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Update: 01-132

INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION
Expedition Two Science Operations

Status Report for the week ending, April 11, 2001

The Expedition Two Space Station crew transmitted the first science data to the scientists on the ground Wednesday night using the Station’s Ku band antenna.

A massive 610 megabytes of data, representing 61 files of tests with the Middeck Active Control Experiment – MACE – were transmitted from the Station to NASA ground controllers, who distributed it to experimenters.

Earlier Station science data on the Hoffman Reflex neurological experiment was downlinked using the Space Shuttle communications system.  Station science data is transmitted using the KU band antenna because it can transmit data faster than the S band antenna used for voice communications. 

MACE studies the effects of vibrations on moving structures in space.  The results are expected to help engineers design and build lighter, stronger, space structures.

The experiment platform is 60 inches (152 cm) long, including four struts and five nodes.  Astronauts use a hand control unit to make gimbals and reaction wheels on one side to vibrate while gimbals and wheels on the other side try to damp the vibration.

MACE involves science teams from the Air Force Research Laboratory at Kirtland Air Force Base in New Mexico and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology at Cambridge.

Flight Engineer Susan Helms conducted several tests using the MACE equipment during the past week.  In addition, the Expedition Two crew also monitored the operation of automated radiation-measuring experiments and participated in a study of crew relationships.

The Bonner Ball Neutron Detector and the Dosimetric Mapping radiation experiments continued to collect radiation data that will be used to more accurately predict human radiation exposure during long-duration missions and develop counter-measures to safely prolong human exposure to radiation during space travel.  Flight Engineer Jim Voss kept the experiment hard drives changed out with fresh units with additional memory storage.

Dr. Tateo Goka, of the National Space Development Agency of Japan, is the principal investigator for Bonner Ball.  Dr. Guenter Reitz of the German Space Agency, is the principal investigator for DOSMAP.

Using a laptop computer, the crew continued to fill out questionnaires as part of the Interactions experiment.  After the mission, their answers to questions about living and working with their colleagues will help experimenters identify and characterize interpersonal and cultural factors that may affect crew performance in space.

Dr. Nick Kanas, of the Veterans Administration Medical Center in San Francisco, is the principal investigator for Interactions.

A pair of Earth photography experiments – Crew Earth Observations and EarthKAM – are on the crew’s task list for the week as time permits during the early phase of setting up the orbiting laboratory.

The Payload Operations Center is also busy planning for the next Space Shuttle mission, which will carry two additional payload racks and many new experiments to the Space Station.   These experiments include the first commercial experiments, developed by private companies through NASA’s Commercial Space Centers across the United States.

Editor’s Note: The Payload Operations Center at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., manages all science research experiments aboard the International Space Station.  The center is also home for coordination of the mission-planning work of a variety of international sources, all science payload deliveries and retrieval, and payload training and payload safety programs for the Station crew and all ground personnel.