INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION STATUS REPORT #01-27 
                 Wednesday, September 5, 2001 – 2 p.m. CDT 
                           Expedition Three Crew 

 After completing a three-day holiday weekend of light activities that
 provided time to settle into their new home, members of the International
 Space Station crew this week began a busy slate of scientific work,
 performed some minor repairs and maintenance, and prepared for the
 continued expansion of the orbiting complex with the upcoming launch of a
 new Russian module. 

 Expedition Three Commander Frank Culbertson, Pilot Vladimir Dezhurov and
 Flight Engineer Mikhail Tyurin are in the fourth week of a four-month
 stay aboard the station. Much of their time was devoted to experiment
 work this week, uninterrupted by any station system problems. Some minor
 repairs were accomplished by the crew and included a check of wiring that
 proved a treadmill is usable for exercise sessions onboard; tightening of
 a connection in a station air conditioning system that stopped a minute
 freon leak; and the installation of a new videotape recorder in the
 Destiny Laboratory, replacing a recorder that had failed. 

 Early this morning, flight controllers assisted the crew as the station’s
 orientiation was changed slightly to allow the Sun to continue to fully
 shine on the complex’s solar arrays. As the seasons change, the angle of
 the sun relative to the station also changes. The sun had previously been
 fairly low to the southern horizon relative to the station, and the
 complex was oriented so as to point the arrays south toward the sun. The
 sun has grown higher in the sky relative to the station now and the
 complex today was moved back to an orientation that has the arrays
 perpendicular to the station’s direction of travel, a more naturally
 stable orientation that is preferred for the complex when possible. Such
 orientation adjustments are performed regularly to optimize power
 generation. Later today, Culbertson maneuvered the station’s Canadarm2
 robotic arm into position to allow its television cameras to focus on a
 dump of waste water from vents on the Destiny Lab that is planned to be
 performed on Friday. About five gallons of water will be dumped overboard
 in 10 minutes, and the behavior of the expelled water crystals will be
 recorded. The crew also will document station surfaces with both
 television and still photography both before and after the water dump.
 Water has been dumped from the Destiny vents before, but Friday’s
 activities will allow engineers to better characterize how well the
 jettisoned water clears the vicinity of the station. 

 Scientific work on the station this week has been highlighted by the
 completion of a human cell culture experiment that has grown colon,
 kidney and ovarian cancer cells in space to be used in medical research
 when returned to Earth late this year. The crew also installed equipment
 in preparation for a series of tests to characterize a vibration

 isolation system that will dampen disturbances to very sensitive
 experiments aboard the station. In addition, the crew continued to gather
 data from a host of investigations of the radiation environment in orbit
 and monitored the status of other studies. 

 Flight controllers and the crew are preparing for the continued assembly
 of the station next week with the planned launch of a new Russian station
 component from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Liftoff of a Soyuz
 rocket carrying the Pirs Docking Compartment, a Russian airlock and
 docking port, is planned for about 6:35 p.m. CDT Sept. 14. The Pirs
 compartment, which is the Russian word for pier, is planned to dock with
 the station at about 8:08 p.m. CDT Sept. 16, attaching to an Earth-facing
 port on the station’s Zvezda living quarters module.