STS-71 Day 5 Highlights

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On Saturday, July 1, 1995, 6 a.m. CDT, STS-71 MCC Status Report # 08 reports:

The sounds of a Russian pop song, Kuca Kuca Kuca, (pronounced Keesa Keesa Keesa) greeted the Atlantis/Mir crew members as they awoke to begin their fifth flight day on orbit.

Commander Hoot Gibson's sleep was briefly interrupted twice overnight. An alarm sounded when the H2 manifold valve for hydrogen tank 1 gave a "closed" indication. Flight controllers asked Gibson to verify the valve's position, and then reset it to "open." The panel continued to show a "closed" configuration, but all tank pressures indicated the valve was open and functioning normally. Flight controllers looked at the data and concluded that a microswitch in the valve was reading its position incorrectly and that the valve is functioning normally. Gibson then returned to sleep.

About 40 minutes before crew wake up, the temperature on one of the forward right reaction control system jets, F5R, fell below limits signalling an alarm on board and waking the crew. The temperature drop was not unexpected due to the inertial attitude the Atlantis/Mir spacecraft has been flying. An orbital maneuver, already scheduled in to the crew's activity timeline, will put Atlantis into an attitude that will warm the jet.

Today, the STS-71 and Mir 18 crew members will continue transferring medical samples, equipment and hardware from Mir to Atlantis for the return trip to Earth. In addition, crew members also will fill four canisters of water, generated on board Atlantis as a byproduct of its fuel cells, and transfer it to Mir. Four similar canisters were filled on Friday.

Gibson, Pilot Charlie Precourt, and Mission Specialists Ellen Baker and Bonnie Dunbar, along with Mir 18 Commander Vladimir Dezhurov and Cosmonaut Researcher Norm Thagard will be interviewed by CNN and Conus Communications beginning at 9:47 a.m.

On Saturday, July 1, 1995, 3 p.m. CDT, STS-71 MCC Status Report # 09 reports:

The astronauts and cosmonauts aboard Atlantis and the Mir Space Station maintained a rhythm of packing and unpacking today, as well as entering into a steady pace of medical investigations in the Shuttle's cargo bay laboratory module.

On his 109th day in orbit, Astronaut Norm Thagard went through a series of medical tests ranging from analysis of his lung function to electrocardiographs and studies of his cardiovascular system, along with his Mir 18 mission crew mates. Mission Specialists Ellen Baker and Bonnie Dunbar oversaw the medical testing aboard Atlantis.

Simultaneously, the transfer of equipment to and from Mir continued, including providing specially designed spacewalking tools to the Mir from Atlantis that will be used by the Mir 19 cosmonauts in mid-July to free a jammed solar array on the station. Other transfers included loading a broken Salyut-5 computer onto Atlantis for the trip home and providing excess water from the Shuttle to Mir. So far, about 580 pounds of excess Shuttle water has been provided to Mir.

Also during the day Commander Hoot Gibson and Pilot Charlie Precourt fired Atlantis' large steering jets in a planned test to check the integrity of the Atlantis-Mir attachment points, finding the docking mechanism to be very secure. A flight control computer aboard Atlantis that experienced a problem early yesterday has been operating

throughout the day today without trouble, and flight controllers believe the computer is healthy and that the earlier problem was an isolated incident.

Flight controllers changed the orientation of Atlantis and Mir slightly for the sleep period today so the Shuttle's autopilot will have to fire steering jets a bit more often, thus keeping the jets warmer during the crew's night.

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