STS-89 Day 5 Highlights

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On Monday, January 26, 1998, 6:00 a.m. CST, STS-89 MCC Status Report # 08 reports:

Continued transfer of hardware and supplies to and from the Mir space station remains the prime order of business today as STS-89 enters its second full day of joint docked operations. The crew was awakened at 5:48 a.m. CST to the tune."Singer from Down Under" by performer Slim Dusty in honor of Australia Day and Australian-born astronaut Andy Thomas.

Flight controllers labored overnight to delete lower priority items from the Endeavour crew's workload to make up for lost sleep due to an attitude control management issue. Late Sunday, an erroneous sensor reading showed a leak on Endeavour's reaction control system jet L5D. It was shortly determined that the sensor showing the leak was faulty and onboard monitoring of the affected jet could be managed with a software change. That change requires ground testing and approval before it is sent to the shuttle's computers and will be tested this morning in the Johnson Space Center.s Shuttle Avionics Integration Laboratory (SAIL). Following the sensor failure, Mission Control asked Russian controllers to let Mir maintain attitude control for the joined spacecraft. Transfer of control was done late Sunday, but the work consumed some of the crew's scheduled sleep time.

Not long after the handover of control, however, Russian engineers monitoring Mir determined that the space station was low on thruster fuel in its outboard."boom" thrusters. Flight controllers in the U.S. and Russia worked together and decided that, with good communications contact, Mission Control could watch Endeavour's thruster and the Shuttle could resume control. The ground awakened Pilot Joe Edwards about 1:15 a.m. CST. Edwards and commander Terry Wilcutt woke the Mir crew and the attitude control handover back to Endeavour was accomplished in a few minutes.

To compensate for keeping the crew up late, the planning team in Mission Control added an hour to the crew's sleep period and worked to lighten the workload for flight day 5.

Also on Sunday, astronauts Andy Thomas and David Wolf exchanged their Soyuz seat liners, equipping Thomas for the start of his extended stay in space. Thomas had some difficulty with his Sokol pressure suit during the transition and checkout, noting that it was too small. He was able to don Wolf's suit, but found the arms to be too long. Engineers in the U.S. and Russia will look at the problem today in an effort to properly size one of the suits to fit.

By the end of flight day 4, 47 percent of the supply and equipment transfers had been completed, totaling 4,107 pounds.

On Monday, January 26, 1998, 6:30 a.m. CST, STS-89 MCC Status Report # 09 reports:

Following some on-orbit modifications today, Mir 24 crewmember Andy Thomas successfully completed a fit and leak check of the Soyuz Sokol spacesuit he carried to orbit, resolving the issue of which suit and Soyuz seat liner would remain on Mir during his planned four-month mission.

Thomas detached straps at the shoulders and groin of the suit which lengthened the suit sufficiently to allow a comfortable fit under both pressurized and non-pressurized conditions. He would wear the suit only in the event he were to return to Earth on board a Soyuz spacecraft.

Transfer activity continued to be the primary focus of the Mir 24 and Endeavour crews as the ten astronauts and cosmonauts continue to move science experiments, hardware and logistical supplies between their spacecraft. At day's end, about 60 per cent of all of the planned transfer had been completed. While the transfer work continued, Thomas and former Mir resident Dave Wolf conducted handover briefings as Wolf acquaints Thomas with his new accommodations on board the Mir. Thomas will remain on Mir when Endeavour undocks on Thursday. He will return to Earth aboard the shuttle Discovery as part of the STS-91 crew in early June.

Meanwhile, flight controllers successfully uplinked a software patch to Endeavour which will bypass a suspect sensor in one of the shuttle's reaction control system jets, restoring full leak detection capability for the ship's jet thrusters. The sensor problem last night forced the Mir to assume temporary attitude control of the Shuttle-Mir complex, and kept Endeavour's astronauts up beyond the start of their planned sleep period.

With everything proceeding smoothly aboard the two spacecraft, the shuttle crewmembers are expected to start an eight-hour sleep period at 8:48 p.m. Central time and will be awakened Tuesday at 4:48 a.m. to begin the sixth day of their mission.

The Endeavour-Mir complex is orbiting the Earth every 90 minutes at an altitude of about 216 nautical miles will all systems functioning in normal fashion.

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