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.

On Wednesday, 26 January 2005, the hardy Crew of ISS Expedition 10 set out on the first EVA of their increment aboard the station. (NASA report HERE) Commander Leroy Chiao, and Flight Engineer Salizhan Sharipov, donned the Orlan spacesuits, and exited the hatch of the PIRS module at 1:43AM CST.

The mission to install several new experiments on the outside hull of the Zvezda Service Module (Living Quarters & Life Support), and inspect the exterior vents relating to the Electron oxygen generating and Vozdukh CO2 scrubbing systems, went very well. The vents proved to have some interesting deposits around them. There was some suspicion that clogging of these vents might have contributed to several system failures over the last few months. Photographs were snapped of the residue, for later analysis on the ground.

Only one minor glitch occurred; a power connection to the new robotic arm experiment (ROKVISS : also another article available as a PDF® File 89kb) was not working correctly. This problem was quickly rectified with a little extra elbow grease on the part of the crewmen.

The men stayed ahead of their timeline throughout the operation, and returned to the airlock, resealing the hatch about 30 minutes ahead of schedule. The spacesuits performed flawlessly, and all of the mission goals were met satisfactorily.

At the very beginning of the live coverage of EVA 10a, the NASA commentator announced that there would be NO live downlink television from ISS during the operation. It was claimed that this was due to the temperature of the Ku band dish antenna! In 47 years of following not only ISSy, but the Shuttle, Shuttle/MIR, Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo programs as well, this was absolutely the first time this sort of excuse for no live TV has EVER come up!

The predicted total loss of live TV coverage mysteriously failed to happpen, however. We were treated to plenty of live TV during this spacewalk.

The story went that the dish was in shadow, not being warmed by the Sun, and therefore too cold to function. It would, for this reason, be "parked". The actual words of the NASA commentator are available below.

Transcript of "Cold Dish" Expanation

All Orange italics mine for emphasis, CAPITALS reflect the voiced emphasis of the respective speaker. Hesitations and grammatical errors are left in as originally spoken. JC.

Commentator: "To recap, uh, at the moment, uh, the Ku-band communications antenna will not be, uh, available for real-time downlink television as far as we know at this hour. The, uh, lower temperature limits of, uh, the Ku-band has to operate at, uh, have been, uh, exceeded just a bit, due to the orientation of the International Space Station and, uh, its relative position to the Sun, that's known as the Beta Angle, uh, that has caused the Ku-band, uh, dish-shaped antenna to become a bit too cold, and per the flight rules, it, uh, has been parked.

Uh, it may, uh, be that, from time to time, we may get lucky and get a sliver of downlink television, although that is NOT expected, uh, with the, uh, Ku-band antenna being parked.

Uh, there will be, um, any available television from cameras on the Canadarm 2, the space station robotic arm, that has been set up in a viewing position, for the spacewalk.

Any, uh, video that is recorded on board, uh, will be, uh, dumped to the ground after the spacewalk is over with, uh, for review by the flight control team and the spacewalk specialists here in Mission Control, but we do not expect real-time downlink television for today's spacewalk. That is not an operational contraint, it's an aesthetic issue this morning, but not an operational contraint to the safe conduct of the spacewalk."

End Transcript

WHAT??

If this be the case, how does this same antenna funtion at night? This issue has NEVER come up in 24 years of Space Shuttle operations, or over 4 years of manned activity aboard ISSy. Occasionally these antennae find themselves physically "shadowed" by hardware, and unable to make a connection with a relay satellite, but TOO COLD? Never! ALL critical components used on the exterior of manned spacecraft are by necessity designed to function at ALL temperature ranges encountered in Earth orbit, be they day or night. This is a safety concern. This claim IMPLIES that the Ku dish used on ISS is of an inferior model to that used aboard the Shuttles for the last two dozen years! I don't believe it! No way!

It is ironic that, in spite of such ridiculous claims, the dish passed more live TV back to Earth during this EVA than in the last three combined. Go figure. There WAS something going on up there, though. A number of anomalous objects made their appearances, and there was something strange about the three consecutive orbital passes over Argentina and Chile. But there didn't appear to be one thing wrong with the function of the Ku-band antenna throughout EVA 10a.

This is the Ku-band dish antenna as used on ISSy. TOO COLD to function? I don't think so. Otherwise, how do they routinely work at night, when it's just as cold as being shadowed from the Sun in daytime? In my considered opinion, NASA was lying here, for reasons unknown.

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

© 2005 Jeff Challender