The space station as viewed by the departing space shuttle crew last month. Photo: NASA

During the first two weeks of September, the Space Station crew assisted with the "shaker" tests of an experimental device to protect delicate microgravity research from vibrations.

Astronaut Frank Culbertson installed the shaker device on EXPRESS Rack 2 early this month. The payload rack contains the Active Rack Isolation System, a device designed to dampen out the effects of spacecraft docking, crew exercise, and similar disturbances. The shaker is a box that has an internal mass that moves up and down and side to side at precise speeds and frequencies while scientists on the ground monitor ARIS' efforts to damp the vibrations. The crew assisted by moving the shaker to different locations on the rack and inside the Destiny lab module.

Remote operations continued with untended experiments aboard the Station, managed by the Payload Operations Center at Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Al., and assisted by teams at telescience centers around the country. Scientists at a telescience center at the University of Alabama in Birmingham are monitoring biological crystals growing inside the Dynamically Controlled Protein Crystal Growth (DCPCG) experiment. This new Expedition Three payload allows scientists on the ground for the first time to see images of the crystals as they grow in space and control the rate of crystal formation using nitrogen gas to regulate the evaporation rate of solution surrounding the crystals. By growing larger, better-structured crystals, scientists hope to learn more about how these biochemicals do their jobs in humans, animals and plants. The crystals will be returned on a Space Shuttle mission in December so that scientists can study their three-dimensional structure.

Additional untended experiments monitored by science teams on the ground during the past two weeks included the Microgravity Acceleration Measurement System (MAMS), Advanced Protein Crystallization Facility (APCF), the Cellular Biotechnology Operations Support System (CBOSS), and the Materials on International Space Station Experiment (MISSE). MAMS was recording in high rate mode when a Russian spacecraft docked on Sunday, Sept. 16, with a new airlock module for the station. Characterizing the station's environment is important to scientists trying to understand the results of their experiments and plan future experiments. The CBOSS Biotechnology Refrigerator continued to preserve cell specimens processed early in Expedition 3. Astronauts may reposition the samples in the refrigerator next week to help keep them as cold as possible.

On Monday, September 10, all three crew members continued to serve as test subjects for human life sciences experiments. Each participated in the Hoffman Reflex experiment, designed to measure the spinal cord's ability to respond to stimuli. This extra session was added at the request of the Principal Investigator based on review of the data from Expedition 2, to better understand the time course of changes in the first few weeks of space flight. Crew members sit in a seat-like device while electrodes attached to their calves stimulate their muscles. The experiment measures spinal cord excitability - its ability to respond to stimuli. Researchers believe that spinal cord excitability decreases during prolonged space flight. If this proves true, they hypothesize that in-flight exercise would be less effective and the space crews will have to work harder and longer to achieve any benefit. Researchers may be able to reverse the decrease in spinal cord excitability.

During the past two weeks, the crew continued to participate in the Interactions study of crew and crew-ground team relationships during longterm space missions. This research requires them to use a laptop computer to fill out a questionnaire about various aspects of their interactions with each other and ground controllers. The Interactions experiment will identify and characterize important interpersonal and cultural factors that may impact the performance of the crew and ground support personnel during International Space Station missions. The study will examine - as it did in similar experiments on the Russian space station Mir -- issues involving tension, cohesion and leadership roles in the crew in orbit and in the ground support crews.

The Experiment on the Physics of Colloids in Space has completed several runs in the past two weeks. During an 80-hour run last week one of the Single Photon Counting Modules appeared to fail. The ground team later confirmed the problem. One module is still functioning, which is sufficient to accomplish all of the planned science experiments at a cost of some time and operational changes. A colloid is a system of fine particles suspended in a fluid. Paint, milk and ink are some common examples. Though these products are routinely produced and used, scientists still have much to learn about the underlying properties of colloidal systems. Understanding their properties may allow scientists to manipulate the physical structures and properties of colloids - a process called "colloidal engineering" - for the manufacture of new materials and products.

EXPRESS Rack 2 has been turned off since last Thursday, September 13, along with three experiments inside. Those are the Active Rack Isolation System International Space Station Characterization Experiment (ARIS-ICE), the Space Acceleration Measurement System (SAMS) and the Experiment on Physics of Colloids in Space (EXPPCS). Controllers here are completing the process of loading new software into the rack that they hope will resolve a reboot problem with the rack computer.

EXPRESS racks provide station experiments with power, computing, cooling, fluids and other utilities. Software loading was expected to be completed this week, followed by resumed operation with the three experiments.

Photography targets uplinked in the past two weeks to the Space Station for the Crew Earth Observations research program include Typhoon Danas on the Japanese coast, ice caps and snow in the High Central Andean Glaciers and other locations, the Parana River basin in South America, dust and smog in the Mediterranean basin, cresting Nile River floods in Africa, the effects of rains in the Ethiopian plateau, dust, smoke and smog in South Africa.

Earlier in the week, Culbertson sent down video taken of the smoke plume rising from the World Trade Center area following the events of September 11.

The crew also has used the Dreamtime high definition video equipment to video a variety of Earth targets. The deployment of a high definition television (HDTV) camcorder on the International Space Station is part of a public-private NASA partnership with Dreamtime Holdings Inc., Moffet Field, Calif., to upgrade NASA's equipment to next generation HDTV technology. Crew members will use the equipment to acquire a variety of high quality video of the Space Shuttle and the Space Station. This includes crew activities, Earth observation, and experiment documentation.

Activities scheduled for this week included plans to downlink test results from the Pulmonary Function in Flight experiment, as well as ground commanding with the station's automated experiments.

Looking ahead, EarthKAM operations that were performed during Expedition 2 in May are scheduled to resume in October. This is a program that allows students to select photography targets for a still image camera onboard the Station that then transmits the images to Earth for students to use in a variety of classroom studies.

Editor's Note: The Payload Operations Center at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., manages all science research experiment operations aboard the International Space Station. The center is also home for coordination of the mission-planning work of a variety of international sources, all science payload deliveries and retrieval, and payload training and payload safety programs for the Station crew and all ground personnel.