International Space Station Status Report: SS07-25

A new cargo freighter launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan to the International Space Station at 10:25 p.m. CDT Friday with more than 2.5 tons of fuel, air, water and other supplies and equipment aboard.

The ISS Progress 25 unpiloted cargo carrier is scheduled to dock with the station Tuesday at 12:10 a.m., bringing more than 1,050 pounds of propellant, almost 100 pounds of air, more than 925 pounds of water and 3,042 pounds of dry cargo -- a total of 5,125 pounds. NASA TV coverage of the docking will begin at 11:30 p.m. Monday.

The spacecraft will use the automated Kurs system to dock at the aft port of the Zvezda Service Module. Should human intervention be necessary, Expedition 15 Commander Fyodor Yurchikhin will be at the manual TORU docking system controls.

On Tuesday, Yurchikhin and flight engineers Suni Williams and Oleg Kotov tested communications between the station and the docked ISS Progress 24. On Wednesday, in recognition of the Russian holiday Victory Day, marking the end of World War II, the crew performed only necessary station activities.

On Thursday, Kotov worked with a breathing experiment, while Williams and Yurchikhin spent about three hours replacing a frayed steel rope on a gyroscope on the Treadmill Vibration Isolation System, or TVIS. The gyroscope is part of the system that keeps vibrations created by an exercising crew member from being transmitted to the rest of the station, where it could interfere with delicate experiments. Williams and Yurchikhin wrapped up the work on Friday.

Additionally on Thursday, flight controllers tested the failed Control Moment Gyroscope (CMG) 3. The test involved tilting the CMG in different directions at different speeds to determine what effect, if any, friction had on the movement. The 600-pound gyroscope itself, one of four that controls the station’s orientation in space, was not spun up. It will be replaced this summer during the STS-118 mission.

For more about the crew’s activities and station sighting opportunities, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/station