STS-91 Day 4 Highlights
Back to STS-91 Flight Day 03 Highlights:
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- On Friday, June 5, 1998, 6:00 a.m. CDT, STS-91 MCC Status Report # 6
reports:
- Following his first night as a member of Discovery's crew, Andy
Thomas and the rest of the STS-91 astronauts were awakened this
morning at 3:06 a.m. Central time to the sounds of "South Australia,"
honoring Thomas who is a native of Adelaide in South Australia.
- The nine astronauts and cosmonauts aboard Discovery-Mir are spending
their first full day of joint operations continuing the transfer of
about four tons of logistical supplies and equipment.
- Much of the day will be spent transferring water, scientific gear
and other hardware between the two spacecraft. The crew members
transferred five bags of water to the Mir by the end of the day
yesterday, with an additional seven or eight bags expected to be
transferred by the time Discovery undocks from the Mir on Monday.
- Also on tap today is the deactivation, disassembly and transfer of
the Space Acceleration Measurement System (SAMS) from Mir to
Discovery. SAMS records fluctuations in the microgravity environment
so researchers can learn where regions of high acceleration forces
exist and avoid those areas for experiment placement.
- Discovery's astronauts also will monitor mid-deck science activities
and payload operations, and also will move metabolic samples from the
Mir to the Shuttle for return to Earth.
- Later today, the astronauts and cosmonauts will take time from their
activities to discuss their joint mission in interviews with CNN and
the Voice of America. That interviews will begin at 3:20 p.m. Central
time and will be seen on NASA Television through Russian TV systems
since Discovery's KU-band communication antenna is still experiencing
problems down-linking Shuttle TV.
- The Discovery-Mir space complex is orbiting the Earth at an altitude
of about 208 nautical miles with both spacecrafts' systems operating
in excellent shape.
- On Friday, June 5, 1998, 6:00 p.m. CDT, STS-91 MCC Status Report # 7
reports:
- The nine astronauts and cosmonauts aboard the Discovery-Mir complex
are well into their transfer operations as they wind up their first
full day of joint docked operations. During the four days the two
spacecraft are joined together, about four tons of logistical supplies
and equipment will be moved between the two vehicles.
- Earlier today, an in-flight maintenance procedure was performed to
try and resolve the problem being experienced with Discovery's Ku-band
communication system. Shuttle Commander Charlie Precourt and his crew
performed a test to verify the Ku system's signal processor was
receiving electrical current to allow it to send a transmit enable
signal. Flight controllers were hoping to find no current flowing
through the system which would have allowed the crew to set up a
bypass to restore high data rate transmission and video capability.
However, Precourt reported that the voltage meter was showing good
current flow to the signal processor system, which means that in all
likelihood, the problem causing the Ku problem is located in a
component system that is not accessible to the crew.
- With the portion of the Ku-band communication system that supports
science activities for the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS) payload
likely unavailable for the remainder of the flight, remote tracking
station ground sites around the world are being called up to support
AMS science operations. Data that can not be received through ground
stations is being recorded onboard and will be retrieved after the
flight.
- Late today, Precourt along with the rest of his crew, Pilot Dom
Gorie and the four STS-91 mission specialists - Franklin Chang-Diaz,
Wendy Lawrence, Janet Kavandi and Valery Ryumin along with the two
cosmonauts, Mir 25 Commander Talgat Musabayev and Flight Engineer
Nikolai Budarin -- took some time from their activities to discuss
their joint mission in interviews with CNN and the Voice of America.
Due to a problem between a Russian ground station and the mission
control center outside of Moscow, the Altair satellite television feed
was not available so both interviews were done audio-only.
- Shortly after he begins his official sleep period this evening,
Ryumin will reach a significant milestone when he achieves 365 days of
space flight time. Ryumin, a veteran cosmonaut, will mark one year of
space flight time at 7:32 p.m. CDT (3/02:26 MET) this evening.
- The STS-91 crew's sleep period will begin at 7:06 p.m. and the wake
up call from Mission Control will come at 3:06 a.m. on Saturday
morning.
- The Discovery-Mir space complex is orbiting the Earth at an altitude
of about 208 nautical miles with both spacecrafts' systems operating
in excellent shape.
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