to their families and completed only vital technical maintenance and personal exercise. During the day, controllers noticed that ISS was suffering a slow pressure leak. Systems on the station were able to compensate for the leak, but the two men still began checking all valves that gave access to open space to ensure they were properly closed. They found nothing untoward. Both men had first-hand experience of leaks in space. Foale had been onboard Mir when it was struck by a Progress spacecraft in 1997, and Kaleri had been sent to Mir in 2000 to look for an unidentified slow leak on the station at that time.

The following day Foale returned to work on the CBOSS and Kaleri followed instructions that were radioed up from Korolev to adjust the Elektron oxygen generator in Zvezda. Kaleri also activated two SFOGs to enrich the station’s atmosphere. A further two SFOGs were burned the next day. Meanwhile, oxygen was also introduced to the station’s atmosphere from tanks in Progress M-48 on January 1 and again on January 3.

Two days later the crew were informed of a drop in internal air pressure registered in Houston. The leak had first been registered on January 1, and had grown steadily worse since then. They were told, “There’s no action for you at this time and no immediate concerns… We’ll continue to investigate this on the next shift and we may have some actions for you tomorrow.’’ Even so, the crew carried out some basic checks onboard ISS but they found nothing amiss. On January 6, they returned to the search for the cause of a pressure leak on the station. NASA’s Mike Suffredini explained, “We’re going to take a very measured and methodical approach to sort through this problem… If this was in fact a leak, which we’re not certain that it is, we have, oh, about a little over half a year’s worth of gas on board to feed it and so we’re in no particular hurry to overreact.’’

Foale finally identified the location of the leak on January 11. It was caused by a flexible cable called a vacuum jumper that was used to equalise pressure between the individual panes in Destiny’s main window, where it entered a steel harness at the edge of the window. The vacuum jumper would be capped off and replaced later, after relevant equipment had been lifted up to ISS on a future Progress. Both men had checked the window before, but their efforts to listen for the leak had been frustrated by the noise coming from a science experiment being run in the laboratory. NASA told journalists, “Foale reported that as soon as the flex hose was disconnected, the noise stopped. While additional evaluation is needed for confirmation, the pressure in the station appears to have stabilised since the removal of the hose.’’ Having identified the leak, the crew requested, and were given the remainder of the day off. At Houston’s request the crew ended the week by closing the internal hatches and spending the weekend in Zvezda. Controllers then monitored the internal press­ure in the various isolated modules of the station throughout the weekend. In Korolev, engineers were considering a total replacement of Zvezda’s Elektron unit, which continued to function intermittently.

The Brazilian space programme began in 1961, under the command of the national military authorities. It has developed a national launch vehicle programme, begin­ning in the 1970s. In 1994, the programme was civilianised, under the charge of the Ministry of Technology and Science and the Brazilian Space Agency (in Portuguese the Agenda Espacial Brasiliera or AEB) was formed, with its launch site in Alcantara. Early co-operation with the Americans was hindered by American laws relating to technology transfer, and Brazil now co-operates with a number of other nations.

AEB originally signed a contract to provide an experiment rack, to be launched on the Shuttle and mounted on the exterior of ISS. In return a Brazilian astronaut would fly to ISS on a Shuttle mission, as part of NASA’s allocation of ISS utilisation time. Budgetary constraints prevented the Brazilians manufacturing the experiment rack, but the flight of their astronaut has taken place.

Brazil operates several AEB centres:

• National Institute for Space Research is responsible for the oversight of all of Brazil’s space programmes and the development of relevant hardware.

• Institute of Aeronautics and Space (IAE) oversees the development of Brazil’s launch vehicles.

• Alcantara Launch Centre.