ISS EO-5

Flight Crew

KORZUN, Valery Nikolayevich, 49, Russian Air Force, ISS-5 and Soyuz

commander, 2nd mission

Previous mission: Soyuz TM24 (1996)

WHITSON, Peggy Annette, 42, civilian, ISS-5 science officer TRESCHEV, Sergei Vladimiriovich, 43, civilian, Russian ISS-5 flight engineer

Flight Log

The fifth expedition to the ISS featured a science programme of 24 American and 29 Russian experiments. Whitson had the added privilege of performing an experiment during her mission on ISS for which she was principle investigator. The renal stone experiment was a research programme to study the possible formation of kidney stones during prolonged space flight. Whitson kept regular logs of her food intake and took a regular course of tablets of either potassium citrate or a placebo. By mid-July, the ESA glove box facility had been activated, but communication problems with the new unit meant that Whitson had to forego regular daily exercises for a couple of days while the problems were resolved.

During the residency, the crew received two Progress re-supply craft. In late June, Progress M1-8 was replaced by Progress M46, which delivered 2,580 kg of cargo for the crew and 825 kg of fuel. Three months later, Progress M1-9 replaced the M46 ferry and brought over 2,600 kg of cargo, including equipment for the ESA Odessa science programme in November. These regular re-supply flights were the lifeline of the station’s main crew, supplementing the heavy lift capability of the Shuttle, and serving as an orbital refuse collection service once the new cargo had been unpacked.

August was mainly focused on EVAs. The first (16 Aug for 4 hours 25 minutes) saw Whitson and her commander start late due to a caution and warning signal that indicated a fault on their Orlan pressure suits. Recycling the pre-EVA operations to fix the problem meant that the EVA started 1 hour and 43 minutes late. The two crew members used the Strela boom to access the work area to place six (of an eventual 23)

micrometeoroid protection panels on the Zvezda module. Due to the late start, the installation of a Kromka detector, and the gathering of samples of thruster residue on the surface of Zvezda caused by other thrusters on the module, would be rescheduled for later EVAs. The second excursion (26 Aug for 5 hours 21 minutes) was also delayed 27 minutes, this time by a small leak from the pressure seals between Zvezda transfer compartments and where Pirs was docked to it. Recycling the hatch valves seemed to solve the problem. The cosmonauts set up TV cameras to record their activities, as well as an external Japanese experiment for specialists back in Japan. They also deployed the Kromka-2 deflector plate evaluator and retrieved an earlier plate to be returned to Earth for analysis, as well as deploying the final two ham radio antennas.

The ISS-5 crew received the STS-112 Shuttle crew in October (who delivered the S1 Truss), as well as the fourth visiting crew in the new spacecraft Soyuz TMA in November. After just over a week aboard the station, the visiting crew departed in the older TM34, marking the final re-entry and landing of that variant of the venerable Soyuz. Shortly after the departure of the visiting crew, STS-113 arrived with the replacement ISS-6 resident crew, returning home with the ISS-5 crew.

During their residency, the ISS-5 crew encountered and overcame a number of equipment problems, and conducted repairs and maintenance. Whitson wrote a series of journals about life and work on board ISS that were posted on the NASA web site and provided a fascinating insight into life aboard the station. On 16 September, NASA designated her the first NASA science officer, a designation that would be assigned to an American member of each crew from now on. She later wrote that the title was fine, apart from the number of emails she had received from friends all likening her to Mr. Spock, the science officer of the USS Enterprise in the original Star Trek.

Milestones

5th ISS resident crew

4th ISS EO crew to be launched by Shuttle 1st designated NASA science officer (Whitson)