Category The International Space Station

Goldin’s replacement as NASA Administrator was the former Deputy Director of the White House Office of Management and Budget Sean O’Keefe. On taking up his new post on December 21, 2001, O’Keefe stated that he intended to adhere to the rec­ommendations of the Young Committee on how to bring the ISS budget back under control. The report had suggested that NASA be placed on probation until ISS reached “Core Complete’’, with a three-person crew performing both maintenance and science. O’Keefe had said that, if NASA brought the ISS budget under control, then consideration might be given to going beyond “Core Complete’’, such as reinstating an American Habitation Module and the X-38 CRV. He stated that the question of crew size was vital to the programme. The new Administrator was blunt and warned, “If NASA fails to meet the standards, then an end-state beyond ‘Core Complete’ is not an option.’’

O’Keefe also stated that he would ensure that ISS did not dominate NASA’s programmes ‘‘at the expense of everything else this organisation does.’’ The new Administrator said that he believed the civil and military sectors should increase their co-operation on space programmes, especially on the development of any future Shuttle replacement.

In the weeks that followed, the management of ESA demanded a meeting with O’Keefe. The Europeans were unhappy at NASA’s unilateral decision not to con­struct and launch the Habitation Module and the X-38 CRV, thereby restricting the ISS crew to three people and severely limiting the amount of scientific research that could be performed on the station. The Europeans considered that all of the ISS partners, including America, had signed legal documents that committed America to constructing and launching a Habitation Module and thereby supporting an Expedition crew of up to seven people. However, NASA and the American govern­ment now considered that their commitment ended when Node-2 was launched, thereby allowing the European and Japanese Science modules to be launched and docked to ISS. Ultimately, NASA negotiated with ESA to have Node-3, which was being constructed in Italy, reinstated and outfitted with additional sleeping quarters and life support equipment.

At 14:00, April 12, 2002, while STS-110 was docked to ISS, O’Keefe made a public address at the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, Syracuse University, during which he voiced his vision of the future of NASA under his leadership. In his speech he described NASA’s mandate as:

to pioneer the future, to push the envelope, to do what has never been done before.’’

He called it, “An amazing charter indeed,’’ and continued, “Our greatest asset in fulfilling this demanding charter is the excellence of our people.’’

O’Keefe stated NASA’s mandate under his charge in three simple terms.

• To improve life here.

• To extend life to there.

• To find life beyond.

He expanded each of these three goals, but his vision for NASA was summed up by the headings that he gave to those expansions.

• To understand and protect our home planet.

• To explore the Universe and search for life.

• To inspire the next generation of explorers… as only NASA can.

The Young Report would become a major planning tool by which NASA’s future involvement in the ISS programme would be ruled.

“It just depends on who you talk to how normal a day would be. But, the typical days without a Soyuz visit or without [an] EVA on board, or without a Progress arrival, you wake up, you have an hour-and-a-half or so to do your morning cleanup and have some breakfast. Then there’s a half-hour conference, or fifteen – minute conference, with the ground, the daily planning conference. Then you start into the work time. There’s about eight hours booked for work but part of that is also booked for exercise, so we only consider about six-and-a-half hours as work time. And then in the end of the day it’s the same sort of wind down—we have

another conference, then a couple of hours to put things away and get ready for bed, relax a little bit. And then an eight-and-a-half-hour sleep period, and the whole day starts again.”

Their first day alone on the station began with some free time to get over the hectic hand-over period of joint activities. Thereafter, they began their daily regime of maintenance, experiments, and personal exercise by reconfiguring the station’s com­puter network and loading it with new software. They also checked the HRF rack in Destiny and the station’s defribillator, as well as performing maintenance tasks around the station. By the end of their third week in space they had completed their first PuFF and Renal Stone Experiment runs. Pettit also completed a monthly check of the GASMAP experiment.

As Christmas approached, the Expedition-6 crew were finishing their first month on the station. They spent the week ending December 20 working on their experi­ments, including the Zeolite Crystal Growth (ZCG) experiment, designed to produce zeolite crystals in space that are larger than those produced on Earth. Bowersox completed a practice run of the Foot/Ground Forces experiment (FOOT), which he had described before launch:

“The way it works is there’s a suit that the subject wears, and it’s got sensors on it that measure the angles of the ankle and the knee and the hip, in addition to electrodes on different muscles on the leg and some on the arm. And that senses the electrical activity in the muscles and all that’s being recorded as you do normal daily tasks. There’s also some sensors that are on the bottom of shoes so that if you’re running on a treadmill or standing on the platform doing resistive exercise, those pads will measure the amount of force on your feet. And we’ll collect seven or eight hours of data in that suit three, four times during the mission, about one month apart.’’

Pettit set up the EXPRESS Rack-3 laptop computer prior to activating and checking out the rack itself. The crew also tested the station’s KURS automatic docking system, working with Russian controllers. On December 19, they completed more than 3 hours of SSRMS operations, including a series of grapples on an MBS fixture, to collect Force Movement Sensor (FMS) data. Their final task on December 20 was to install the High Rate Communications Outage Recorder (HCOR) on Destiny. This recorder would store data for later transmission to Earth when the station was not in contact with an American TDRS satellite. It replaced a medium – rate recorder, thereby offering a greater storage capacity. Just before 01: 00, December 21, the crew manoeuvred ISS so that the starboard side was facing the direction of travel. This was called the YW attitude. The manoeuvre was carried out because some areas of the station had been overheating.

Christmas Day, December 25, marked the beginning of the crew’s second month on ISS. They had a day off, although they had to perform some housekeeping chores and their usual two hours of physical exercise each. NASA Administrator Sean O’Keefe spoke to the crew and each man had a 15-minute private conversation with his family and opened presents that had been delivered to the station by STS-113. Later in the day they returned ISS to its standard attitude, with Destiny at the ram and the P-6 SAWs locked to the Sun once more, this was the so-called XPOP attitude. During the next week, Bowersox completed the FOOT experiment, recording data on changes in microgravity of his leg joints and muscles. Throughout the same week Budarin worked on the Russian plant growth experiment and Pettit continued work­ing inside Destiny. Prior to launch Pettit had described the basic principles behind the microgravity experiments on the station:

“The microgravity science experiments are generally physical science experi­ments: crystal growth, combustion, things like that. And, they are utilizing an environment where there are small sedimentation forces, no buoyancy forces or reduced buoyancy forces, things that will allow you to do containerless proces­sing, where you can have something floating around without touching the walls of a container, or a high vacuum, high pumping rate environment like an experiment done outside of the pressurized modules on an exposure platform… many observations in science are key around the balance of forces, measuring one force in the absence of another. And many of the phenomenon that we see on Earth are governed by the balance of these forces. So if you remove, say, gravitational force, now all of a sudden you can see surface tension force. And so, experiments done on Space Station are designed around the reduction in the gravitational force so that you can see other forces manifest themselves and you can make new observations that are very difficult, if not impossible, to make any other way.”

The crew celebrated New Year 2003 at midnight GMT, December 31. January 2 saw them carry out a fire drill and setting up the ultrasound equipment in the HRF, which would be used to “image” the crew’s body organs for both research and medical use. The following day, they recorded sound levels in the different ISS modules for health and safety at work monitoring, and continued their work with the Zeolite Crystal Growth experiment. Budarin continued to work with experiments in the Russian sector of the station and also checked the wake docking port on Zvezda in preparation for the arrival of Progress M-47, in February.

All three men spent the week preparing Quest for the upcoming Stage EVA and completed their monthly lung function test. Bowersox and Pettit operated the SSRMS on January 9, to complete a video survey of the thermal control equipment associated with the growing ITS. NASA made an announcement the following day that the 50th EVA dedicated to the construction of ISS was delayed until January 15, with Pettit accompanying Bowersox outside in place of Budarin. During a December 5, pre-EVA session on the station’s stationary bicycle, Budarin had registered a rate of oxygen consumption that was too low to meet American protocols for an EVA that used the EMU and the American-controlled Quest airlock. For NASA, Rob Navias announced that the delay had “no mission impact whatsoever… There is no mission impact to anything else that this crew is doing on orbit or to the objectives.” He added, “There was no rush to conduct this spacewalk and we decided to delay it.’’

While America refused to release the reason behind Budarin’s replacement, quoting the medical privacy of the individual concerned, the Russians did release the information, stating that if it had been a Russian EVA using the Russian Orlan suit and the Pirs airlock Budarin’s oxygen consumption rate would not have barred him from making the EVA. Bowersox had discussed the idea behind the EVA:

“[I]t’s proof of concept as much as anything. We’re trying to show that a station crew, with just three people, really can get suited up, go outside, and do simul­taneous EVA arm ops with the Canadian robot arm, and a mixed-nationality EVA. It’s a lot to take on, if you think about it, and there’s only three of us there when we do these things during the docked time frame, with a Shuttle crew there, there’s a whole lot more support, there’s more cameras from the orbiter, there’s an extra airlock, an extra door to go in and out and a lot more people to help you get things done. It’s quite the challenge to do it with just three people, and so what we’re going to be doing mostly is proving that it is possible.’’

Ironically, it was Budarin who had described the EVA during his own pre-launch interview:

“Well, speaking about EVA, I very much hope that we’ll have this EVA. There will be two crewmembers going outside, stepping outside the station; one will stay

behind, supporting their activity in space. Jim Wetherbee’s crew will have installed the P-1 segment on the S-0 Truss; we will pick up with installing equipment on this truss segment. We will install a UHF antenna, we will install a radiator, we will have to deploy it. It is stowed and latched. In order to deploy this radiator we will need to open the latches, open the locks… there are eighteen of them, so there will be a lot of tedious work. I’m doing these locks. We will also have to install some struts with lights on the CETA cart … and we will also be transferring tools from one truss segment to another; we will be using the robotic arm. I’m hoping that I will get a chance to participate in this EVA. I have eight spacewalks under my belt from the Mir experience, and I’m hoping to get EVA experience on the International Space Station. Maybe there will be other objec­tives, but for now, this is the program of our EVA. But, we are ready to do whatever comes our way.’’

On the day, the EVA was delayed by problems opening Quest’s outer hatch, which the Americans said was caused by dirt in the lock, but the Russians quickly blamed on the inexperience of the two astronauts, who were both making their first EVA. With the hatch finally open, the two men switched their EMUs to internal battery power at 07:50. Bowersox reported a loss of digital data in his EMU, but the problem cleared up when he cycled the internal power switch. Having collected their tools they made their way to the P-1 ITS, where they released ten launch restraint straps on the P-1 radiators. A further eight restraints had been previously released during the STS-113 EVAs in November 2002, when the P-1 ITS was installed on ISS. Controllers in Houston then commanded the central radiator to extend to its full 15 metres. The deployment took 9 minutes to complete. The two men then inspected equipment on the P-1 ITS before making their way to the exterior of Unity, where Pettit used sticky tape to remove grit from the CBM docking seals in preparation for the arrival of the MPLM Raffaello on the next Shuttle flight, STS-114, then planned for March.

Moving to the S-1 ITS, the two men failed to remove a stanchion from its stowed location for installation on one of the two handcarts that future EVA astronauts would use to move themselves along the completed ITS. A pin was interfering with the stanchion’s movement and its installation was deferred to a later EVA. Pettit retrieved tools from a storage box on the Z-1 Truss prior to checking the ammonia system on the P-6 ITS. This task was performed in advance of an ammonia cooling system test on a Shuttle flight planned for later in the year. Returning to Quest, the astronauts used a pair of scissors to cut the strap that had delayed the hatch opening at the start of the EVA. The EVA was completed at 14: 41, after 6 hours 51 minutes. All three men had a rest day on January 16, performing only routine exercise and maintenance.

Progress M-49 lifted off from Baikonur Cosmodrome at 09: 34, May 25, 2004, carrying 2,566 kg of food, water, propellant, and equipment for the two men on the station. The spacecraft completed an automatic docking to Zvezda’s wake at 09: 55, May 27. Following pressure and leak checks the crew spent the next few days unloading the new vehicle, beginning on May 28.

RUSSIA CALLS FOR 12-MONTH EXPEDITION FLIGHTS

In Moscow, Russia was pressing for the Expedition-10 crew to spend 12-months in orbit. While NASA was not prepared to consider such a mission all the time the ISS programme was flying with two-man caretaker crews and relying on the Soyuz TMA for return to Earth, the Russians were adamant that the time had come to advance the Expedition crews’ stay time, and increase the amount of science performed by each crew. Yuri Semenov, director of Energia stated:

“Our position is rigid—the next crew [Expedition-10] must make a long flight. I would urge our American colleagues not to drag their feet on solving this issue. We are ready for long flights. Our equipment is ready and our partners [the Americans] must listen to their Russian colleagues… Russia is keeping the station running while the USA and Japan are cutting down their budgets. This cannot last for long because Russia has had to freeze the construction of later ISS hardware and stop selling trips to rich tourists in order to mobilise its resources to keep the ISS afloat.’’

The Russians were careful not to mention that 12-month Expedition crews would leave two seats available for sale to paying passengers on intervening Soyuz TMA “taxi’’ flights.

NASA replied to Russia’s request that “The time is not right.’’ They explained that the Expedition-10 crew would not stay in space for 12 months, but that the Expedition-11 crew might do so in 2005; but only if the Shuttle was flying again by then. In July, ESA managers also began to call for a six-person Expedition crew. They suggested that this could be achieved by using two Soyuz CRVs and having the three extra astronauts finding sleeping accommodation wherever they could. They did not address the question of who would pay for the extra Soyuz spacecraft, but did criticise America for cancelling the American Habitation Module and the X-38 CRV. Meanwhile, NASA had also failed to act on the Young Committee recommendation that two Expedition crews could work side by side on the station for one month, rather than just one week during hand-over periods.

On June 3, Padalka and Fincke began preparation for the EVA that had been rescheduled after the May 19 EMU checks. The EVA was tentatively planned for no earlier than June 15. During the first week of June, their sixth week on ISS, they also performed experiments and routine housekeeping. On June 10, programme managers scheduled the EVA for June 24. The move placed the EVA at a better time in the crew’s workday, optimised Russian communications coverage, and offered additional time for preparation. The crew carried out training with the tools that they would use and prepared their Orlan suits; they also performed cardiovascular evaluation sessions on the fixed bicycle in Zvezda. Much of the rest of the first half of the month was spent unloading Progress M-49 and performing their experiment programmes in Destiny and Zvezda.

Fincke’s wife, Renita, gave birth to their second child on June 18. The astronaut took the opportunity to remind the world that many men and women in the service of their country were also forced to miss similar important family occasions. Mean­while, EVA preparations, including fitting American EMU helmet lights on to the helmets of their Russian Orlan suits, continued alongside mass measurement checks and software replacement in three racks of experiments in Destiny.

In his pre-launch interview, Fincke had described how he felt about the two planned Stage EVAs during his occupation of ISS:

“[O]nly recently did I actually start to think how really exciting that is, to be alone in the cosmos without a spacecraft around me except for this suit that was put together by human hands. It’s made out of material and a little bit of metal and a lot of plastic, and yet we’ll be able to look out there on our planet below and the stars in the sky and really experience a true spaceflight. [I]t’s an honour as a rookie to get a chance to perform two spacewalks, and it’s an honour to be able to fly on a Russian Soyuz spacecraft, and to work in a Russian spacesuit. My instructors spent a lot of time with me, and I’m glad I’ve earned their confidence in the U. S. and Russia to get a chance to do that.’’

The EVA to repair the RPCM finally began at 17: 56, June 24, 2004. Following depressurisation of the Pirs airlock they opened the hatch and made their way outside. Almost immediately, Russian flight controllers noticed that the primary oxygen bottle in Fincke’s PLSS was losing pressure much faster than expected. The two men were ordered to return to the airlock and terminate the EVA. The hatch was closed and the EVA ended at 18: 10, after just 14 minutes 22 seconds. NASA announced, “The overall pressure in Fincke’s suit remained stable at all times and he was not in danger.’’

Following immediate troubleshooting, the astronauts were instructed to remove their pressure suits, return to the station, and reconfigure it for normal use. Although the Russian controllers were not able to immediately identify the cause of the prob­lem, Fincke thanked both control teams for being alert and noticing the problem so quickly. He informed Korolev that the two of them would sleep late the following morning and then resume their normal work/sleep routine until it was time to prepare for a second attempt at the EVA. Programme managers rescheduled the EVA for no earlier than June 29, as dictated by Russian communication coverage. The problem with Fincke’s suit was identified as an injector switch that controlled the flow of oxygen.

Although investigations would continue for the next few days, the crew were informed that they had followed the correct procedures when preparing for the EVA and could expect to wear the same Orlan suits when they completed the rescheduled EVA. On June 29, the EVA was rescheduled again, for the following day. On the same date, Russian engineers confirmed that the selector switch in Fincke’s suit had not seated properly when it was set. Energia told the media, “This valve has a particular design feature—whilst it is being closed, one must make sure not only that the signal light goes out, but also that the handle has been locked.’’ New procedures were put in place to confirm the switch’s seating when preparing for future EVAs.

The second attempt to repair the RPCM began at 17: 19, June 30, 20 minutes ahead of schedule, when the two men left Pirs. Padalka described the scene outside as “Dark, but very beautiful.’’ They moved over to the Strela crane, Padalka turned the hand crank to extend it to its full 15m length, and Fincke made his way along to the end of it. Padalka manoeuvred Finke to a position where he secured the crane to the handrails on Zarya’s wake. Padalka then made his way along the Strela to Fincke’s position before they both transferred to the handrails on the exterior of Unity, at 18: 09. At that time, control of the EVA passed from Korolev to Houston and the two men stopped speaking Russian and began speaking English. Controllers in Houston guided them to their work position on the S-0 ITS, where, by 18: 52, they had completed their tasks to replace the RPCM. Fifteen minutes later, word was passed to the astronauts that power was flowing to CMG-2 once more and that it was spinning at 30rpm. The two men collected their tools and made their way back to the Strela crane, where control of the EVA was handed back to Korolev, at 21 : 11, and they began speaking Russian once more. Having traversed the Strela crane, Padalka cranked the telescopic crane back to its stowed position, bringing Fincke back to the exterior of Pirs. They also completed get-ahead tasks in preparation for later EVAs, when they installed two flexible handrails, mounted a contamination monitor to measure station thruster exhaust, and added end caps to two handrails on the exterior of Pirs. Having entered the airlock they closed the hatch at 22: 59, after an EVA lasting 5 hours 40 minutes. CMG-2 was powered up to verify its full 6,600 rpm, at 14: 30, July 1. After performing tests overnight, the CMG was returned to its role of helping the two working CMGs to control the ISS’s attitude, at 07: 20, July 2. The fourth CMG remained off-line. The two astronauts spent July 2 tidying up after the EVA, after which they had a three-day weekend off, to celebrate July 4, American Independence Day. Meanwhile, controllers in Korolev pumped air from the tanks in Progress M-49 into the station’s atmosphere.

Back at work the crew concentrated their efforts on their experiments and general maintenance of the station. Padalka used the new ultrasound experiment to examine Fincke, and thereby demonstrated a capability to transmit medical data to a flight surgeon on the ground in real time. Meanwhile, Fincke continued to troubleshoot the cooling systems in the two American EMUs. The problems experienced prior to the last EVA were traced to pumps in the cooling system. New pumps would be sent up to the station on the next Progress, due for launch in August. Throughout the third week of July the crew performed more experiments, studying their cardiovascular systems and fluid motion in microgravity. They also spent the week loading rubbish in to Progress M-49 and removing the KURS automatic docking system. Both men donned their Sokol launch and re-entry suits and made their way into Soyuz TMA-4 for fit-checks in their couches, on July 7. A full fire drill at the end of the week was followed by a round of taking air and swab samples around the station. Two false activations of the station’s fire alarms led to the crew cleaning the fire alarms. During his weekend off Padalka completed sessions with the Russian Pulse medical experiment and the ESA Eye Tracking Device experiment. The following week saw him beginning a new round of Russian biomedical experiments. Fincke worked on American experiments in Destiny.

On July 16, Russian controllers at Korolev made an unsuccessful attempt to upload software into computers in Zvezda. The software was designed to support the rendezvous and docking of the ESA-developed Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV) to Zvezda’s wake. The ATV would be launched by Ariane-V from the ESA launch site in French Guiana. It would carry 2.5 times the payload that a Progress could carry, including propellants, water, oxygen, and nitrogen. It would also be able to re­boost the station’s orbit. At that time the ATV was due to make its maiden flight in 2005 and then operate alongside Progress. During the day, Padalka replaced a pump in Zvezda’s cooling system, which had failed two days earlier. The back-up cooling system had continued to work properly throughout the malfunction and its repair.

Padalka and Fincke passed the halfway point of their mission on July 19. Fincke spent the day removing the water pump from one of the failed EMUs. Two spare water pumps would be launched on Progress M-50. The following day, a computer failed on the station’s starboard thermal radiator, but had no impact on operations, as the radiator was not active. On July 21, they both participated in celebrations of the 35th anniversary of the Apollo-11 Moon landing. The crew spent the week loading rubbish into Progress M-49. On July 23, they began preparations for their second EVA, before they manoeuvred the SSRMS to a position where it could video the EVA planned for August 3.

The leaders of the international space agencies involved in ISS met at Noordwijk, Holland, on July 23. They reviewed the status of ISS operations, and the final configuration of ISS at the end of the decade. The group reaffirmed their commitment to international co-operation and to the completion of the station’s construction and operation. They also committed their agencies to continually review launch schedules and opportunities to accelerate that schedule. American and Russian representatives renewed their commitment to continued occupation of ISS throughout its construc­tion phase. The representatives recognised America’s efforts to return the Shuttle to flight status and Russia’s commitment to maintaining access to the station and to its re-supply. They also discussed access to the station after Energia’s contract to supply Soyuz and Progress spacecraft came to an end. At the beginning of the ISS

programme Russia had agreed to supply 11 Soyuz spacecraft free of charge. The last of those spacecraft was due to be launched in October 2005, and recovered in April 2006. The Russians made it clear that they would require payment for their Soyuz spacecraft when a new contract was negotiated. This presented a major problem, in that the Iran Non-proliferation Act banned NASA from paying money directly to Russia. Congress put the Act in place, in fear that President Clinton’s relationship with Russia’s President Putin was allowing him to overlook Russia’s part in the Iranian nuclear programme. Although the Clinton White House fought the new Act, it was voted into law and forced the President to operate sanctions against any country that helped Iran’s programme. Following the loss of STS-107 a Democratic Party proposal to change the Act, to allow additional Soyuz spacecraft to be purchased from Russia, had received only 3 signatures in 17 months. Mean­while, the prospect arose that, after April 2006, America might only be able to fly short-duration Shuttle flights to ISS because they were unable to pay for American astronauts’ places on the Soyuz CRV docked to the station for return to Earth in the event of an emergency. In such an event all American astronauts would have to be launched to and returned from ISS by Shuttle. A further problem also arose if the Constellation spacecraft were not ready to start crewed orbital flight before the Shuttle was retired in 2010.

Progress M-49 undocked from ISS at 02: 05, July 30. Fincke filmed the spacecraft as it departed. The station’s cameras also recorded the Progress re-entry. The Expedi­tion-10 crew spent the remainder of the week preparing for their third EVA. Fincke also spent part of the week completing soldering experiments in microgravity.

Padalka and Fincke wore Orlan suits when they exited Pirs, at 02: 58, August 3, and made their way to Zvezda’s wake. The EVA was intended to last up to 6 hours. Their first task was to replace the SKK material exposure experiment with a new container full of fresh samples. They also replaced the Kromka experiment, which measured the contamination from the thrusters on Zvezda. Next, the two men made their way onto the wake face of Zvezda, where they installed two antennae and replaced three laser reflectors with more advanced models. The three old reflectors were replaced with a single three-dimentional reflector. All of these items would be used to support the rendezvous and docking of ESA’s ATVs. While they worked at the rear of Zvezda the three CMGs that controlled the station’s orientation approached saturation level. This condition was anticipated, and the station was placed into free drift. As a result, S-band communication was lost as the antennae drifted. At 05: 15, the astronauts were 40 minutes ahead of their flight plan, and were instructed to leave the area. The CMG resumed attitude control at 06: 00, and the two men were allowed to return to the area at the rear of Zvezda. Finally, they disconnected a cable on a malfunctioning camera that would be collected on a later EVA, before removing the Platan-M materials exposure experiment. The crew returned to Pirs and closed the hatch at 07 : 28, after an EVA lasting 4 hours 30 minutes.

The following day NASA pumped additional nitrogen from one of the two high – pressure tanks on the exterior of Quest into the station’s atmosphere. The week ended with the crew performing their experiment programmes.

PROGRESS M-50

The Expedition-9 crew was asleep and passing southwest of Baikonur when Progress M-50 lifted off at 01:03, August 11, 2004. The cargo ship, carrying pumps for the two malfunctioning EMUs, clothes for the Expedition-10 crew, and propellant, air, and water; a total of 2,542 kg of cargo. After a standard two-day rendezvous, Progress M50 docked to Zvezda’s wake docking port at 01: 01, August 14. The crew began unloading the cargo the following day.

Using items delivered on the new Progress, Fincke took 4 hours to replace the water pump in the cooling system of one of the malfunctioning Extravehicular Mobility Unit, before turning his hand to repairing an exercise machine. The follow­ing day, the EMU was subjected to several more hours of testing, during which it performed perfectly. Two of three American EMUs on the station were now func­tioning correctly. The third suit, which sufferred a similar problem in its cooling system was left to later. The crew spent most of the remainder of the week preparing for their fourth EVA. On August 25 the thrusters on Progress M-50 were fired to raise the station’s orbit, in preparation for the arrival of Soyuz TMA-5, due for launch in October. Throughout the period the Elektron unit in Zvezda failed, on average, once every three days. NASA referred to the Elektron as “a major source of trouble’’.

STS-108, and the beginning of the Expedition-4 occupation of ISS, was where Creating the International Space Station ended. This manuscript returns to STS-108 as it provides a natural starting point for the original flight accounts that occupy the remainder of this volume.

In Florida preparations progressed, aiming to launch STS-108, Endeavour, on November 29, 2001. Following the Russians’ difficulty confirming Progress M1-7’s hard-docking to ISS the launch was delayed for 24 hours. On November 30, the launch was held at T — 11 hours, ultimately for 96 hours. The Rotating Service Structure was put back around the vehicle to protect it as it remained on the pad in a powered-up, flight-ready condition. The countdown would be resumed at T— 11 hours on December 4.

On that date, the countdown for STS-108 progressed until T — 5 hours when it was stopped and the launch cancelled due to bad weather. Because the fuelling of the ET had not started, it was possible to initiate a 24-hour recycle.

On December 5, the countdown was stopped due to software difficulties in the orbiter. New software was loaded and the countdown was re-cycled to T — 6 hours and restarted. Endeavour lifted off at 17: 19 (all times US Eastern), just 11 seconds before the launch window closed, and climbed into orbit without event. Once in space, the payload bay doors were opened. Gorie and Kelly entered the on-orbit software and set about the first manoeuvres in the rendezvous with ISS.

On the NASA Human Spaceflight website the Shuttle’s rendezvous with ISS was described in the following terms by Nicholas O’Dosey, a NASA Shuttle Rendezvous Guidance Procedure Officer:

“The operations that the Shuttle does from ‘go for orbiter ops’ to docking are as follows. The Shuttle does a series of burns to catch up to the station. These burns NC-1, NC-2, NP-C and NC-3, all use ground tracking to target a point 40 miles [74 km] behind ISS. Ground tracking is the process of using ground-based radars, like C-Bands or S-Bands (big radar dishes), and TDRS satellites to tell the position and velocity of the Shuttle or station at a certain time to the Earth.

Ground tracking is accurate to within a couple of hundred feet of the position. The final ground-targeted burn is done at NC-4, which is nominally 40 nautical miles [74 km] behind the station, sending the Shuttle to an 8-nautical-mile [15 km] point were the TI burn is done. The TI burn sends us on a course to roughly 2,000 feet [610m] away from the station. Now, the TI burn and the midcourse correc­tion burns are done using Onboard Navigation. Onboard Navigation uses either a Star Tracker or the Ku-Band radar to track the station from the Shuttle. Now, Onboard Navigation gives the relative position and velocity between the Shuttle and ISS. Onboard Navigation can tell the distance between the Shuttle and ISS to a couple of feet [0.6 m]. The last midcourse burn aims the Shuttle to arrive below the station. From there, the crew does a quarter-circle around the ISS to dock. Inside 2,000 feet, other sensors are used to measure distance and speed because ISS is too big for the Star Tracker and Ku-Band radar. The crew uses some laser sighting sensors, cameras with special overlays and the windows to pilot the Shuttle from 2,000 feet into docking with the ISS. The Commander has a tough job meeting the contact condition of bull’s-eying a circle to within a couple of feet, but by using the overhead window and a special camera overlay to measure distance inside 15 feet [4.6 m], they do a great job. In general, these are the burns done for ISS rendezvous flights.’’

STS-108 would deliver the MPLM Raffaello to ISS, with 3 tonnes of additional equipment for the Expedition-4 mission. Raffaello would be temporarily docked to Unity while it was unloaded. Goodwin and Tani would perform a single EVA to install thermal blankets around the motors that drive the P-6 ITS photovoltaic arrays.

In Endeavour’s payload bay two experiments were housed in a Multiple Application Customised Hitchhiker-1 (MACH-1) facility. The Capillary Pumped Loop Experiment (CAPL) was a multiple evaporator capillary-pumped loop system. The Prototype Synchrotron Radiation Detector (PSRD) measured cosmic ray data. Both experiments were active throughout the early days of the flight.

Following the crew’s first sleep period, Day 2 was spent preparing for the rendezvous. Gorie and Kelly continued to oversee the rendezvous manoeuvres from the flight deck. The crew also tested the RMS and used its cameras to record a video inspection of the payload bay, including the exterior of Raffaello. Later, Godwin and Tani prepared their EMUs and the tools for their EVA. Godwin powered up the Shuttle’s docking system and extended the docking ring. The Expedition-4 crew participated in the day’s activities as well as overseeing and performing a number of experiments onboard Endeavour. The workday ended with a few hours of sched­uled relaxation prior to the busy week ahead. On ISS, the Expedition-3 crew had spent the day unloading Progress M1-7, which had been launched on November 26 and had soft-docked to ISS two days later. Rubber debris on the ISS docking system had prevented hard-docking at that time, causing Dezhurov and Tyurin to make an unscheduled EVA to clear the debris on December 3, allowing the craft to hard-dock.

On December 7, Day 3, Gorie took manual control of Endeavour as his spacecraft followed the standard rendezvous, approaching ISS from below, before manoeuvring through 90° out in front of the station to place the orbiter with its docking system facing PMA-2 on Destiny’s ram. Viewing the approaching Shuttle through the station’s windows, Expedition-3 commander Frank Culbertson told Endeavour’s crew, “It will be real nice to see you guys.’’ Gorie replied, “It’s great to hear your voice.’’

Docking occurred at 15: 03. During the initial attempt the Shuttle’s docking ring was not correctly aligned with PMA-2. Remaining in the soft-docked position, both vehicles were left to allow their vibrations to damp out before a second, successful hard-docking attempt was completed. Following docking, Godwin and Terry com­pleted the necessary pressure checks before the hatches between the two vehicles were opened at 17: 22, and the Expedition-3 crew welcomed their replacements to ISS, along with the crew that would take them home. The newcomers received the now standard safety briefing given to all visitors to the station.

The following day Culbertson, Dezhurov, and Tyurin removed their couch liners and Sokol re-entry suits from Soyuz TM-33 and transferred them to Endeavour. Culbertson’s crew would now return to America on the Shuttle. The Expedition-4 crew, Onufrienko, Walz, and Bursch, moved their couch liners and pressure suits into the Soyuz. From that point onward Onufrienko and his crew were the new residents of ISS and would return to Earth in the Soyuz, landing in Kazakhstan. On NASA’s website Walz explained that American astronauts

have extensive theoretical and practical training in the Soyuz capsule. In the case of some dire emergency we could fly the Soyuz to a safe landing in accordance with flight procedures and with the help of the ground. Hopefully, that would never happen. Our Commander is a tremendous Soyuz pilot… but we do have the training.’’

The two Expedition crews then began the hand-over briefings that would continue throughout the week of docked operations. Before launch, Bursch had described the hand-over procedures in the following manner:

“I recently talked to Jim Voss… he was on Expedition 2, and he put it a way that I thought was pretty interesting. He says that in hand-over, you have three sets of notes or questions that you need to hand over between the crews. One set is an ongoing set of items that the ground keeps track of, maybe a system we’re operating in a different mode than we’ve been trained for, or … it’s had a failure so this is how we’re operating it… So that is one set of notes or questions. Another set might be just personal notes, from Expedition 3 that Frank and Mikhail or Vladimir will have of notes that they have seen that maybe surprised them when they got on station, that they didn’t realize that were different, or different from what they trained, or maybe tips that they can give us… So that’s the second thing… and then after we can see those first two notes, we’ll probably come up with our own questions, or maybe even after reading the first list we’ll come up with some questions… so it’s a list of our own personal questions. So, through those three lists I think that’s how we conduct the hand-over.’’

For Culbertson the crew change meant that he would have to come to terms with returning to an America still caught up in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. The only American not on Earth when the attacks happened reflected that, “The most common thing I hear is that the United States is different now, that I will be surprised.”

During the day, Kelly operated the RMS, with Godwin’s assistance, to lift Raffaello out of Endeavour’s payload bay at 12: 01 and dock it to Unity’s nadir. The transfer was completed at 12:55, December 8. Following pressure checks the hatches giving access to Raffaello were opened at 19: 30 and the crews began unload­ing the MPLM. Expedition-4 Flight Engineer Carl Walz had described the transfer of equipment between the two spacecraft:

“I’m one of the loadmasters. So Linda Godwin and I will be working together to make sure that all the cargo comes off of Raffaello and then all the cargo that’s going back down gets onto Raffaello. And so it’s like moving into a house where the old occupant is moving out, you’re moving in, but you’re using one truck… you have to make sure that you don’t get your boxes mixed up. [W]e’ll be working very hard to make sure that we don’t do that. And then Frank Culbertson and his crew are going to have to help us out by getting their pre-packed items ready to go, so as the upcoming boxes come off, Frank’s boxes will come in, and so it’ll be kind of a constant logistical activity as we make sure that everything coming up comes up, everything going down gets stowed.’’

December 9 began with music from the Fire Department of New York Emerald Society Pipes and Drums. The music was given to Kelly when he visited the wreckage of the World Trade Centre with NASA Administrator Dan Goldin following the terrorist attack on September 11. The three crews took time out at 17: 24 that afternoon to remember the fallen, their families, and the rescue workers of the events of that day. Under Dan Goldin’s “Flags for Heroes and Families’’ initiative several US flags were flown on ISS and Endeavour during this flight. These included one flag that was recovered from “Ground Zero’’, the site of the two World Trade Centre towers, in New York, a Marine Corps flag that had been recovered from the Pentagon in Washington DC, and a US flag from the state of Pennsylvania, where the fourth hijacked aircraft had crashed. Endeavour also carried a New York Fire Department flag, 23 replica New York Police Department shields, and 91 New York Police Department patches for distribution following the Shuttle’s landing. Six thousand small American flags stored in Endeavour would be distributed to the families of victims of the September 11 atrocities.

Endeavour’s crew spent the day unloading Raffaello while the two Expedition crews continued their hand-over briefings. During the day, Gorie and Kelly oversaw the first series of orbital boost manoeuvres using Endeavour’s thrusters. Godwin and Tani checked their EMUs and the tools that they would use during their EVA, which was planned for December 10. In the evening, the STS-108 crew and the Expedition-3 crew made their way back to the Shuttle. The hatches between Endeavour and Destiny were closed at 19: 43, isolating the Expedition-4 crew on ISS for the first time. Endeavour’s internal pressure was then lowered in preparation for the EVA. Following their evening meal the two crews went to bed.

The highlight of December 10 was Godwin and Tani’s EVA. Godwin left Endeavour’s airlock at 12:2. Tani followed, telling his colleagues inside the Shuttle, “I’m going for a walk. I’ll be back in a couple of hours.’’ Taking in the view of Earth he remarked, “Wow, look at that view.’’ As Endeavour passed over Houston, Tani observed, “I see it, downtown Houston, Intercontinental Airport. I see Ellington Field and Clearlake. Beautiful.’’

Following the installation of the P-6 ITS on the Z-1 Truss, in November 2001, engineers in Houston had noticed that the P-6 Beta Gimbal Assembly (BGA) motors were drawing more electrical power than expected. Analysis of the problem had led to the conclusion that the additional power was being drawn because the motors were expanding each time the SAW passed from Earth’s shadow into sunlight and con­tracting again each time it passed from sunlight, back into Earth’s shadow. Each expansion caused the BGAs to bunch, creating additional friction, which required additional electrical power to overcome. Godwin and Tani would install thermal blankets in an attempt to equalise the temperature acting on the motors. Sally Davis, Lead Flight Director in Houston, described the thermal blanket installation in the following terms:

“It’s a matter of treating our hardware as carefully as we can. If a motor starts to stall and you don’t start treating it a little more carefully, it could eventually stall in the wrong position… The solar array would be in a position where we cannot generate electricity.’’

The two astronauts were lifted half-way up the P-6 ITS by the Shuttle’s RMS, which was operated by Kelly. From there, they made their way to the top of the 30 m tall tower, where they placed the thermal blankets around the two drum-shaped BGAs that drove the 40 m long SAWs. The blankets were intended to stabilise the heat reaching the two electrically driven motors. On their way back down the P-6 ITS they stopped at a storage bin and removed a cover that had been placed in the bin after it had been removed from an antenna on an earlier EVA. The cover would be returned to Earth. They also performed a number of “get ahead’’ tasks, including positioning two switches on the exterior of the station, where they would be installed during an EVA on STS-110, planned for spring 2002. The two astronauts also recovered a number of tools, which they took inside ISS for use on the STS-110 EVA. The STS-108 EVA ended at 15: 04, after 4 hours 12 minutes. Inside ISS, Onufrienko, Bursch, and Walz had spent the day unloading Raffaello.

December 11 was the 3-month anniversary of the atrocities in New York and was commemorated by President Bush’s “Anthems of Remembrance’’ initiative. In the mission control centres at Houston and Korolev, as well as on Endeavour and ISS, the American and Russian national anthems were played in remembrance of those who had died in the terrorist attacks. The American anthem was commenced at 08: 46, the time when the first aircraft impacted the World Trade Centre. During the day the American and Russian members of the various crews were given oppor-

tunities to express their personal feelings to their respective control centres regarding the events of September 11. In Houston, caps honouring the New York Police Department, Fire Department of New York, New York Port Authority, and New York Office of Emergency Management were displayed in the control centre. Wayne Hale, Flight Director in Houston, told the astronauts,

“More than 3,000 people perished this day three months ago, including more than

200 citizens from countries that are family members of the International Space

Station programme—Canada, Italy, France, Germany, Japan and Russia.”

During the morning Endeavour’s crew were told that their flight had been extended by one day. The extra time would be used to assist in routine maintenance on ISS. STS-108 would now land on December 17. At 15: 48 Culbertson made a ceremonial hand-over of command to Onufrienko. The remainder of the day was spent with all three crews participating in the unloading of Raffaello. Items already unloaded and moved to ISS included food, clothing, medical supplies, EVA equipment, experiments, and other crew provisions for use by the Expedition-4 crew.

December 12 was another day of cargo transfers. With most of the cargo already moved out of Raffaello, the crew began packing the near-empty module with items to be returned to Earth. Endeavour’s crew also spent the day assisting the Expedition-4

crew by replacing some components on the ISS treadmill. The work went well and the task was completed several hours ahead of schedule. Hand-over briefings for the Expedition-4 crew also continued throughout the day. Gorie and Kelly completed the third series of orbital re-boost manoeuvres using Endeavour’s thrusters. During the crews’ sleep period, one of Endeavour’s three Inertial Measurement Units (IMUs) suffered a transient problem. The unit was one of three, of which two were powered on and one powered off whilst Endeavour was docked to the station. IMU-1 and IMU-2 were on-line when the fault occurred, with IMU-3 off-line. IMU-2 was taken off-line and IMU-3 was placed on-line to replace it. Only two IMUs were required to fly the Shuttle, the third was carried as a redundancy measure. Although IMU-2 continued to perform correctly, controllers considered it to be “failed”. Endeavour would return to Earth on IMU-1 and IMU-3.

The following day the STS-108 crew packed the last of 2 tonnes of cargo, including laundry, packaging foam, and equipment no longer required on the station inside Raffaello, while the Expedition crews continued their hand-over briefings. Culbertson noted, “Basically, everything’s over there that should go today.’’ He joked that the Expedition-4 crew would be glad “to get rid of those three extra bodies (the Expedition-3 crew).’’ At 16: 09, the three crews gathered together to watch Culbertson officially hand over command of ISS to Onufrienko. Houston reminded the Expedition-3 crew, “In just a few days you’ll be back on Earth, feeling the warm Sun on your faces.’’

Following the final loading of Raffaello, the hatches between the MPLM and Unity were closed at 11 : 00, December 14. After pressure checks Kelly and Godwin used the RMS to undock Raffaello, shortly after 14: 20, and successfully placed it back in Endeavour’s payload bay at 17: 44. The Expedition crews continued with their final briefings and Dezhurov worked with Onufrienko to replace a faulty compressor in an air-conditioning unit inside Zvezda. During the day America’s Space Command informed NASA that a Russian rocket upper stage from the 1970s would pass close to ISS and the decision was made during the night to use Endeavour’s thrusters to raise the station’s orbit before the Shuttle undocked the following day.

December 15 began at 05: 17. The STS-108 and Expedition-3 crews said their farewells and returned to Endeavour. Culbertson presented the Expedition-4 crew with a small Christmas tree, candy canes, and individual presents consisting of small silver pins. He then saluted Onufrienko before shaking his hand and exchanging farewells. Culbertson, Dezhurov, and Tyurin had spent 125 days on ISS. By the time they landed on December 17, they would have been in space for 129 days including the days spent on the Soyuz spacecraft that carried them into space. The hatches between Endeavour and Destiny were closed and the usual pressure checks were completed. At 09 : 55 Endeavour’s thrusters were pulse-fired over a 30-minute period to raise the station’s orbit and move it clear of the spent 30-year-old Russian rocket stage.

Prior to undocking, Culbertson, now settled in the mid-deck of Endeavour, commented, “It’s been a wonderful experience for all of us. The work continues, the research continues and will for many years to come.’’

Kelly undocked Endeavour at 12:28 and made a 90° fly-around of ISS before completing the separation burn. As Endeavour finally began to move away from the station Culbertson told Houston, “It feels wonderful to be heading home.” He made it clear that he was looking forward to seeing his wife and five children, but also that he wanted a hot shower, and a bowl of ice cream covered in chocolate syrup.

Dezhurov was equally personal, saying, “After landing I want to meet with my family. Maybe after that, I will think of some food. I also want to go to the sauna and take a shower.” Tyurin added his similar thoughts, “Mostly we are thinking about opportunities to see our families. But, also, I’ve said a big glass of cold beer would be fine.”

Gorie’s crew packed their gear in preparation for re-entry and then enjoyed a few hours free time before beginning their final night in space. On the station the Microgravity Acceleration Measurement System (MAMS) recorded the vibrations associated with the undocking. The Protein Crystal Growth-Single Thermal Enclosure System (PCG-STES) had continued to operate throughout the crew hand-over as had the PCG-STES Unit 10 experiment activated on December 6.

At 10: 00, December 16, the last complete day in orbit, the STARSHINE satellite was launched from Endeavour’s payload bay. The crew spent the day preparing Endeavour for re-entry. The final day began on Endeavour at 04: 19, December 17. Endeavour’s payload bay doors were closed at 09: 10. The crew assumed their re-entry positions at 10:50 with Culbertson’s crew strapping themselves into their reclining seats on the mid-deck. Retrofire occurred at 11: 55 after which Gorie turned his spacecraft upright and nose forward for entry into the thick lower atmosphere. Endeavour landed at the Kennedy Space Centre at 12: 55, after a flight lasting 7 days 21 hours 25 minutes. Following the routine making safe of the orbiter, Culbertson, Dezhurov, and Tyurin were removed from the mid-deck to begin their readjustment to life under 1g. They underwent bed rest and initial medical examinations for several days, before being transported to Houston for the official rehabilitation programme undertaken by all returning long-duration space station crews. The third occupation of ISS was at an end.

STS-107 lifted off at the beginning of a solo Shuttle flight on January 16, 2003. The “Freestar” flight carried a seven-person crew and was designed to appease the critics of the ISS science programme. Columbia, the oldest of NASA’s Shuttle orbiter fleet, had just completed an extensive refit programme and this was her first flight after being returned to operations. The orbiter now carried the Extended Duration Orbiter fuel cell system, which would allow Columbia to remain in orbit for 16 days. STS-107 did not visit ISS, which was in a completely different orbit, and did not carry sufficient propellant to make the manoeuvres to do so, but it would have a major impact on the ISS programme.

One minute after lift-off, one of two bipod ramps, made of shaped insulation foam, was seen to detach itself from the ET, at a point near the bipod holding Columbia’s nose. A white cloud suggested that the foam impacted the underside of the left wing and broke up. With no RMS fitted and no EVA planned, it was not possible for the crew to inspect the underside of the left wing. Although the crew could have made a contingency EVA, they were not cleared to leave the payload bay. As Columbia’s orbit meant that she could not reach ISS, there was no opportunity for the ISS crew to inspect the orbiter for damage. The incident was investigated on the ground in Houston, and it was decided that it would not affect the mission, which

years.

continued as per the flight plan. Despite requests from engineers connected with the flight, NASA managers failed to ask the US Air Force to use its satellites to image the orbiter in space in an attempt to identify any damage. On the subject of the observed impact, Flight Director Steve Stich e-mailed the crew saying, “We have seen this phenomenon on several other flights and there is absolutely no concern for re-entry.”

This was the first flight of the new SpaceHab Double Science Module, which was carried in Columbia’s payload bay. Among the 80 experiments that the crew per­formed 30 were sponsored by ESA. STS-107 was dedicated to science, with the crew splitting into two groups and working rotating 12-hour shifts in order to maximise their time in space. For 16 days the 7 astronauts performed their experiments largely ignored by the press and media which had been so critical of the lack of such work on ISS.

On January 28, both the STS-107 crew and the ISS Expedition crew joined the rest of NASA in remembering the astronauts lost in the January 27, 1967 Apollo-1 fire and the January 28,1986 STS-51L Challenger explosion. At Cape Canaveral flags flew at half mast at LC-34 and LC-39 for the two days of remembrance.

Columbia’s Commander Rick Husband radioed, before a moment of silence to mark the exact time that STS-51L exploded:

“It is today that we remember and honour the crews of Apollo 1 and Challenger.

They made the ultimate sacrifice, giving their lives and service to their country and

for all mankind… Their dedication and devotion to the exploration of space was an inspiration to each of us and still motivates people around the world to achieve great things and service to others.”

On February 1, their mission behind them, the STS-107 crew strapped into their seats and prepared for re-entry. As they crossed the Indian Ocean Husband turned his spacecraft so that the closed payload bay doors were facing Earth and the three SSMEs were facing the direction of travel. Retrofire occurred at 09: 17, and the hour – long descent to KSC began. Husband turned Columbia through 180°, with the nose forward and pitched up, to present the orbiter’s flat, high-drag underside to the atmosphere for re-entry. Columbia entered the upper atmosphere and crossed the Californian coast at 09:51. As it did so, the telemetry from the hydraulic system on the inboard and outboard elevons on the left wing dropped out. Three minutes later telemetry was lost from the brake lines and tyres on the main undercarriage on the left side. At that time the spacecraft’s computer alerted the crew to the loss of data. Charles Hobaugh, Capcom in Houston radioed, “Columbia, Houston. We see your tyre pressure message.’’ Scanning his instruments Husband acknowledged with a simple, “Roger.”

It was 09 : 59. All communications and data transmissions from Columbia abruptly stopped. Streaking across North America, 61,000 km high and travelling at Mach 18.3 Columbia broke up. STS-107 was 15 minutes away from landing in Florida, where the crew’s families were waiting to watch them return home. Beneath the Shuttle’s flight path people reported a loud sound, like an explosion, or an aircraft breaking the sound barrier. Looking up, they saw trails in the sky as the remains of Columbia passed through the thick lower atmosphere. Debris fell to ground in a long swath covering parts of Texas and Louisiana. Among the debris were human remains. DNA testing would be required to identify the remains of individual crew members.

In Houston, all data relating to the flight was secured, in preparation for the investigation in to the cause of Columbia’s loss. The doors to the control room were locked and all communication with the outside world was stopped. In the VIP viewing area at KSC, NASA personnel escorted the astronauts’ families away from the empty runway where they had been expecting to see Columbia land at 10: 15. The remaining Shuttle fleet was immediately grounded indefinitely. At 10: 30, the Expedition-6 crew were informed that Columbia had been lost during re-entry. NASA organised a press conference to inform the media of what had happened. This was in total contrast to the loss of STS-51L, Challenger, in January 1986 when NASA had adopted a “no comment’’ policy.

President Bush was informed of the tragedy at Camp David. He returned to Washington DC by motorcade because the weather was too bad to allow him to be flown there by helicopter. When he arrived he made a speech to the American People, telling them:

“My fellow Americans, this day has brought terrible news and great sadness to our country. At 9 am this morning mission control in Houston lost contact with our Space Shuttle Columbia. A short time later, debris was seen falling from the skies over Texas. The Columbia is lost; there are no survivors.

On board was a crew of seven: Colonel Rick Husband; Lt Colonel Michael Anderson; Commander Laurel Clark; Captain David Brown; Commander William McCool; Dr. Kalpana Chawla; and Ilan Ramon, a Colonel in the Israeli Air Force. These men and women assumed great risk in the service to all humanity.

In an age when space flight has come to seem almost routine; it is easy to overlook the dangers of travel by rocket, and the difficulties of navigating the fierce outer atmosphere of the Earth. These astronauts knew the dangers, and they faced them willingly, knowing they had a high and noble purpose in life. Because of their courage and daring and idealism, we will miss them all the more.

All Americans today are thinking, as well, of the families of these men and women who have been given this sudden shock and grief. You’re not alone. Our entire nation grieves with you. And those you loved will always have the respect and gratitude of this country. The cause for which they died will continue. Mankind is led into the darkness beyond our world by the inspiration ofdiscovery and longing to understand. Our journey into space will go on.’’

NASA immediately established both internal and external investigation teams while members of the public kept their local police services busy reporting the loca­tion of debris and human remains. While public broadcasts were made making clear how every piece of debris was potential evidence and should be handed over to the authorities, some individuals still tried to sell Columbia debris on the Internet. Those people fell foul of the authorities, who were monitoring the Internet for just such attempts. Those arrested potentially faced ten years in gaol and a huge fine if found guilty.

In the seven days following the disaster the press and media had a feeding frenzy. Journalists that had ignored the space programme for years suddenly became experts overnight. Despite President Bush’s speech, there were the usual, predictable, demands for the Shuttle to be scrapped and the human space programme to be cancelled. All of the old complaints about ISS were aired and demands were made for the Expedition-6 crew to be bought home and the station abandoned. Many claimed that the STS-107 crew had been sent to their deaths by a NASA that had cut spending on safety checks to the point that Columbia was a creaking wreck just waiting to fall apart around them. Such charges ignored the 100 plus modifications that had just been made to Columbia during a major re-fit. Much was made of the impact incident during launch, and of Columbia’s age. There was speculation about a computer malfunction that positioned the spacecraft incorrectly for re-entry, impact with a micrometeorite, or a piece of junk from an earlier space launch. With America preparing for a war in Iraq, some Muslim extremists publicly claimed that Allah had struck Columbia down because of the combination of Americans, an Indian, and an Israeli in the crew. They pointed to the fact that some of the debris fell in Palestine, Texas as proof of their claim. Some television channels showed film of Arabs parading in the streets and cheering at America’s loss in several Middle Eastern

cities. The greater majority of Muslims disassociated themselves from these extremist ideas and expressed their sympathy for the loss of the Shuttle’s crew. Although the flight had been largely ignored by the American media, it had been the focus of much attention in Israel and India, where the public were deeply shocked at the loss of their citizens.

One American television presenter publicly aired his total lack of knowledge of his nation’s space programme when he told his audience in all seriousness, “This is not like Tom Hanks’ film Apollo-13, where they fixed the spacecraft and got home safely. This is real life.’’ Just, for his information, the film Apollo-13 was based on an actual spaceflight. The Apollo-13 spacecraft exploded on the way to the Moon, in April 1970. The crew did not “fix the spacecraft” and only “got home safely’’ because of the professional expertise and personal tenacity of everyone concerned with the flight. The crew consisted of James Lovell, John Swigert, and Fredrick Haise. At the time, Tom Hanks was a schoolboy sitting at home, watching it all on television and pretending to land his plastic model of an Apollo Lunar Module on the lounge carpet. Hanks is an excellent actor, but he has never been selected as an astronaut, at least, not in “real life’’.

As time progressed the hysteria subsided and Columbia left the headlines, temporarily. The search for debris and human remains continued and the official

investigation into what had happened got underway. Meanwhile, there were still three people on ISS.

Fincke had reported photographing Hurricane Francis over the Atlantic Ocean on August 27. The hurricane passed over Kennedy Space Centre on September 7, with winds of 70 mph. Those winds pulled approximately 820 panels off of the side of the VAB along with the insulation beneath them, leaving the building interior open to the weather. The building’s roof proved to be weakened when it was inspected after the storm and nets were hung inside the building to catch any falling debris until the roof could be repaired. The two Shuttle ETs and various SRB components inside the VAB were not damaged. The roof was also partially ripped off a building used to prepare heatshield tiles for the Shuttle, but the three remaining Shuttle orbiters were secured within the three Orbiter Processing Facility Buildings and were not damaged. Only one month earlier, Hurricane Charley had caused $700,000 worth of damage to Cape Canaveral, and Hurricane Ivan, one of the most powerful hurricanes on record, also threatened to add to the damage at the site, until it changed course and missed Florida.

The highlight of September 3 came when Padalka and Fincke donned their Orlan pressure suits and depressurised Pirs for their final EVA. Egress occurred at 12: 43. Having gathered their tools, the two men made their way to the exterior of Zvezda, where they replaced a flow regulator valve panel and installed three communication antennae at the station’s wake. The antennae would be used during rendezvous and docking of the European ATV. Fincke made his way across the exterior of Zvezda to photograph the Japanese MPAC/SEEDS experiment. Upon returning to Pirs they

installed covers on the handrails around the airlock hatch to prevent EVA astronauts’ tethers becoming ensnared during future EVAs. Pirs’ hatch was closed at 18:04, after and EVA lasting 5 hours 21 minutes.

The Elektron unit failed during the night of September 6-7. The new failure involved the unit’s hydrogen gas analyser and had nothing to do with the ongoing problem of air in the water loop. On September 8, Padalka replaced one of the Elektron liquid units with one he had repaired using spare parts. The crew then flushed the Elektron through with water, cleaned a mounting plate and, after it had shut itself down several more times after only short periods of operation, they removed the gas analyser. The unit was then turned on and run for a few days. It was turned off once more before the crew went to sleep on September 17. On the ground engineers began studying the data relayed from the partially repaired unit. Korolev announced that the latest failure may have been caused by crystalline deposits of potassium hydroxide in the oxygen supply line of the liquid unit. While the Elektron was turned off, the station’s atmosphere was repressurised using oxygen carried into orbit on Progress M-50 and nitrogen from the tanks on Quest.

Even as repairs to the Elektron unit continued, on September 17 Fincke depressurised the area between the window panes in Destiny and replaced the flex hose, which had malfunctioned and allowed air to enter the space between the panes of glass. He also installed a cover that he had made previously at the workbench in Destiny. They tested the communications systems in the Soyuz TMA-4 spacecraft and Fincke videoed those areas of the station’s exterior that were visible from windows in the various modules and transmitted the images to Earth.

During the week ending September 24, Padalka and Fincke performed the regular 6-month preventative maintenance of the station’s treadmill. They also continued to troubleshoot the Elektron oxygen generator, working on the assump­tion that the hydrogen line was being prevented from pressurising correctly by contamination in the line. During the week, the two crewmen cleaned out the line in question. Meanwhile, the station’s atmosphere was repressurised twice, using oxygen from the tanks in Progress M-50. The crew also began storing some items for their return to Earth during the second week of October. On the ground, NASA had begun talking publicly about evacuating ISS, if the onboard stock of breathing oxygen fell below 45 days.

The Elektron repairs continued into October. Under instruction from Korolev, the crew disconnected the unit’s hydrogen vent pipe from its overboard vent valve, and Padalka jury-rigged a hose to redirect the vented hydrogen through Zvezda’s micro-purification unit. The unit then operated correctly during several days of testing. Fincke also fitted a mass spectrometer unit to the Major Constituents Analyser in Destiny. Progress M-50 had delivered the mass spectrometer, and its installation allowed the Analyser to be operated continually, rather than only periodically, as it had been up until that time. During the week, Fincke also carried out a series of soldering experiments. Engineers in Houston carried out a remote test of the Thermal Radiator Rotary Joint, which would allow the radiator to rotate to the best position for loosing heat when more SAWs were added to the station, after the Shuttle resumed flying, probably in 2005. Alongside the numerous equipment repairs, regular maintenance, and daily exercise, the crew still found time to perform a number of experiments on themselves.

As their flight approached its end, during the second week of October both men donned their Sokol launch and re-entry suits and entered Soyuz TMA-4 for routine checks. Fincke replaced the gas trap and pump inlet filter in the still malfunctioning EMU. He also replaced the cycle ergometer control panel with one that had been brought up on Progress M-50. Both men collected samples of potable water for in – flight analysis.

In March 2004 the Russians had suggested to NASA that the Expedition-10 crew should double the standard 6-month Expedition crew duration to one year. Such a flight would build on Russian medical experiments from their Salyut and Mir stations. It would also clear a second couch in Soyuz “taxi” spacecraft to be sold to visiting astronauts. NASA refused the proposal, after heated debate. While some NASA employees argued that the Administration was not ready to support a 12-month flight, others pointed to Russia’s experience on Mir, when several cosmonauts had approached 12-months in space and a few had surpassed it. Despite the discussions, Expedition-10 would fly a standard 6-month caretaker mission. Chiao described the role of a two-person caretaker crew in the following terms:

“[I]t is a very demanding timeline for a crew of two, and the past two-person crews have shown that they can accomplish those timelines and remain healthy and well-rested and things like that. [O]ur flight will be the same… and we have a very full schedule; we’ll be doing a lot of work. But at the same time, we’ll be having scheduled time off, where we can kind of re-energize and recharge, and so I really don’t see a problem with that. Now, of course, the thing that suffers sometimes when we are scheduled in like this, is we don’t get as much science done as we’d like. The purpose of the International Space Station is to do all kinds of cutting – edge science that can’t be done on the ground, but our goal right now is to kind of keep that laboratory going… until we can get the Shuttle flying again and… we get the laboratory finished… Neither Salizhan nor I have flown a long-duration flight; however, between us, we have four Shuttle flights, and so we have a wealth of experience being in space and operating in space. We work very well together; our personalities complement each other, and we both have the same views on how things ought to be done. And so I think that everything will be just fine.’’

The third couch on Soyuz TMA-5 became available when prospective spaceflight participant Sergei Polonsky was grounded for unspecified medical reasons. Unable to sell it at short notice to another spaceflight participant, to ESA, or to the French National Space Agency, the Russian Federal Space Agency allocated it to Yuri Shargin, a member of the Russian Rocket Forces, who would complete the usual short visit to ISS, returning to Earth with the Expedition-9 crew.

On September 15 the Russians announced that the launch of Soyuz TMA-5, which had been scheduled to lift off on October 9, had been delayed for 5 to 10 days. The cause of the delay was the premature firing of an explosive bolt on the spacecraft. The few details announced at the time suggested that the bolt was one of those used to separate the orbital compartment prior to re-entry. The Russians subsequently announced that it was actually one of a ring of bolts used to separate the docking system from the front of that compartment in the event of the docking system failing to release as the spacecraft tried to undock from ISS. In that event the spacecraft’s docking system could be explosively severed and left attached to the station’s docking system while the Soyuz returned to Earth. On September 22 the launch was reset for October 11. Six days later the launch was delayed a second time “for a few days’’. RSC Energia officials did not release details of what had caused the delay, but it has been suggested that it was a leaking membrane in a hydrogen peroxide tank. The launch was rescheduled to October 13.

Soyuz TMA-5 lifted off at 23:06, October 13, 2004. A communications problem involving a Russian Molniya satellite delayed each of the first two orbital correction burns by one orbit. Two days later, as the Soyuz approached within 100 metres of the station, an alarm sounded suggesting that the Kurs automatic rendezvous and docking system had malfunctioned. A Russian investigation would show that a forward firing thruster on the Soyuz was producing less thrust than expected and Soyuz TMA-5 therefore approached ISS too fast, causing the docking attempt to be aborted. Sharipov assumed manual control, backed his spacecraft out to 200 metres and then executed a perfect manual docking at 00: 16, October 16, thereby earning himself a bonus. Following leak checks the Expedition-10 crew entered ISS at 03: 13, and was greeted by their predecessors. Shargin transferred his couch liner to Soyuz TMA-4.

For the next week Sharipov and Chiao spent 2 or 3 hours a day working closely with Padalka and Fincke to ensure a smooth hand-over, the remainder of the time they spent setting up their own experiment programme. During the hand-over period Sharipov assisted Padalka in making final repairs to the Elektron unit before it was powered on during the hours the crew was awake, and powered off while they were asleep. Meanwhile, Chiao and Fincke worked to replace the rotor pump in the EMU that Fincke had begun repairs on a few days earlier. The new crew also took the opportunity to gain hands-on experience with the SSRMS and several of the ISS systems. Shargin participated in a number of medical experiments, with assistance from Sharipov and Padalka. He also took a number of photographs of the Earth’s surface. Although Shargin was the first member of the Russian Rocket Force to fly in space, none of his experiments was identified as military in nature. He completed his experiment programme, primarily in the Russian sector of the station.

Figure 49. Expedition-10: having arrived with the Expedition-10 crew, Yuri Shargin worked on his experiment programme before returning to Earth with the Expedition-9 crew. The individual behind him is not identified.

Fincke had described his feelings on returning to Earth before his flight began:

“For the return, I’ll be the Flight Engineer, sitting in the left seat, pushing all the buttons, and Gennady will have his command panel in front of him. [W]e’ll work together as a team to bring… the ship safely home… We do all of our systems checks, and if everything looks good and we have concurrence from the ground, we undock from the Space Station—some springs push us off, and we’re on our way home. It’s going to be a very bitter-sweet moment. I’ll be so excited to go home and see my family… so, that’ll be the sweet part. The bitter part is leaving our home for six months. And, it’ll all happen in just a few hours. We make sure we have a successful undocking from the Space Station, we wait one orbit to upload our commands from… Moscow, who gives us all of our vectors so that we can come in and land right on target. [0]nce we get the ‘go’, we start our de-orbit burn; it slows us down by several hundred meters per second. Then… we… enjoy the ride. I think it’s going to be very… exciting just watching to see if anything goes wrong and to be there ready to solve any malfunction. And once we start to get close to the atmosphere, we’ll separate all three modules… Then the real fun begins. The other Americans that have flown in the Soyuz… have called it an incredible ride because we tumble end-over-end until we stabilize in the atmosphere. And I’ll be sitting right next to a window, and I’m just looking forward to seeing what that would look like. 0nce we stabilize in the atmosphere, the automatic re-entry system engages and brings us close to our point, and then we have a set of primary parachutes that will open up and slow us down. And then right before we land … a series of retro-rockets ignite and soften our blow as we return home to the planet. We open up the door and, hopefully, the helicopters will be outside waiting for us.’’

Following an official hand-over on October 22, Padalka, Fincke, and Shargin locked themselves in Soyuz TMA-4, and undocked from Zvezda’s wake at 21:08, the following day. After retrofire, and a routine separation, Soyuz TMA-4 re-entered the atmosphere and landed at 20:36, the same day. Locally it was dawn, and recovery crews had seen the plasma sheath surrounding the re-entry module as it passed through the atmosphere. The landing took place in semi-darkness. The Expedition-9 crew had spent 187 days 21 hours 17 minutes in space. Shargin’s first spaceflight had lasted 9 days 21 hours 21 minutes.

As October drew to a close NASA announced that the Shuttle’s Return to Flight launch would slip until May or June 2005.

EXPEDITION-10

Following the departure of Soyuz TMA-4 Sharipov and Chiao began the standard 3 days of light duties to allow them to get over the rushed workload of the past week. Their occupation would receive two Progress cargo vehicles and they planned to make two Stage EVAs before Soyuz TMA-6 delivered the Expedition-11 crew, in

April 2005. The new crew activated EarthKam during the first days of their occupa­tion. In 8 days over 800 images were exposed. At the outset of their mission, word was received from the ground that the Elektron unit was performing well in tests and was cleared for permanent use. The joint repairs carried out by Padalka and Sharipov had finally returned the unit to operational use.

On November 4, Chiao used the Advanced Ultrasound in Microgravity experi­ment (ADUM) to make ultrasound scans of Sharipov and the positions were reversed the following day. The experiment relayed the scan directly to doctors on the ground, who could use it to make a real-time diagnosis. On November 5, both men took part in emergency medical drills and collected air and swab samples in Zarya. Chiao used the BCAT experiment. He also practised using the SSRMS on November 8. During the exercise the arm’s video cameras were used to image a possible indentation that had been observed on the exterior of Destiny by the last Shuttle crew to visit ISS (STS-113). The images proved that the dent was not caused by a micrometeorite, or a debris strike. The flat area on one of Destiny’s protective panels appeared similar to flat areas observed on the protective exterior of Unity. The flattening of the panels was thought to be caused by flexure with changes in temperature.

Throughout the week, the two men carried out work with the Binary Colloids Alloy Test (BCAT) experiment. Chiao also worked on the faulty pump in the second of the American EMUs that had suffered a cooling failure during the Expedition-9 occupation. The work had to stop when a metal shim could not be located. Following a search, plans were put in place to launch a replacement on Progress M-51. The American EMUs were not due to be used until the Shuttle resumed flight, in mid-2005.

Chiao explained how he and Sharipov had trained to receive STS-114 during their occupation of ISS:

“That’s something we’re hoping for—we’d love to have STS-114 come up and visit us during our flight. [W]e’d welcome them and well, we’re keeping our fingers crossed. It’ll be a really neat event having the Space Shuttle return to flight and come up during our increment and do some construction work while we’re there, and our two crews will work together, and we sure hope that’ll happen.. .we have been doing the training for these events. Salizhan and I have both received MPLM training and we also received a lot of photography lessons on how to take pictures of the Shuttle tiles and leading edges to inspect the heat shielding. [S]o we’re just keeping our fingers crossed it’ll work out for 114 to come up.’’

On November 8, NASA announced that they had initiated a study to consider how best to continue development of ISS after the Shuttle resumed flying. At the same time, they confirmed that the Shuttle’s return to flight had been delayed from March to May 2005. Bill Readdy, Associate Administrator for Space Operations, told the media, “After four hurricanes in a row, we could not make the March launch.’’ The new schedule called for three Shuttle launches in 2005 and five each year thereafter, until ISS was complete and the Shuttle was retired, in 2010. Readdy stated that, if the first two daytime Shuttle launches were successful, then the third

flight might carry the first three-person Expedition crew to ISS since the loss of STS-107. To cover the continued delay in the Shuttle’s Return to Flight, Russia agreed to continue supplying Soyuz TMA spacecraft for crew transport through 2006. This was a negotiated agreement that allowed Russia to recover the experiment hours it had given up to NASA in the early years of the programme when Zvezda was under-funded and launched late. Twenty-eight Shuttle flights were considered necessary to complete ISS. Studies considered transferring as many as 17 ISS payloads to expendable launch vehicles, leaving only 11 Shuttle flights. Among ideas being considered was a plan to launch the European Columbus and Japanese Kibo modules on Russian Proton launch vehicles. Initial development of the CEV design was underway in a multi-contractor competition.

On November 11, a circuit breaker tripped out on ISS and stopped the supply of electrical power to a number of crew equipment items. After checking the equipment involved the crew were able to power the circuit breaker back on. The following day, Chiao moved the SSRMS to a position that allowed its cameras to view the transfer of Soyuz TMA-5 from Pirs’ nadir to Zarya’s nadir, a manoeuvre planned for November 29. The change of location would allow Pirs to be used for two Stage EVAs, in January and March 2005.

The following week, controllers in Korolev commanded Progress M-50’s rocket motors to fire, to raise the station’s orbit. Although the burn lasted the correct amount of time, it left the station in a slightly lower orbit than had been planned.

Controllers at Korolev later blamed the shortfall on “human error”. Rather than fire a correction burn, it was decided to delay the launch of Progress M-51 by 24 hours to compensate for the station’s lower orbit. Throughout the week, the crew completed a varied science programme. Working with the American ADUM and Serial Network Flow Monitor (SNFM), which used computer software to track the communications and data flow between payloads in Destiny. Sharipov collected samples for the PLANT experiment and worked with the Russian experiments Hematokrit, which counted red blood cells, and Sprut, a study of human body fluids. Sharipov also checked out a new Russian Orlan suit before discarding an old Orlan suit that had exceeded its on-orbit life, on Progress M-50. Both men also participated in routine housekeeping tasks.

A NEW RUSSIAN LAUNCH SCHEDULE

On November 20, managers at Roscosmos decided to develop the FGB-2 module as a Multi-purpose Laboratory Module (MLM), rejecting RSC Energia’s proposal to develop the FGB-2 as the Enterprise Module. RSA announced that MLM would be launched by a Proton launch vehicle in 2007 and would dock to Zarya’s nadir, the European Robotic Arm would then be attached to its side. The MLM would be launched with some scientific equipment pre-installed, but the remainder would be launched separately over the following 2 years. It would also house support equip­ment, hygiene facilities, a sauna, and an additional sleeping room, as well as a storage area to hold spare parts and other cargo on-orbit. An aft docking port would support Soyuz and Progress vehicles, while a lateral port would house a scientific airlock, to be delivered by Shuttle.

The next major Russian launch would be the Scientific Energy Module (Russian initials: MEM), originally called the Scientific Energy Platform (Russian initials: MEP). This would be mounted on Zvezda’s Zenith after delivery by Shuttle in 2010. The new MEM would be downsized from the original MEP and would consist of a pressurised section containing gyrodines, a boom, and eight SAWs. The pressurised section would provide a new docking location for Pirs, which would be moved from its present location on Zarya’s nadir port by means of the SSRMS.

Plans were less substantial and less certain for a Russian dedicated science module using the FGB design, due for launch in 2011. It would be docked to Zvezda’s nadir and two smaller Russian scientific modules built around the Pirs design.

Meanwhile, Energia unveiled plans for the Soyuz replacement, a 13-tonne space­craft to be called “Kliper”. The lifting body design of the re-entry module would be enhanced by a Soyuz-style orbital compartment and would carry six people. Uncrewed flight-tests on a Zenit launch vehicle were planned for 2010, with the first crewed flight to ISS in 2012. Again, no government funding existed for Kliper and attempts to convince ESA to help fund its development were unsuccessful.

While the plans sounded optimistic, there was no budget to build any of this equipment. Russian participation in the ISS programme would remain restricted to those modules already in orbit and any Soyuz and Progress vehicles that were

purchased, either by the Russian government or the other ISS partners in support of the Expedition crews throughout the life of the station, which was originally intended to end in 2016.

Prior to launch Bursch was asked how he viewed his flight with the Expedition-4 crew. He replied, in part,

“I think early on, well, maybe after about a year of all the travelling and training, Carl and I were talking about it with Yuri and I think we all came to the realization that this mission is different. And Yuri has been very helpful and because of his experience already on Mir and the six months that he spent on Space Station, of letting us know that it is different… the best analogy that I think I can come up with, it’s kind of like the difference between a sprint and a long­distance race… With a long-duration mission I think it’s going to be more like a marathon, where we’re going to have to pace ourselves… we can’t run at the same pace that we’re used to running on the Space Shuttle, and there’ll have to be times where we’ll have to help each other out just to say, hey, it’s time for you to just take a break and sit by the window, look out, and take some time; have some time to yourself…

However, there’ll be times when a Shuttle comes to visit and we’ll have six to eight very, very busy days of getting ready for them to come, while they’re docked, helping with the EVAs, helping with installation of new equipment, and so, it’ll vary from being very slow to very fast, almost a Shuttle-like pace, and then slowing down again. And what’ll be different, also, is that the weekends, I haven’t quite figured out how that’s going to work; I know that on Saturday it will be a lighter duty, and Sunday in most respects we’ll have much of the day off, but I can’t imagine having the day off and not having anything to do … Maybe… I’ll end up saying, OK, give me things that need to be done, because… I’ve run out of personal time or, I don’t want to read a book right now, I want to do something.’’

In the same interview Bursch explained how the Expedition-4 crew viewed their

personal responsibilities,

“[J]ust as in Shuttle flights… everybody has their own position and their own responsibilities… so early on we… divided up the responsibilities of the crew. Yuri, for a Commander it’s different, in that he’s responsible for everything… he’s tended to specialize more on the Russian segment and some of the Russian systems, especially because he had the experience on Mir and a lot of the systems… are similar to Mir. Carl, with his experience on EVAs… became the… natural lead for any type of EVA activities that we would do, especially on the U. S. segment or using the U. S. spacesuit, or the EMU. Yuri’s kind of, is more of an expert on the Russian Orlan, the Russian spacesuit… I took on working with the Space Station Remote Manipulator System… And that has been my prime responsibility and my prime system. There’s also systems on the station that we divide up… keep in mind, with only a crew of three, everybody has to know a little bit about everything… however each one of us has tried to specialize in a certain part of the system to take care of that… So we kind of had a big list of all the tasks and… of all the equipment, and all the things that we need to do on space station, and we just basically divided them up.’’

While the search for debris from Columbia began on the ground, life went on onboard ISS, and NASA had to continue to operate the station despite their recent loss. At 10:59, February 1, Progress M1-9 was undocked, manoeuvred clear, and commanded to re-enter Earth’s atmosphere and burn up. The undocking cleared Zvezda’s wake for Progress M-47. Following the undocking, the Expedition-6 crew had expected to have an easy day in front of them. Bowersox, Budarin, and Pettit were informed of the loss of Columbia approximately one hour after it occurred, at which point the mood onboard turned very sombre.

The following day NASA Administrator Sean O’Keefe spoke on the NASA Television channel about the three men still on ISS:

“We’re focused on making sure they are fully supported and as early as we can possibly get back up there to rotate that crew and bring them back home and send a new crew, that’s exactly what we’re going to do… All three of them are apprised of the facts of what’s going on. They’ve been given all the information and they’re

prepared to do what’s necessary to stiff this out throughout the course of the investigation … We’ve got time. We’ve got an opportunity, I think, to sustain them with what they need, but we’re always focused on making sure that we recognise that people are depending on us.’’

Progress M-47 was launched from Baikonur at 07: 59, February 2, and docked at Zvezda’s wake at 09: 49 February 4. Following pressure and leak checks the hatches between the two vehicles were opened at 14: 00, but unloading did not begin until the following morning. The cargo on Progress M-47 would ensure that the crew had sufficient essential supplies to continue the occupation of ISS through the end of June and early July 2003. During the day the Expedition-6 crew paid their private tributes to the STS-107 crew and listened to an audio feed from the Memorial Service held at JSC attended by President Bush and NASA Administrator Sean O’Keefe.

Following unloading of the Progress, Pettit replaced the two power cells in the MSG with two brought up by the Progress M-47. When the change-out was complete he applied power to the MSG and two circuit breakers in Destiny tripped. This was exactly what had happened when the MSG malfunctioned in November 2002. To avoid damage to the new components Pettit powered the MSG off and the investigation into why it had failed continued on the ground.

The Expedition-6 crew’s schedule had changed due to the loss of Columbia. With all Shuttle flights suspended indefinitely until the cause of the loss could be identified and corrected, the crew knew that they would have to return to Earth in a Soyuz at the end of their occupation, rather than on STS-114 in March, as originally planned. The most likely scenario was that the Expedition-7 crew would bump the Soyuz TMA-2 taxi crew due for launch in April, and the Expedition-6 crew would return to Earth in Soyuz TMA-1, with Budarin serving as Soyuz Commander. This was exactly the reason a Soyuz spacecraft was attached to ISS at all times. The Expedition-6 occupation could be extended for one month, to maintain the Soyuz TMA-2 launch schedule. Meanwhile, they were instructed to put together a full inventory of all supplies onboard, while flight controllers in Houston and Korolev carefully monitored and recorded everything that the crew used. Put together, the two audits would allow mission planners to ensure that future Progress flights were loaded with essential supplies to maintain the mission.

On February 10, it was announced that the rocket motors on Progress M-47 would be used to raise the station’s orbit in advance of the Soyuz TMA-2 launch. The first of three re-boosts took place at 06: 34 the following day. At the same time it was announced that NASA had requested the Russians to provide an additional Progress for 2003. Following a Russian request, it was announced on February 12 that, until the Shuttle began flying again, all future Expedition crews would consist of one American astronaut and one Russian cosmonaut. All crew deliveries and returns would be made using Soyuz TMA spacecraft, with the two-man Expedition-7 crew flying to ISS in Soyuz TMA-2 no earlier than April 26, 2003. Following the usual hand-over in orbit the Expedition-6 crew would return to Earth in Soyuz TMA-1.

At the time of the reduction to two crew members the schedule for the next four Expedition crews had been

“The International Space Station is doing very well. My last conversation with Captain Bowersox was, ‘Don’t worry about us. You know where to find us, and we’re not going anywhere; everything’s fine.’ So they’re in good spirits and moving along.’’

During the same day the Expedition-6 crew spoke of how they had learnt of the loss of STS-107. Bowersox explained:

‘‘We were scheduled for a normal planning meeting on Saturday [February 1]. General Howell, the Director of the Johnson Space Centre, came in and told us we lost the vehicle on entry. My first reaction was sheer shock, I was numb and it was hard to believe that what we were experiencing was really happening. Then, as the reality wore on, we were able to feel some sadness. It’s the classic grieving responses our psychologists had warned us about, you feel sad, you feel angry, all those things. And now, as time goes on, we’re able to put those aside and focus a lot better on our work… The folks on the ground have been real good about reducing our schedule and we’ve had some time to grieve our friends; and that was very important. When you’re up here this long, you can’t just bottle up your emotions and focus all the time…

It’s important for us to acknowledge that the people on STS-107 were our friends, that we had a connection with them and that we feel their loss. Each of us had a chance to shed some tears. But now, it’s time to move forward and we’re doing that, slowly… At the conclusion of the memorial service, after the bells had rung on the ground and the T-38s had flown by and it was very quiet onboard, we rang our ship bell seven times. At that point it was very, very quiet on board the International Space Station. We spent 15-20 minutes in silence and then we moved on. We had work to do. We had to unload our Progress. At that point, we started thinking about good things, we pulled out the fresh fruit, the oranges, the mail we got from home and it gave us quite a lift after the memorial service.

We are enjoying our mission up here, we enjoy the environment of the Space Station and we’re going to enjoy the next two and a half, three months here. So the extra stay is not something that we consider negative. In fact, for us it is positive. We actually volunteered to stay longer. We told our management if they need us to stay a year that’s fine, they’ve got blanket approval for that. If they want us to stay longer than a year, please give us a couple of months notice. So we like living on Space Station, and we feel comfortable that we have a way home, we have complete confidence in our Soyuz vehicle and the ability of our Russian partners to operate that vehicle and get us home safely. Because it’s been a few months since we’ve been in a simulator, we’ll do additional training here on board if it should be required for us to come home in the Soyuz.’’

Pettit remarked that he felt that grieving was a very personal thing and he felt comfortable grieving in the privacy and quiet offered by the various individual modules of ISS. He said that a two-man crew would be

“real busy just maintaining the systems on the station… However, there would be time to do some level of research and by virtue of having people here, you’re always doing research on your body itself, looking at the effects of long duration weightlessness on human physiology. So it’s important to keep people on station.’’

By February 13, NASA was able to announce that DNA testing had positively identified the remains of all seven STS-107 astronauts and all searches for additional human remains had been halted. Ramon’s remains had been returned to Israel earlier in the week and preparations were underway for the other astronauts’ remains to be handed over to their families for private burial arrangements.

The following day, Bowersox and Pettit operated the SSRMS, to perform routine checkout procedures and maintain their proficiency in using the system. Other maintenance during the week included removing and cleaning several of the fans responsible for driving the airflow throughout the station. Pettit continued to support the ground-based work on the continuing MSG malfunction investigation.

On February 24, Rosaviakosmos named two caretaker crews.

Although no announcement was made at the time, it seemed likely that McArthur and Tokarev would fly Soyuz TMA-4 to ISS and serve as the third caretaker crew if the Shuttle was not flying again by the end of the TMA-3 tour. It was also announced that the Spanish ESA astronaut Pedro Duque, who had originally been scheduled to fly on Soyuz TMA-2, would now fly on Soyuz TMA – 3 under commercial contract with the Russians. He would return to Earth with the Expedition-7 Crew.

The first three-person Expedition crew to occupy ISS when the Shuttle returned to flight was named at the same time. They were Krikalov, Volkov, and Phillips. All other crews that were in place when Columbia was lost were disbanded.

As November drew to a close, Congress approved NASA’s budget request for FY2005. The final figure allocated was only $44 million short of that requested by President Bush when he announced the new Vision for Space Exploration. $4.3 billion was allocated to the Shuttle, but NASA was mandated to report back to Congress on a regular basis regarding the cost of returning the Shuttle to flight. The budget also included money to begin development of the CEV, which would replace the Shuttle.

SOYUZ TMA-5 RELOCATED

On November 24, Sharipov test-fired the thrusters on Soyuz TMA-5 in anticipation of its relocation to Zarya. During the test, controllers in Korolev noticed the same reduction in pressure in the fuel system that had been observed during the initial approach to the station. As the thruster problem had no effect on the future use of Soyuz TMA-5 it was decided to carry on with the relocation manoeuvre and a second test-firing of the thrusters during that manoeuvre was cancelled. Two days later, the crew reviewed the plans for the relocation manoeuvre and closed the hatches between Progress M-50 and Zarya. November 25 was the American Thanksgiving Day holiday and the Expidition-10 crew had a day off.

Having configured ISS for automatic operation, both astronauts sealed them­selves in the descent module of Soyuz TMA-5 on November 29. Sharipov undocked the Soyuz from Pirs at 04: 29, and backed away to a distance of 30 metres. He then flew the spacecraft 14 metres along the length of the station before rotating it through 135° and held it in position for 8 minutes of station keeping. Docking with Zarya’s nadir port took place at 05: 53. Following the standard leak and pressure checks the crew opened the hatches between the two vehicles, returned to ISS, and reconfigured it for occupied operation. The crew had November 30 and December 1 off. On November 30 the missing metal shim from the EMU pump drifted past Chiao, who was working inside Pirs. He recovered it, but pressure suit engineers decided not to use it, preferring to use a new shim, to be delivered on the next Progress. During the month the crew had carried out three audits of the food onboard, which showed that the previous Expedition crew had eaten into the current crew’s rations. New supplies would be launched on Progress M-51, but if the launch failed, or the spacecraft failed to dock, the food currently on ISS would run out in mid-January, requiring the crew to evacuate the station. As the food ran out the crew reduced the amount they were eating, until Sharipov told an interviewer, “We are short of food. We are eating less than half of our normal rations…’’

Returning to work on December 2, they swapped out the filter cartridges in the Elektron oxygen generator. The crew spent the next 3 weeks filling Progress M-50 with rubbish to be taken away when it undocked, on December 22. A laptop com­puter failed in Zvezda, and was replaced by one from Sharipov’s sleep station. Three new laptops would be in Progress M-51, to bring the Station Support Computer network back up to full capability.

The second week in December was spent preparing Destiny for additional experiment racks. Chiao worked with the ARIS experiment. He also photographed the BCAT experiment and worked with the in-space soldering experiment. Meanwhile, Sharipov donned the Chibis suit, which simulated forces on the musculo-skeletal system using suction as part of a study of the cardiovascular system. The crew also completed a range of housekeeping duties.

Sharipov and Chiao carried out a routine practice with the SSRMS and left it with both ends holding grapple fixtures on the exterior of the station. It was a precautionary measure, in case the food shortage, coupled with a failure of the Progress M-51 flight, led to the evacuation of ISS, during the week ending December 17. They installed cables and a switching unit for the docking system that would guide the European ATV to docking with Zvezda’s wake. The week was a busy one, with experiment periods using the ADUM. The crew also carried out an inventory of all items loaded into Progress M-50. At one point, the Elektron oxygen generator was deliberately turned off, to allow the last of the oxygen in Progress M-51’s tanks to be used. They also carried out maintenance on the ventilation system in Zvezda and replaced the batteries in the station’s heart defibrillator. A major task during the week was a top-to-bottom inventory of every item held in the Quest airlock. This was carried out in advance of three EVAs planned from Quest during the STS-114 Return to Flight mission. With their loading tasks complete, the crew closed the hatches between Progress M-50 and Zvezda. The Progress undocked at 14: 37, December 22, and backed away from Zvezda’s wake. A separation manoeuvre placed it in its own orbit before it was de-orbited to burn up in Earth’s atmosphere.

On December 13, Sean O’Keefe announced his retirement as NASA Adminis­trator. He would remain in place until a replacement was named. The new Administrator would face the following tasks relating to human spaceflight:

• Return the Shuttle to flight.

• Complete ISS before the Shuttle was retired in 2010.

• Re-structure NASA to bring the Shuttle programme to an end.

• Downsize NASA as the Shuttle programme wound down.

• Develop Project Constellation.

• Define Project Constellation hardware.

• Restructure the NASA field stations for Project Constellation.

Creating the International Space Station, written by David Harland and John Catch – pole, was published by Springer-Praxis in 2002 (ISBN 1-85233-202-6). It described the American and Soviet/Russian national space station programmes, as well as the long, convoluted history of the International Space Station (ISS), from its conception through to the safe recovery of the Expedition-3 crew in December 2001.

The International Space Station: Building for the Future continues the coverage of the construction and occupation of ISS, but first there is a brief resume of the hardware that is already in orbit. These early flights and the politics of constructing ISS during this period are covered in full in the original volume, which ended with the delivery of the Expedition-4 crew to ISS onboard the STS-108 Shuttle flight.

The original flight coverage in this new volume returns to the launch of STS-108, and the beginning of the Expedition-4 crew’s occupation of ISS. It ends with a review of how the modules developed by the European and Japanese partners will be added to the station, enhancing its research capability, and, finally, there is a brief look at the early designs for the Orion spacecraft and its Ares-1 launch vehicle. Plans for Project Constellation to carry humans back to the Moon and on to Mars are not covered as they have no bearing on the ISS programme as presently defined.

Appendices include a Flight Log and an Extravehicular Activity (EVA) Log for the period covered in this volume. Both of these logs continue from those included in the original volume. There is also a List of abbreviations and descriptions of the major ISS hardware.

As this volume begins, all was well with the station, with the exception of the Russian budget. Although many scientists were sceptical about the quantity and quality of science being performed on the station, at least science was being per­formed daily. Russian experience on their Salyut and Mir space stations had sug­gested that on average 2.5 crew members were required simply to keep up with the

ever-present requirement to maintain the station’s systems, while the third crew member spent part of their time performing scientific experiments. While Russia struggled even to fund the contracted number of Soyuz and Progress vehicles, America prepared to move forward with the construction of the Integrated Truss Structure (ITS), the huge cross beam that would house the station’s eight Solar Array Wings (SAWs), associated storage batteries, and cooling radiators. Construction of the ITS would allow the station’s primary power and cooling systems to be config­ured and take over from the temporary systems put in place when the Port-6 ITS was temporarily located on the Z-l truss. The ITS also had to be at least partially constructed, with its power and cooling systems functional, before Node-2 could be launched and docked in place to serve as a mount for the European and Japanese modules. Following the cancellation of the American Habitation Module, the European Space Agency had been paid to provide additional living quarters inside Node-3, which would now be the final pressurised module delivered to ISS, some time in 2008. This would allow the Expedition crew to be expanded to six people.

It was not to be.

The tragic loss of STS-107, Columbia, on February l, 2003, grounded the Space Shuttle fleet and threw the ISS construction schedule in the rubbish bin. Plans to have the station fully constructed by 2008, and maximise its potential through permanent occupation until 2016 were no longer realistic. The period that followed the loss of Columbia stretched the goodwill of the partners involved in the ISS programme to the full.

Ever short of money, the Russians claimed that they could not afford to produce the extra Soyuz and Progress spacecraft required to keep ISS occupied. They sug­gested that it be abandoned until Shuttle flights were resumed. NASA stated that they would only abandon the station as a last resort. Russia was therefore forced to find the additional funding, and permanent occupation continued, with two-man “care­taker crews’’ flying to and from ISS in Russian Soyuz spacecraft and being re­supplied by Russian Progress cargo ships. Despite major differences of opinion on Earth over the American-led invasion of Iraq and its aftermath, the Russians con­tinued to work amicably with the Americans on ISS.

When the Columbia Accident Investigation was over, and the Shuttle was pre­paring to Return to Flight, the Russians felt that they had paid the debt incurred when their first module, Zvezda, was only fitted out with American financial assis­tance and then launched two years late. They insisted on the return of the ISS experiment time that the Americans had negotiated away from them at that time. The relationship between the two major partners had changed significantly.

Dedicated to the memory of the crew of Soyuz-n

Georgi Dobrovolsky Vladislav Volkov Viktor Patsayev

They were called forward at short notice to occupy the world’s first space
station, Salyut-i, and perished during their return to Earth