Good morning from the PAO console here
in Mission Control Houston
for today's International Space Station Update.
Right now the Orbit Two team is
on console monitoring all the systems onboard this
orbiting laboratory.
Today's team is being led by Flight Director Mike Lammers.
At the CAPCOM position is Jeremy Hanson serving
as the communication link between controllers here
on the ground and the astronauts up in space.
And those astronauts right now are the crew
of Expedition 32 being led by Russian cosmonaut
and veteran space flier Gennady Padalka currently
on his fourth spaceflight.
And then starting on the left, we'll go across the back row
with Japanese astronaut Aki Hoshide.
Then joining him on the front row there is a Russian cosmonaut
Yuri Malenchenko on his fifth flight,
another veteran space flier from the Russian Space Agency.
Moving across the back row, NASA astronaut Suni Williams
on her second long-duration spaceflight and then right next
to her another NASA astronaut Joe Acaba,
a veteran of one previous space shuttle mission.
And then finally all the way on the right there,
is our third Russian cosmonaut Sergei Revin, a rookie flyer
on his first flight onboard the International Space Station.
So the crew quite busy today.
They all just finished
up reviewing some emergency procedures just
in case there's an ammonia release inside
of the station's atmosphere.
They walked through their emergency handbooks
and conferred with teams on the ground the different steps
that they would have to take should such a situation arise.
That was all completed successfully and the crewmates,
the crew members were led
by Expedition 32 Commander Gennady Padalka
who also today was reviewing some procedures
for his upcoming spacewalk
which will be occurring on Monday, August 20.
This will be the 31st Russian spacewalk or EVA,
extravehicular activity,
in support of the International Space Station.
He'll be stepping outside
with fellow Russian cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko
and relocating the Strela-2 telescoping boom
from the Pirs docking compartment to the Zarya module
in preparation for the future undocking of Pirs
which will pave the way for the new Russian multipurpose
laboratory module just a little bit later in 2013 or 2014.
So again, spacewalkers Gennady Padalka
and Yuri Malenchenko reviewing those procedures today.
Our third Russian cosmonaut Sergei Revin is auditing some
supplies of spare lighting equipment inside
of the Russian segment.
He spent some time yesterday replacing a few lights
on the Zvezda and Rassvet modules
on the Russian side of the house.
He will also be doing some routine maintenance activities
on different life, Russian life support systems pending a few
ground recommendations on which exactly he'll be working
on whether it's the oxygen generation system
in the Russian segment or also be doing some more routine
toilet replacement work.
Moving on to our USOS crew members,
Joe Acaba spent a good portion of his day today working
in the Combustion Integrated Rack.
He's been replacing some hardware
in the Multiuser Droplet Combustion Apparatus.
That Combustion Integrated Rack includes a number
of different components like a combustion chamber and also fuel
and oxidizer controls and five different cameras
for performing combustion experiments safely
in microgravity.
His fellow NASA astronaut Suni Williams is doing some work
on the Extravehicular Mobility Unit, or the spacesuits,
that our U.S. astronauts wear during their own spacewalks
in preparation for her upcoming EVA, or spacewalk,
outside of the station alongside
with Japanese astronaut Aki Hoshide.
That's scheduled to take place on July, or August 30.
And that will see the two astronaut's step outside
to replace a failing main bus switching unit
which is a vital portion
of the station's electrical power system working to act
as a distribution hub to route the power
to the different station systems.
It first showed indications of a failure back in October of 2011.
So they'll be stepping outside to get on the station's truss,
which is basically the backbone portion of the station,
and replace that failing switching unit.
Then if time permits they'll also be rerouting some cables
for that upcoming Russian multipurpose laboratory module
in the future and maybe installing a few debris
and thermal covers as well
on the Pressurized Mating Adapter-2.
And her fellow spacewalker Aki Hoshide today not doing any EVA
preps just yet, but he was taking some water samples
from the Environmental Health System inside
of the station's Water Recovery System, specifically
from the Total Organic Carbon Analyzer which looks
to analyze the level of carbon
in the astronaut's drinking water.
It's constantly monitored for different potential contaminants
and other things of the like.
And other than that he'll also be stowing some unnecessary
hardware from the airlock actually in preparation
for the upcoming EVA procedure.
Aside from all these crew activities today,
controllers down on the ground continuing some
of the robotic work that's been taking place this week.
They were using the Special Purpose Dexterous Manipulator,
or Dextre, today to transfer the Space Communications
and Navigation, or SCAN, payload off of the external pallet
which was unloaded from the HTV-3 vehicle yesterday
and they are transferring
that to the External Logistics Carrier-3
and a little bit later today will perform a space test
program payload survey and then stow Dextre back
on the mobile bay station port number two.