ISS Crew Busy with Science, Maintenance and Treadmill Tests

The Expedition 21 crew members were busy with a variety of science and maintenance activities as well as the checkout of a new treadmill Thursday as they orbited the Earth aboard the International Space Station.

Flight Engineer Nicole Stott continued work with the Fluids Integration Rack (FIR), installing avionics and lighting hardware and a smoke detector. The FIR is a fluid physics research facility designed to host investigations in areas such as colloids, gels, bubbles, wetting and capillary action and phase changes including boiling and cooling.

Flight Engineers Robert Thirsk and Nicole Stott install the Active Rack Isolation System (ARIS) hardware on the Fluids Integrated Rack (FIR) in the Destiny laboratory of the International Space Station. Credit: NASA

Stott, as well as Flight Engineers Jeff Williams and Robert Thirsk, conducted tests in the Harmony node on the recently delivered Combined Operational Load Bearing External Resistance Treadmill, or COLBERT. The crew members set up video cameras and recorded themselves conducting workouts on the treadmill, which will help ensure the device is working properly.

Stott and Williams also conducted their first training session of rendezvous pitch maneuver photography in advance of the arrival of space shuttle Atlantis next month. During the shuttle’s approach, they will take detailed digital imagery of its heat shield that will be sent down to Earth to be analyzed by experts at Johnson Space Center.

Commander Frank De Winne and Thirsk worked on the transfer of supplies from the Progress 35 cargo craft that arrived on Saturday. The craft delivered 1,918 pounds of propellant, 110 pounds of oxygen and air, 926 pounds of water and 1,750 pounds of spare parts and supplies to the station for the Expedition 21 crew.

Flight Engineers Roman Romanenko and Maxim Suraev worked in the Russian section of the station maintaining its systems and performing science experiments.

De Winne, Thirsk and Williams also had time set aside to participate in an in-flight educational event for the Canadian Space Agency with the Powell River School in British Columbia.