STS-107 Daily Science Report
January 20
The Combustion Module-2 (CM-2) setup
for test run number one was completed successfully. However, the
setup did not proceed per the timeline because several hardware
settings had to be reset. The hardware was reinitialized by on-board
commands. Consequently, the first sample run was missed. A request
will be submitted to run this sample at a later time. The Laminar
Soot Processes-2 (LSP-2) test run #1 and LSP-2 test run
#2 were successfully completed. The PI was pleased with the results
of both LSP runs. The hardware is operating as designed.
Critical Viscosity of Xexon-2
(CVX-2) was activated successfully
at 00/03:00 and has been sending data to the ground since activation.
Commands to begin instrument calibration were uplinked to the
experiment hardware that will be cooling the xenon sample. A preliminary
analysis of the flight data compares favorably with ground based
data. Saturday we had to reboot one of the experiment's computers
by turning CVX-2 off and on. It seems we had given the flight
instrument a confusing command. The rebooting disturbed the sample
only slightly. We hope to have our first shear-thinning data by
January 23. Challenges that lie ahead include dealing with frequent
communication interruptions and understanding an unexpected change
in the viscometer (the small screen at the heart of the experiment).
The interruptions complicate the data analysis and the change
in the viscometer (which happened in 1997 and 1999) is small,
but cause for concern.
SAMS
FF: KU2-band interruptions caused temporary dropouts of
SAMS data. SAMS ground personnel sent commands to re-establish
the link as needed. During on-board troubleshooting of the KU2
anomaly, the hardware configuration was changed. This change corrupted
the data being sent via the KU2-Band. The hardware was reconfigured
to its original state and data quality improved. However, the
link will be monitored closely for the remainder of the flight
or until complete confidence in the configuration is restored.
The SAMS-FF / PIMS team received
a request to characterize (assess) the microgravity environment
for the Zeolite Crystal Growth (ZCG) payload during an experiment
run on day 1. The SAMS-FF system was configured to downlink the
nearest sensor head to the payload. Acceleration data was collected
and downlinked at several different bandwidths to maximize the
resolution of the data. The STS-107 SAMS-FF hardware has built-in
command and control flexibility to handle a variety of data requests
such as this in supporting multiple microgravity experimenters
in characterizing the microgravity environment. The acceleration
data collected was analyzed, and the analysis of the downlinked
acceleration data was provided to the ZCG team.
Mission Status Reports
January
31, 2003
January 30, 2003
January 29, 2003
January 28, 2003
January 27, 2003
January 26, 2003
January 25, 2003
January 24, 2003
January 23, 2003
January 22, 2003
January 21, 2003
January 20, 2003
