All ISS systems continue to function nominally, except those noted previously or below. Sunday - crew off duty. Ahead: Week 2 of Increment 17.
Russian Holiday:
Orthodox Easter (Pravoslavnaya Paskha)
[always 1st Sunday after 1st full moon].
At ~5:23am EDT, CDR Volkov & FE-1 Kononenko conducted a teleconference via VHF with Patriarch Alexis II of the Russian Orthodox Church who extended best wishes on the occasion of today's Easter celebration.
The CDR completed the routine maintenance of the SOZh system (Environment Control & Life Support System, ECLSS) in the Service Module (SM), including ASU toilet facilities systems/replaceables and today also number & dates of water & urine containers, counter readings of water consumption (SPK-U, SVO) & urine collection, plus data and total operating time of the Russian POTOK-150MK (150 micron) air filter unit of the SOGS air revitalization subsystem.
Working from the Russian voluntary "time permitting" task list, the FE-1 performed Part 2 of the latest Russian "Uragan" (hurricane) earth-imaging session, using the Nikon D2X digital camera with 300-800 mm telephoto lens. [Targets uplinked for today were Ugra National Park, the Tien-Shan mountains with glaciers to the east of lake Issyk-Kul, the Volga-Akhtubinsk alluvial plain (overall hydrological situation), and oil spills on the Caspian Sea].
Also as a discretionary task, Oleg Kononenko conducted his first run of the Russian DZZ-2 "Diatomeya" ocean observations program. [Using the NIKON F-5 digital still camera with 80-200 mm lens and the HDV (high-definition) video camcorder, Oleg focused on color bloom patterns in the ocean, highly pronounced cloud cover anomalies, swirls, wakes of subsurface waves, water level drop, smoothing lanes in wave fields. Target zones in the Atlantic Ocean were the coastal area of Canada, the English Channel, the Newfoundland Island coastline and the West Sahara offshore areas.]
For Sergey Volkov, the "time permitting" job list today suggested more KPT-3 observations and aerial photography for Russia's Environmental Safety Agency (ECON) using the Nikon D2X digital camera with SIGMA 300-800mm telephoto lens.
The crew completed their regular 2.5-hr. physical workout program (about half of which is used for setup & post-exercise personal hygiene) on the CEVIS cycle ergometer (FE-2), TVIS treadmill (CDR, FE-1), RED resistive exercise device (FE-2) and VELO bike with bungee cord load trainer (CDR, FE-1).
No CEO (Crew Earth Observations) photo targets uplinked for today.
CEO photography can be studied at this "Gateway" website:
http://eol.jsc.nasa.gov (as of 3/1/08, this database contained 757,605 views of the Earth from space, with 314,000 from the ISS alone).
ISS Orbit (as of this morning, 8:22am EDT [= epoch]):
Mean altitude -- 342.4 km
Apogee height -- 347.5 km
Perigee height -- 337.3 km
Period -- 91.38 min.
Inclination (to Equator) -- 51.64 deg
Eccentricity -- 0.00076
Solar Beta Angle -- -32.1 deg (magnitude decreasing)
Orbits per 24-hr. day -- 15.76
Mean altitude loss in the last 24 hours -- 120 m
Revolutions since FGB/Zarya launch (Nov. 98) -- 54053
Significant Events Ahead (all dates Eastern Time, some changes possible.):
05/07/08 -- Soyuz TMA-12/16S relocation (from DC1 to FGB nadir port)
05/14/08 -- Progress M-64/29P launch
05/16/08 -- Progress M-64/29P docking (DC1)
05/31/08 -- STS-124/Discovery/1J launch - JEM PM "Kibo", racks, RMS (5:01pm EDT)
06/02/08 -- STS-124/Discovery/1J docking
07/10/08 -- Russian EVA-20 (7/10-11)
08/07/08 -- ATV1 undocking
08/12/08 -- Progress M-65/30P launch
08/14/08 -- Progress M-65/30P docking (SM aft port)
08/28/08 -- STS-125/Atlantis Hubble Space Telescope Service Mission 4 (SM4)
09/09/08 -- Progress M-64/29P undocking (from DC1)
09/10/08 -- Progress M-66/31P launch
09/12/08 -- Progress M-66/31P docking (DC1)
10/01/08 -- NASA 50 Years
10/11/08 -- Progress M-65/30P undocking (from SM aft port)
10/12/08 -- Soyuz TMA-13/17S launch
10/14/08 -- Soyuz TMA-13/17S docking (SM aft port)
10/16/08 -- STS-126/Discovery/ULF2 launch - MPLM Leonardo, LMC
10/18/08 -- STS-126/Discovery/ULF2 docking
10/23/08 -- Soyuz TMA-12/16S undocking (FGB nadir)
11/03/08 -- Soyuz TMA-13/17S relocation (from SM aft to FGB nadir)
11/20/08 -- ISS 10 Years
11/26/08 -- Progress M-67/32P launch
11/28/08 -- Progress M-67/32P docking (SM aft port)
12/04/08 -- STS-119/Discovery/15A launch - S6 truss segment
12/06/08 -- STS-119/Discovery/15A docking
12/15/08 -- STS-119/Discovery/15A undocking
2QTR CY09 -- STS-127/2J/A launch - JEM EF, ELM-ES, ICC-VLD
3QTR CY09 -- STS-128/17A/Atlantis - MPLM(P), last crew rotation
05/??/09 -- Six-person crew on ISS (following Soyuz 18S-2 docking)
3QTR CY09 -- STS-129/ULF3/Discovery - ELC1, ELC2
4QTR CY09 -- STS-130/20A/Endeavour - Node-3 + Cupola
1QTR CY10 -- STS-131/19A/Atlantis - MPLM(P)
1QTR CY10 -- STS-132/ULF4/Discovery - ICC-VLD, MRM1 (contingency)
2QTR CY10 -- STS-133/ULF5/Endeavour - ELC3, ELC4 (contingency).
