This is mission control Houston, we want to welcome you
to today's ISS update.
It is Wednesday, October 17, 2012.
This is a live view inside the space station flight control
room here at the Johnson Space Center.
Onboard the orbiting complex the crew
of Expedition 33 is busy working on a number
of different science experiments
and also some routine maintenance.
They're also working inside the Quest airlock today.
There you see Suni Williams, there on the right
who is the commander of Expedition 33 as well
as Aki Hoshide who is a flight engineer.
On board there inside Quest getting their spacesuits ready
for an upcoming spacewalk that will take place
over the next couple of weeks at the end of October,
early part of November.
The crew is going to be going outside to take a look
at the P6 radiator that is out there on the far left-hand side
of the station out there near the solar arrays.
There are radiators out there that circulate ammonia
through them to keep all the electronics
and all the equipment onboard the space station cool.
There is a leak on one of those radiators out there
that the crew will be going out there to address and to mitigate
and to install some jumpers to take care of that.
The exact the timing of the spacewalk will be approved
by the space station program here shortly
and then we'll know exactly what day
and what time we are targeting for the spacewalk.
But in between now and then the crew is already reviewing the
procedures onboard for that spacewalk
and also getting their equipment ready to go to step outside.
This'll be the seventh spacewalk for Suni Williams.
It'll be the third for Aki Hoshide.
These two no strangers to going outside conducting these
spacewalks during their time on board the space station.
In addition to this Suni Williams today has some
activities inside the Destiny laboratory.
She's going to be calibrating one of the oxygen sensors
on what's called the compound specific analyzer.
This is a tool which is used on board
to analyze the environment inside, to make sure
that there's no compounds that are not expected to be there,
just make sure that everything onboard the space station is
acceptable and is a good living environment for the crew.
She's going to be transferring some water
from some water containers into a water storage tank.
She's also going to be deactivating some mixing tubes
that came up as part
of the Nanoracks module nine experiment.
This is a student experiment that flew last week
on board the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft
and the crew is taking care of that.
And of course those results will be returned to Earth at the end
of the mission for the students to analyze.
Aki Hoshide is taking some samples inside the Japanese
laboratory, the Kibo laboratory,
of different microbes around there.
We talked about this yesterday.
It's part of a microbial detection experiment
and activity.
Throughout their time aboard the space station the crews take a
lot of samples of the water, of the air
and also the surfaces just make sure there's no bacteria
or fungus growing there that's not to be expected.
This does two things.
It makes sure that the space station is clean as can be
for the crew but it also gathers data
to study how these things grow inside the space environment
of the surfaces there, which is going to be incredibly important
as we venture on longer journeys past the International Space
Station to destinations like an asteroid or on to Mars.
Yuri Malenchenko also working in the Russian segment.
He's working on a couple different Earth Observatory
experiments back in that part of the station.
One's called Albedo that takes a look at what amounts
to the whiteness of the Earth.
It's basically the reflective light
that comes off of the planet below.
He's going to be using a camera to take images of that.
He's also working on something called Relaxation
which is not what it sounds like.
This actually takes a look
at how plasma discharges affect the upper reaches
of Earth's atmosphere.
He'll be using a camera on that one as well.
Down at the Baikonur Cosmodrome the three remaining crew members
of Expedition 33 that'll be joining the current ones
on board.
Oleg Novitskiy, Evgeny Tarelkin,
and Kevin Ford are undergoing final training
and final procedures as they get ready for their upcoming launch
which will take place October 23rd.
That launch time is scheduled for 5:51 AM central time.
Again October 23 5:51 AM central time.
Of course we'll have live coverage here
on NASA television of that.
They'll be docking two days later on October 25
at 7:35 PM central time 8:35 AM Eastern time.
Again docking on October 25
at 7:35 AM central time 8:35 AM Eastern time.
Of course we'll have live coverage
on NASA TV of that as well.
Our coverage will originate
from the mission control center just outside of Moscow.