Sun, Nov 20, 2005
ISS Status Report #57, 4 a.m. Friday, Nov. 18, 2005
Expedition 12 Commander
Bill McArthur and Flight Engineer Valery Tokarev took a short ride
away from the International Space Station Friday, flying their
Soyuz spacecraft from one docking port to another.
McArthur and Tokarev left the station unoccupied for about half
an hour as they relocated the Soyuz TMA-7. Tokarev unodocked the
Soyuz at 2:46 a.m. CST while the station orbited 225 miles above
the south Atlantic just east of South America. They redocked to the
Earth-facing port of the nearby Zarya module at 3:05 a.m. As they
docked, the station was over the Sahara Desert as the recently
installed Port 1 Truss television camera provided dramatic views of
the operation.
The Soyuz move will allow the Pirs Docking Compartment to be
used as an airlock for an upcoming Russian spacewalk. That
spacewalk, to be the second of three possible spacewalks during
their mission, currently is scheduled for Dec. 7. However, managers
are reviewing the schedule and the spacewalk may be delayed to
early next year to ease the crew's workload. McArthur and Tokarev
must finish unpacking the ISS Progress 19 cargo ship now docked to
the complex, prepare it for undocking and get ready for the Dec..
23 arrival of the next Progress supply ship.
Today, Tokarev, in the center seat of the Soyuz, disengaged
hooks and latches holding the craft to Pirs and backed it about 80
feet away from the complex. With McArthur seated to his left,
Tokarev piloted the Soyuz forward along the station about 45 feet.
He then rotated the capsule to align it with Zarya’s docking
port. A few minutes after the Soyuz linked up to Zarya, hooks and
latches engaged, establishing a firm connection. The crew is
scheduled to re-enter the station just before 9 a.m., after a
series of leak checks are completed.
The Soyuz will be the crew's ride home at the end of its
six-month stay on the orbiting laboratory. It also serves as a
lifeboat in the event the crew must evacuate the station.
Earlier this week, McArthur spent several hours photographing
samples of colloids that had been undisturbed in the
station’s microgravity environment for more than a year. The
work is part of an experiment called the Binary Colloidal Alloy
Test. The behavior of these supercritical fluids is important
because they combine the properties of liquids and gases. A better
understanding of their reaction in the weightless environment of
space could help in the development of new drugs, cleaner power and
interplanetary transportation.
The crew will begin an extended sleep period at about 11:30 a.m.
and will awaken about midnight Saturday to begin a weekend of light
duty.
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