The 10th Expedition Crew to ISS lifted off in their TMA-5 Soyuz Vehicle, atop the venerable Starsem booster, from Baykonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on 13 October 2004 at 10:06 PM CDT (3:06 14 October GMT). This marked the beginning of 193 days on orbit for this Crew. The crew of TMA-5 consisted of Cosmonauts Salizan Sharipov (Soyuz Commander - Expedition 10 Flight Engineer), Yuri Shargin (Russian Space Forces), and Astronaut Leroy Chiao (Expedition 10 Commander and Science Officer). Shargin returned to Earth one week later with Expedition 9 Crew aboard the TMA-4 Soyuz.

TMA-5 Docked With ISS on 15 October at 11:16 PM CDT (4:16 16 October GMT). During their six and a half month stay aboard, the Crew mounted Two EVAs (Extra-Vehicular Activity or spacewalk) from the PIRS docking and airlock compartment wearing Russian Orlan Spacesuits. The EVAs took place on 26 January 2005, and 28 March 2005. Both were successful, and accomplished all their goals.

Twenty-two major scientific experiment programs (pdf file 2.49mb) were carried out during Expedition 10. These included studies in Bioastronautics, the Physical Sciences, Space Product Development, and Space Flight.

There were several nagging problems with the Elektron oxygen generating system, and the Vozdukh CO2 scrubbing equipment. These problems persisted until STS-114 / Discovery visited ISSy in July/August 2005, bringing up parts and supplies needed to finally stem the failures. Just a few days before Expedition 10 returned to Earth, another of the Control Moment Gyros, for keeping the station under control, failed. This too was repaired once and for all during the visit of STS-114.

The arrival of the Expedition 11 Crew on 16 April 2005, with Italian Astronaut Roberto Vittori, signalled the final days of Expedition 10. Sharipov, Chiao, and Vittori undocked their TMA-5 Soyuz from ISSy on 24 April 2005. They initiated their deorbit burn, and executed re-entry. They made a safe landing near Arkalyk in Kazakhstan later that same evening. Over all, Expedition 10 was a happy and successful mission.

By 13 April 2005,.Expedition 10 was winding down to its conclusion, after a six month stay aboard. The crew, consisting of Commander Leroy Chiao, and Flight Engineer Salizhan Sharipov, were busily packing various materials for their return to Earth on 24 April, 2005 in their Soyuz TMA-5 space vehicle.

As the station was cruising along over the south western Pacific Ocean that day, NASA Select TV was in the midst of its daily broadcast of coverage and commentary from the Flight Control Room in Houston, Texas. The commentator announced that ISSy was a few seconds away from being "out of range" of the NASA communication network. It was further claimed that this outage would last FOURTEEN MINUTES! .Such a thing seems to this writer to be nearly impossible, short of a catastrophic failure of major components aboard ISSy, or on the ground.

When one considers the extent of communication capability in the particular region where the outage was to take place, there appears to be no good reason to claim that ISS could ever be "out of range". Next is an exact transcript of the words spoken by that NASA Commentator.

C = The NASA Commentator who remarks on events as they unfold

All Orange italics mine for emphasis. Hesitations and grammatical errors are left in as originally spoken. JC.

C: The Station's just a few seconds away, now, from moving out of range of NASA's communication satellites. It'll be out of range for about, uh, fourteen minutes or so. The, uh, review of...plans, uh, underway by, uh, the station crew with flight controllers at the Russian Mission Control Center in Korolev, uh, will continue, uh, for much of the next hour..., uh, once we've regained communications, uh, with the spacecraft.

End Transcript

The ZOE is another strange phenomenon of NASA, and it also is most difficult to explain. I for one, cannot see any rhyme nor reason to it. At the time that NASA claimed that ISSy was to be "out of range", she was sailing high above, and in line of sight to, the Guam Remote Ground Terminal (GRGT). In addition, ISSy was also in line of sight with at least THREE TDRSS satellites some 22,000 miles (36,700km) above in geosynchronous orbit.

So...how can ISSy have been "OUT OF RANGE" of the GRGT, AND the TDRS System for FOURTEEN MINUTES, let alone for even one? Doesn't appear likely. This incident has more the flavor of a smokescreen for something else that was going on that day. What it might have been is a mystery that is not likely to have answers, as least so far as the taxpaying public is concerned.

There have been, as stated above, other times when ISSy, or the Space Shuttle, have been claimed by NASA to be inexplicably "out of range" of the global circling communication network at NASA's disposal. A couple of these may be viewed by clicking on the links below.

The Canadian "ZOE"

The Hawiian "ZOE"

We also recommend that you further explore the Cover Up index for other acts of suspicious behavior on the part of the publicly funded, and ostensibly CIVILIAN NASA.

Now, let us turn our attention to a few graphics, which should prove the case that there is no reason why ISSy would have been anything like "out of range" from the commucation facilities on the ground below, and in orbit high above.

Even though the satellites are in line of sight to each other whilst on orbit, it appears that they can't communicate with each other. So the TDRSS is dependent on being in line of sight with a ground based tracking station in order to relay signals to the USA from the far corners of the Earth.

The location of ISS at the time of the event. ISSy herself circled in red.

The animation illustrates the motion of ISSy during the comments made by NASA claiming that ISS would soon be out of range for 14 minutes.

Why did NASA lie again? Where is the motivation for such prevarication? We, the public who PAY for all of this, may never be told. But once again, we've...

GOTCHA!

***

At all times during this incident, the camera was under the control of the CATO in Houston Mission Control.

(INCO - INstrument & Communication Officer - The man in Houston Mission Control Center who is responsible for operating the Shuttle payload bay, and robotic arm, cameras. He also remotely operates the helmet cameras in space suits. In the case of ISS, this officer is referred to as the CATO - Communications And Tracking Officer. In both cases, these persons CONTROL everything which is PERMITTED to go out on broadcast to the public. It is a commonly believed falacy that the cameras are operated by Astronauts & Cosmonauts on the Shuttles, and Space Station. Very little camera work is done by the crews. They're way too busy for that.)

At the end of the day, it's up to YOU to draw your own conclusions.

© 2005 Jeff Challender