STS-86 Day 6 Highlights

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On Tuesday, September 30, 1997, 6:00 a.m. CDT, STS-86 MCC Status Report # 10 reports:

Preparations for a spacewalk and continuing transfer work will be the focus of activity on board Atlantis/Mir today.

As their crew mates move logistical supplies, water, experiment hardware and other equipment between Atlantis and Mir, Astronauts Scott Parazynski and Vladimir Titov will ready themselves for Wednesday's planned spacewalk. Parazynski and Titov will unstow their spacesuits and check out some of the tools, tethers and other equipment they will be using during the spacewalk.

During the five-hour excursion, they will retrieve four suitcase-sized experiments called the Mir Environmental Effects Payload (MEEP) that have been gathering data on the environment surrounding the space station since being installed in March 1996 by Astronauts Linda Godwin and Rich Clifford. They also will tether a solar array cap to the docking module for use during a future Mir EVA. The cap is designed to seal off the base of the damaged solar array on the Spektr module if and when cosmonauts jettison that array.

Transfer items today will include additional containers of water, an old Elektron oxygen-generating unit, and an experiment which studies circadian rhythms. The Beetle experiment was designed to study how a simple organism, such as the black-bodied beetle, responds to changes in the time cues, such as light or dark, that influence the internal body clock. In humans, these changes in circadian rhythms are often manifested as jet lag or lethargy and are often observed in shift workers.

The astronauts and cosmonauts also will take time today to discuss their mission in interviews scheduled with CNN, PBS and Russian media.

Plans are still being refined to allow the cosmonauts to install a new computer in Mir on Wednesday prior to the start of Titov and Parazynski's spacewalk. It could take most of the day for software to be reloaded in the new computer, but no Mir systems performance should be affected since Atlantis will be maintaining attitude for the joint spacecraft.

The Atlantis-Mir space complex is orbiting the Earth at an altitude of about 215 nautical miles with both spacecraft's systems operating in excellent shape.

On Tuesday, September 30, 1997, 8:00 p.m. CDT, STS-86 MCC Status Report # 11 reports:

Transfer and hand-over activities continued today onboard the docked Atlantis-Mir complex, with more than three-quarters of all items to be brought across having been transferred. Among the items moved so far are the old Elektron oxygen-generating unit and the Beetle experiment from Mir to Atlantis, biomedical experiment equipment and samples from Atlantis to Mir and two more bags of water, totaling almost 1200 pounds of water already transferred out of 1400 lbs. planned.

Astronaut Michael Foale spent about five hours briefing his replacement, astronaut David Wolf, acquainting Wolf with his new orbital home. Wolf's science experiments were moved to the Priroda module for his use over the next four months.

Also during the day Tuesday, mission specialists Vladimir Titov and Scott Parazynski completed the checkout and preparation of all the tools they will use tomorrow during a planned five-hour spacewalk that will begin at 1:44 p.m. CDT. The primary task during the spacewalk will be the removal of four Mir Environmental Effects Packages which had been placed along the outside of the docking module last March by astronauts Linda Godwin and Rich Clifford. Parazynski and Titov also will carry out the Spektr Solar Array Cap which cosmonauts may use in a future spacewalk to bolt over any hole found in the hull of the damaged Spektr module. The cap will be attached to the outside of the docking module within reach of spacewalking cosmonauts.

Plans are nearing completion for the swap-out of the Mir's motion control computer tomorrow for a new one brought into orbit by Atlantis. The current schedule calls for the old computer to be removed at about 1030 am CDT and replaced by the new computer. The swap-out should take about 90 minutes, after which new software will be loaded into the computer by Russian flight controllers. That process will take several more hours. Mir's automatic attitude control devices, the gyrodynes, will be spun down early Wednesday afternoon to accommodate the change, and will not be spun up again until early Thursday morning to provide the Mir its own attitude control capability once again. In the meantime, Atlantis holds attitude control for the Mir, aligning its solar panels with the sun at all times to provide electrical production.

Earlier today, members of both crews were interviewed by CNN, PBS and Russian reporters at the Russian Mission Control Center, and provided a commemorative message from the Mir this morning for the 40th anniversary of the launching of the first satellite, Sputnik, by Russia on October 4th, 1957. The anniversary will be celebrated on Saturday.

Mir's crew is scheduled to begin its nine-hour sleep period tonight at 8:30 p.m. CDT. Atlantis astronauts will go to bed about 10:30 and wake at 6:30 a.m. Wednesday. EVA preparations Wednesday begin at 8:34 a.m. with the closing of hatches between Atlantis and Mir.

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