Good day and welcome to Mission Control Houston
where a multidisciplinary team
of flight controllers is watching
over the systems aboard the International Space Station
as the Expedition 34 crew continues its work.
Today the crew has assembled Robonaut for another set
of on-orbit tests that are looking at what kind
of an assistant a humanoid Robonaut might be
for humans in space.
They are also doing ultrasound background noise testing.
They continued work started earlier in the week
to characterize the sound levels on the station
and replacing the manifold bottle
on the Combustion Integrated Rack
which allows flame experiments to go
on aboard the international outpost.
Ford and Hadfield were the prime crew members working
with Robonaut taking the humanoid Robonaut
out of its sleeping compartment and setting up a task board
for upcoming remote commanding.
Meanwhile engineers on the ground today worked
with new software that could allow Robonaut to be controlled
by virtual reality gear on orbit in the future.
And it was Ford who also worked
with those ultrasound measurements.
Tom Marshburn meanwhile worked on updates
to the Automated Payload Switch Upgrade
that will help facilitate remotely controlled research
on the International Space Station.
Novitskiy, Tarelkin and Romanenko did a variety
of experiments as well as station maintenance tasks.
Novitskiy did air filter cleaning.
Tarelkin worked on water purification
and filtration maintenance
in the Russian segments of the station.
And Romanenko installed experiment hardware
for the Kristall experiment.
Later on today ground controllers will be stowing the
Dextre Special Purpose Dexterous Manipulator which has been
on the end of Canadarm2 for the past two weeks,
last week for remote refueling mission activities --
so looking at how we might use robotic spacecraft
to go refuel spacecraft that never were designed
to be refueled in orbit.
All those tests went very well, a combined project
of the Goddard Space Flight Center of NASA up in Maryland
and the Canadian Space Agency.
Flight controllers here in Mission Control
and at the Canadian Space Agency's Robotic Support
Facility in St. Hubert, Canada, worked together
on those remote-controlled activities.
They also earlier in this work moved around a couple
of different orbital replacement units on the outside
of the space station moving them from one rack to another
and putting them in the right position
so the degraded components are out of the way
and that there are components that may be needed soon
for upcoming replacement tasks are right at hand.
Today the crew on the ground is going to use the robotic arm
to stow the Dextre manipulator on the Mobile Base System.
Meanwhile, at the Baikonur Cosmodrome
in Kazakhstan the work is continuing to prepare
for the next Russian cargo craft Progress 50 for launch
on February 11 to the space station.
Ahead of that the Progress 48 spacecraft which arrived
at the station in August will be undocking
from the Pirs docking compartment.
That is coming up on Saturday, February the 9th
at 7:15 a.m. central time.
We'll have live coverage of that on NASA TV and after
that it'll be deorbited three hours later so it burns
up into the atmosphere and plunges
to a destructive demise in the Pacific Ocean.
And that will clear Pirs for the accelerated single day
launch-to-docking of the Progress 50 on March...
excuse me on Monday, February the 11th.
Launch from Site 1 Launch Pad where Yuri Gagarin launched
at Baikonur is scheduled
for 8:41 a.m. central on February the 11th.
And then four orbits later it will be docking
to the space station at 2:40 p.m. central time.
A new Progress is going to be carrying 1700 pounds
of propellant, more than 100 pounds of oxygen and air,
more than 900 pounds of water and some 3000 pounds
of spare parts, experiment hardware
and logistical equipment a total
of almost 3 tons of supplies in all.
And that single day launch-to-docking is
in preparation for potential use
of that single day launch-to-docking for humans
to minimize the stress on crew members as they head
up to the International Space Station.
Space station managers and partners met this morning
to review all the preparations for the undocking of 48 Progress
and the launch of Progress 50
and so far no issues have been identified
and we're looking forward to that coming up later this month.