Good day and welcome to Mission Control Houston
where flight controllers are monitoring the activities
of the Expedition 33 crew aboard the International Space Station
On board of course is the commander Suni Williams along
with her crew members since July, Yuri Malenchenko
of the Russian Federal Space agency and Akihiko Hoshide
of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency.
In addition recently joining the crew
in October are NASA astronaut Kevin Ford as well
as Russian cosmonauts Oleg Novitskiy and Evgeny Tarelkin.
They will be taking over operations
of the International Space Station
when the Expedition commander
and her colleagues depart coming up on November 18.
Among the experiments being used today are the Medaka
Osteoclast experiment.
The crew is scheduled to be doing some photography
of the Medaka fish in that newly arrived aquarium The experiment
is looking at bone resorption, and that is the process
by which osteoclast break down bone and release mineral
so that new bone can be built.
Scientist believe that the decrease in bone mineral density
in space is related to this, and the Medaka fish is a good model
in the animal world for life research,
and the Japanese experiment folks are studying the effects
of microgravity on the osteoclast activity
and the gravity sensing system of these fish,
using them as a model for the human body.
The fish are doing well
but there have been some additional bubbles introduced
into the aquarium module and tomorrow the crew is going
to conduct a procedure to remove those extra bubbles,
but otherwise the fish are doing well.
Both Williams and Hoshide have been involved
in continued troubleshooting of the Waste
and Hygiene Compartment.
That's the Russian toilet unit
in the US operating segment onboard the space station.
It hasn't been working right since Friday.
They had previously replaced a pretreat injector pump on worked
on several pieces of equipment
but the alert lights were continuing to show early today
that the pretreat urine wasn't in the right mixture to be fed
into the water recycling system.
Eventually that water ends up being reused by the crew
as drinking water and to prepare food and other uses.
Williams did a lot of inspections
and then they replaced a pretreat tank and that seemed
to do be the job that did the trick.
All the following tests were nominal.
The lights went off as they were supposed to
and now the crew has been cleared to use that toilet.
The crew members also are using ultrasound equipment
to image blood vessels as part
of the Integrated Cardiovascular experiment.
That's looking at the human heart and how it tends to shrink
or atrophy during long-duration spaceflight.
They've also been taking readings overnight as they sleep
as part of the experiment and using an electroencephalograph,
and there have been some trouble with the batteries that are used
to power that device,
so the crews also been troubleshooting those batteries
and chargers.
Jury's still out whether it's a problem
with the batteries themselves
or with the way the batteries are seating
in the specialized chargers that are used
to keep them ready for use.
Kevin Ford also getting ready
to do some intraocular eye pressure tests as part
of the routine medical examinations
and continuing studies
of how long-duration spaceflights can change
astronaut's vision.
And the Russian cosmonauts moved up their,
some of their routine maintenance of the toilet
on their end of the station which is virtually the same
as the one in the waste and hygiene compartment,
but now that the newer toilet has been fixed they've shifted
that a little bit later during the day
since it's not as critical.
The idea is to make sure that at least one working toilet aboard
the space station at all times but now we have two.
The crew also continued the departure preparations
for Suni Williams, Aki Hoshide and Yuri Malenchenko,
who are scheduled again
to depart the International Space Station
on Sunday November 18.
Here's a rundown of all of the coverage we have planned
for the change command ceremony on Saturday the 17th,
the farewells and undocking and landing on November 18th
and then the postflight post-landing video file
on Monday the 19th.
And of course the newly arrived crewmembers, Ford, Novitskiy
and Tarelkin continue their orientation aboard the space
station getting used to the new home in space
and getting a full rundown
by their off going veteran crew members
so they can continue operations
until the next crew members arrive.
That'll be Tom Marshburn of NASA, Roman Romanenko
of the Russian Federal Space agency and Chris Hadfield
of the Canadian Space Agency,
who eventually will become the first Canadian commander
of the International Space Station.
Those crewmembers are continuing their training
in star city, Russia today.
They are at the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Facility
conducting rendezvous and docking simulations
and Marshburn is getting ready for his return
to Russia next week for their final prelaunch training.
This is Mission Control Houston