Mission Monday: ISS adorns new camera

Mission Monday: ISS adorns new camera

Two spacemen Bill McArthur and Valery Tokarev tasted success on Monday, when they were able to install a new camera on the International Space Station in orbit and simultaneously eradicate a damaged monitor from the station, despite teething problems experienced in the mission. It took them five and a half hours to complete both tasks.

Bill McArthur is the station's chief in command and Valery is the Russian engineer in flight.

For the uninitiated, the International Space Station came into being in 1998 and has completed 5 uninterrupted years of human inhabitation. It is manned by spacemen constantly and the numerous sojourns into space have witnessed crew members actually living in it, away from Earth, sweet home.

The beginning saw a series of hiccups obstructing progress. To begin with, the exit door pressure valve was not fixed properly and the two astronauts took an extra hour inside the airlock chamber to release it. It was the chamber's maiden use after April 2003 and the long gap of non-use proved a bit tough to handle.

McArthur was thrilled to step out finally, only to encounter fresh trouble with the safety ropes clasping the space men villainously. Valery became quite entangled in them and McArthur had to really help him hard. After this escape, the two astronauts reached the central support frame of the station with the camera, the installation of which consumed about two hours.

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Subsequently, McArthur and Valery moved on to the next task of eliminating the obsolete monitor at the top of the station. This hugely heavy piece, all of 27 kgs, with two feet solar wings, was loosened, taken out and thrown into space by McArthur. It is said the instrument will ignite and die in 150 days, once it touches the Earth's air.

The monitor used to orbit the Earth at 28,000 km/hr, tracking the electricity levels in the ISS, but was redundant for the last two years. Its fragile condition could have lead to break off of components and damage to the ISS, hence the elimination.

When McArthur threw it into space, astronaut Rick Linnehan from Mission Control in Houston commented, "Pretty impressive."

Mission Monday was the first of a bi-part, six month mission that kick started in September. The objective to install the camera was to take better pictures when the future setup of a solar power unit in 2006, by a NASA space shuttle, happens.

The construction of the ISS had been halted temporarily after tragic Columbia in 2003. When the building restarts, the cameras will help in better and clearer shots.

The ISS was alone, minus any crew, during the five and half hour work schedule, against the norm of one member remaining on board as two others went out. Crew shortage has also been a fall out of post Columbia, a phase which has seen sluggish progress on airlock repairs and new spacesuits. The ISS team has been dependent on the Russian air chambers and space dressing, as also on Russian in-flight coordinators.

The camera installed was operational immediately, as it was seen transmitting photographs of the ongoing mission within minutes.

The next mission is intended for December at the Russian side of the ISS. NASA will take some more time before it can handle station construction by May next year.

The International Space Station, which is a conglomerate effort of many nations, has proven that space sojourns have come of age. Issues of alternative inhabitance, technology to sustain crews in subsequent missions, all such questions are being answered by the the ISS, which promises to revolutionize space missions further.