All ISS systems continue to function nominally, except as noted previously or below.

After wakeup at 4:30am EDT to "Happy Saturday" wishes from the ground, the crew spent a restful day with only a few necessary task assignments. With one more week until arrival of the next group of visitors, much work remains until Expedition Five's tenure on board the station comes to a close when 11A/Endeavour lands.

As normally every week on Saturday, the ISS residents performed the 3-hr. "uborka" (house cleaning). Classified as Bioenvironmental Surveillance, the extensive cleanup focuses on removal of food waste products, periodic cleaning of compartments with vacuum cleaner, wet cleaning of surfaces with disinfectants and cleaning of fan screens to avoid temperature rises. [Recent microbiological sampling has revealed a high microbial and fungal colony count at the D3 air return vent grille in the Node, location of an HEPA (high-efficiency particulate air) filter. The crew was therefore advised to include a thorough wipe-down of the entire area with Russian "Fungistat" disinfectant or US disinfectant wipes during today's housecleaning.]

FE-1/SO Peggy Whitson closed down the EMU Metox (metal oxide) canister regeneration in the Airlock (A/L) started yesterday and deactivated the A/L air conditioner ( CCAA, common cabin air assembly). She then reconfigured the A/L and reinstalled the air duct in the open hatch between A/L and Node.

The daily routine task of SOSh life support systems maintenance was performed by CDR Valery Korzun, while Whitson completed the regular checkup of autonomous Lab payloads (CGBA [commercial generic bioprocessing apparatus], PGBA [plant generic bioprocessing apparatus], and ZCG [Zeolite crystal growth] Parameters).

Peggy Whitson was thanked by POC (Payload Operations Center) for her help and good work on the ARCTIC refrigerator/freezer system yesterday. Engineers are looking at the results and continue developing troubleshooting approaches.

"Walkthrough" instructions for Monday's treadmill SDTO (station development test objective) were uplinked for the crew's preparatory study. [Objective of the experiment is to measure the station's structural dynamics during TVIS operations. This will be fairly complicated, since Valery Korzun will be recorded during exercise on the TVIS by four video cameras and the IWIS (internal wireless instrumentation system) system. Simultaneously, ground engineers will record SAMS (space acceleration measurement system) and MAMS (microgravity acceleration measurement system) data. As such, there will be considerable coordination required between all parties.]

The Russian GIVUS primary rate sensor system, which failed yesterday at 7:46am EDT, was recovered later in the day (4:13pm). The MCS (motion control system) configuration is back in a normal configuration, with the US RGAs (rate gyroscope assemblies) selected as the primary source of attitude data. [After the failure, US attitude determination FDIR (failure detection, isolation, and recovery) switched over to RGA-1 propagation of Russian attitude for attitude control purposes. The Russian FDIR had activated the backup ORT medium-accuracy rate sensor system, but that takes two minutes, and in the meantime the Russian BINS strap-down inertial navigation system (attitude knowledge) lost its basis data. Over the next few hours MCC-H and MCC-M worked a plan to return the ISS attitude control to CMG TA (control moment gyro/thruster assisted) mode and the nominal configuration.]

As a new item added to the Russian task list, Korzun and Treschev were requested to use Laptop 3 to determine the available storage space on one of its hard disk drives (HDD 1029), downlink its capacities by voice or in a file, and return the laptop to readiness for operating in the Regul-Packet channel.

Peggy Whitson had her weekly PFC (private family conference), via S-band.

All crewmembers performed their regular daily physical exercise, with a reminder by the ground of the rapidly approaching need to use their legs in gravity again.

Last Thursday, after several Russian ground passes, TsUP specialists confirmed that the pump panel replacement (4SPN1) in the SM internal thermal loop #2 (KOB-2) by Korzun and Treschev on 10/23 was successful.

Lead Increment Scientist Vic Cooley to crew: "Thank you for your operation of the all the payloads this week - Renal, PGBA, CGBA, GASMAP, ARCTIC, Interactions, and EVARM. We're looking forward to bringing home excellent science."

Extra-Vehicular Activity Radiation Monitors (EVARM): The crew was thanked by the PI for last Sunday's EVARM badge reading.

GASMAP/Pulmonary Function in Flight (PuFF): Next PuFF session has been moved to 11/3.

Renal (Kidney) Stone Experiment: Last in-flight Renal session was completed this week. The next one will be after the crew's return.

Interactions (NTXN): Continuing.

Human Research Facility/Workstation (HRF WS): n/a

Commercial Refrigerator Incubator Module-Commercial Stelsys (STELSYS): Returned on 9A.

Microencapsulation Electrostatic Processing (MEPS): Complete. Returned on 9A.

Advanced Astroculture (ADVASC): Complete. Returned on 9A.

Solidification Using a Baffle in Sealed Ampoules (SUBSA): Complete. Returned on 9A.

Pore Formation and Mobility Investigation (PFMI): Continuing.

Space Acceleration Measurement System (SAMS): Nominal.

Microgravity Acceleration Measurement System (MAMS): The MAMS OARE sensor subsystem (OSS) continues acquisition of low frequency acceleration data for characterization of the station's quasi-steady environment.

Active Rack Isolation System (ARIS) Support: ARIS will be powered up on 10/28 to support the TVIS SDTO (see above).

Protein Crystal Growth-Single Locker Thermal Enclosure System (PCG-STES): Nominal.

Materials ISS Experiment (MISSE): In progress. Deployed outside. Nominal and collecting data.

Educational Payload Operations (EPO-5): Completed.

EarthKAM: Planned. Will be performed during Stage 9A.

Zeolite Crystal Growth (ZCG): The ZCG team is preparing for deactivation next week.

ARCTIC Refrigerator/Freezer 1 (ARCTIC-1): Troubleshooting for both ARCTIC units is ongoing.

ARCTIC Refrigerator/Freezer 2 (ARCTIC-2): Troubleshooting for both ARCTIC units is ongoing.

Commercial Generic Bioprocessing Apparatus/Plant Generic Bioprocessing Apparatus (CGBA/PGBA): From everything that can be seen from the ground, CGBA and PGBA are looking good, with the exception of the PGBA video. For the upcoming harvesting event some of the steps in the Harvesting procedure have to be modified to select only certain plants to be harvested and fixed, certain ones to remain in PGBA, and others to come back harvested but not fixed. This is because not all plants are growing as expected. The PGBA/CGBA team will be standing by during the procedure early Monday morning.

Crew Earth Observations (CEO): Today's targets were Hurricane Kenna (Dynamic Event Target: Hurricane Kenna is forecast to make landfall near midday on Friday and then rapidly weaken and race northeastward over central Mexico. By the time of the ISS pass all that will remain will be a dramatic plume of tropical moisture arcing from northern Mexico in the Ohio River Valley. Crew was asked to start looking left of track over northern Mexico and begin documenting the position and appearance of the great arc of clouds that will nearly parallel their track), Tigris-Euphrates, Turkey (as the ISS approached eastern Turkey from the NW, the crew was to try for regional, context views of this target region to the right of track. The dry summer-fall season is ending and lakes and rivers should be at there lowest levels of the year), Western Mediterranean Dust and Smog (ISS pass was southeastward off the west coast of Italy. Of interest: oblique and limb views to the left of track to document aerosols and smog over Italy and the Adriatic Sea to the east), and Eastern Mediterranean Dust and Smog (satellite imagery continues to indicate dust over the eastern Med basin. As ISS approached the Libyan-Egyptian coast from the NW, crew was to look left of track again in oblique views to detect plumes of dust in the atmosphere over the sea).

ISS Orbit (as of this morning, 7:42am EDT [= epoch]):
Mean altitude -- 395.3 km
Apogee -- 405.4 km
Perigee -- 385.2 km
Period -- 92.46 min.
Inclination (to Equator) -- 51.63 deg
Eccentricity -- 0.0014857
Orbits per 24-hr. day -- 15.57
Altitude loss -- 190 m (mean) in last 24 hours
Revolutions since FGB/Zarya launch (Nov. '98) -- 22445
Current Flight Attitude -- XPOP (x-axis perpendicular to orbit plane = "sun-fixed" [yaw: -5.0, pitch: -8.6 deg., roll: 0.4 deg]),with CMG/Thruster Assist Momentum Management).

For more on ISS orbit and worldwide naked-eye visibility dates/times, see
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/osf/station/viewing/issvis.html

Source: NASA