Submitted by Arthur - N1ORC

International Space Station Status Report #03-16 
4 p.m. CDT, Friday, April 11, 2003 
Expedition Six Crew

A remarkable week of spacewalk and science activities is winding down
for the International Space Station's Expedition 6 crew, Commander Ken
Bowersox, Flight Engineer Nikolai Budarin and NASA ISS Science Officer
Don Pettit. 

During a 6-hour, 26-minute spacewalk Tuesday, Bowersox and Pettit
reconfigured critical power cables and continued the external outfitting
of the station. They also completed a number of get-ahead tasks for
future ISS assembly. 

Science experiments this week measured the amount of radiation the
astronauts receive and the possible changes in their lung function,
before and after spacewalks. Other experiments studied fluids used in
mechanical lines such as those in automobile brake systems for possible
improvement, and allowed middle school students around the world to
command a camera to take pictures of Earth from the station. 

Bowersox and Pettit maneuvered the space station robotic arm, Canadarm2,
three times this week. The first session, on Sunday, put the robotic arm
in position to use its cameras to view the spacewalk and the next two
completed the on-orbit checkout of robotic components and gathered data
from a sensor. 

The altitude of the station was raised to an average 244 statute miles
in preparation for the arrival of a new Soyuz spacecraft and its crew.
Expedition 7 Commander Yuri Malenchenko and Flight Engineer/NASA ISS
Science Officer Ed Lu traveled to the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan
from their training base in Star City, Russia, to inspect the Soyuz
TMA-2 vehicle in which they will be launched on April 26 to begin a
six-month mission on the ISS. They also did fit checks today. 

Information on the crew's activities aboard the space station, future
launch dates, as well as station sighting opportunities from anywhere on
the Earth, is available on the Internet at: 

http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/ 

Details on station science operations can be found on an Internet site
administered by the Payload Operations Center at NASA's Marshall Space
Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., at: 

http://scipoc.msfc.nasa.gov/ 

The next ISS status report will be issued on Friday, April 18, or sooner
if events warrant. 

-end-