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! More on this HERE.

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

During the portions of the space-walk when the station, and crew, were on the night side of Earth, some strange things took place with the video reception. This is quite typical of NASA. For some reason, they are very nervous about night TV. This writer hasn't seen a single view of city lights at night from space since the last Shuttle mission. ISSy is equipped for night views, and there is live coverage of station activities every Monday through Friday from Houston MCC. We see a lots of "live" views in the daytime, and a LOT of video from inside the modules. I've been closely following the daily coverage and commentary, and there hasn't been ONE SINGLE instance of live television from ISSy showing the night side of Earth. In fact, when sunset approaches, Houston immediately, and unceremoniously, cuts the feed every time.

Why is this? What is it about the night which makes NASA so reluctant to show it to us, the public, who pay for it all?

The EVA of 26 January 2005 wasn't any different from the past. The people at Houston still refuse to give us the night. There WAS a very small amount of live TV of the crew on EVA at night. A VERY small amount. Nearly all of that was so corrupted, it was of little use to anyone. Most of it could be characterized by this still frame...

After four more seconds of the interior of the Destiny Lab, the problem with the snow overlay was fixed, and we went back outside for more of the usual grainy, hard to see television.

The commentator was pointing out for us that mission control was monitoring systems aboard during the absence of the crew. Next is a transcript of the actual words of the commentator during the time in question.

Transcript of Comments During The Event

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: "Uh, on the exterior of the Service Module, we're about two minutes away from, uh, coming into an orbital sunrise, uh, nobody is inside the International Space Station this view inside the Destiny Laboratory, uh, showing the, uh, laboratory buttoned up, uh, with its hatch closed, uh, to, uh, the, uh, connecting tunnel, uh, to the Unity Node, uh, which leads then into the Russian segment of the International Space Station, uh, the systems of the Destiny Laboratory placed on autonomous mode, and are being monitored by, uh, flight controllers here at Mission Control Houston. (2 second pause) Back outside now, uh, you can see, uh, Chiao and Sharipov continuing, uh, to work..."

End Transcript

Funny, no matter what the time, day or night, we almost NEVER see that nasty snow in views INSIDE the station. The signal follows exactly the same pathway back to the ground whether the view is interior or exterior. Yet when the camera is showing us pictures from space, they are usually full of snow when it's night.

Make sense to YOU?

***

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