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’’.