PROGRESS M-47

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

Figure 36. Expedition-6: Kenneth Bowersox inside Zvezda, surrounded by items unloaded from Progress M1-9.

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

Expedition-7
ISS COMMANDER	Yuri Malenchenko
FLIGHT ENGINEER	Edward Lu
FLIGHT ENGINEER	Aleksandr Kaleri
Delivery	STS-114
Recovery	STS-116

Expedition-8
ISS COMMANDER	Michael Foale
FLIGHT ENGINEER	Valeri Tokarev
FLIGHT ENGINEER	William McArthur
Delivery	STS-116
Recovery	STS-119

Expedition-9
ISS COMMANDER	Gennady Padalka
FLIGHT ENGINEER	Michael Fincke
FLIGHT ENGINEER	Oleg Kononenko
Delivery	STS-119
Recovery	STS-121

Expedition-10
ISS COMMANDER	Leroy Chiao
FLIGHT ENGINEER	Salizhan Sharipov
FLIGHT ENGINEER	John Phillips
Delivery	STS-121
Recovery	STS-123

On February 10, Sean O’keefe was able to tell the press and media:

“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.

Soyuz TMA-2
Prime crew	Malenchenko and Lu
Back-up crew	Foale and Kaleri
Launch	May 2003
Recovery	October 2003

Soyuz TMA-3
Prime crew	Foale and Kaleri
Back-up crew	McArthur and Tokarev
Launch	October 2003
Recovery	March 2004

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.