NASA ISS Crew: Living and Working in Orbit

Commander Dan Burbank (right) and Flight Engineer Anton Shkaplerov work in the Destiny laboratory of the International Space Station. Credit: NASA TV

The International Space Station’s Expedition 30 crew – Commander Dan Burbank and Flight Engineers Anton Shkaplerov and Anatoly Ivanishin – performed science experiments and participated in an emergency drill Tuesday.

Burbank, a NASA astronaut, began his workday almost immediately after the crew’s regular 1 a.m. EST wakeup time as he conducted the Reaction Self Test.

This 5-minute test helps crew members objectively identify any impacts to their performance caused by sleep loss, fatigue and disruptions to circadian rhythms.

Following the crew’s daily planning conference with flight control centers around the world, Burbank spent his morning setting up equipment for the Integrated Cardiovascular experiment and participating as its test subject.

Investigators use the data from these tests to measure the atrophy of the heart muscle that appears to develop during long-duration spaceflight and to develop countermeasures to mitigate those effects.

Experiments like this one are crucial to understanding and maintaining crew health as NASA moves towards space exploration beyond low-Earth orbit.

Meanwhile, Shkaplerov participated in a Russian cardiovascular study known as Pneumocard and later performed routine maintenance on the life-support system in the Russian segment of the orbiting complex.

His fellow cosmonaut, Ivanishin, conducted preventative maintenance on the ventilation system of the Zvezda service module.

After a break for lunch, all three Expedition 30 crew members teamed up for an emergency egress drill to remain familiar with the location of emergency equipment and hatches as well as the evacuation route.

In cooperation with the mission control centers around the world, the crew worked through the response procedures as if there were an actual emergency requiring a rapid departure and tagged up with flight controllers afterward to review the results.

ESA emergency telemedicine system soars to commercial success

The briefcase-sized Tempus IC telemedicine system puts non-medical cabin crew in contact with ground-based experts during in-flight medical emergencies.

Key information about the passenger’s health can be quickly transmitted via satellite to a dedicated response centre.

Watch the in-flight demo video on a BMI flight.

The same vital signs which are measured routinely in a hospital emergency room - including blood pressure and sugar levels, temperature and heart rate - are captured to a clinical level of quality.

At the same time, the crew can also talk with the medical specialists and send them still and moving pictures of the situation.

Credits: EDT

More on ESA Portal.....

US Boeing 738 Makes Emergency Landing with Large Hole in Fuselage

CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- Southwest Airlines Co. inspected about 200 planes overnight after a football-sized hole opened up in the passenger cabin of a jet in flight, forcing an emergency landing in West Virginia.

Travelers on the Boeing 737 aircraft could see through the 1-foot-by-1-foot hole that appeared during the flight Monday.

The cabin lost pressure, but no one was injured on the Nashville-to-Baltimore flight with 126 passengers and five crew members on board.

Passenger Brian Cunningham told NBC's "Today" show Tuesday that he had dozed off in his seat in mid-cabin when he was awakened by "the loudest roar I'd ever heard."He said the hole was above his seat. People stayed calm and put on the oxygen masks that dropped from the ceiling."

After we landed in Charleston, the pilot came out and looked up through the hole, and everybody applauded, shook his hand, a couple of people gave him hugs," Cunningham said.

It's not clear what caused the damage. The incident occurred just four months after Southwest agreed to pay $7.5 million to settle charges that it operated planes that had missed required safety inspections for cracks in the fuselage.

Southwest spokeswoman Marilee McInnis said the airline inspected 200 Boeing 737-300-series jets overnight at hangars around the country and discovered no other similar problems." It was a walk-around visual inspection just to check for structural integrity," McInnis said.

FBI Shutdown by Mysterious Virus Attack!

The FBI and the U.S. Marshals Service were forced to shut down parts of their computer networks after a mystery virus struck the law-enforcement agencies.

A spokesperson for the U.S. Marshals Service confirmed that it had disconnected from Justice Department computers as a precaution after being hit with the virus, while an FBI spokesperson would only say that it was experiencing similar issues.

"We too are evaluating a network issue on our external, unclassified network that's affecting several government agencies," reported FBI spokesman Mike Kortan.

The virus' type and origin are unknown, but spokespeople for both agencies said agencies' access to the Internet and e-mail was shut down while the issue was evaluated.

Government regulations require agencies to report any security issues to US-Computer Emergency Readiness Team (US-CERT), but a call to CERT late Thursday for comment was not immediately returned.

All this following reports that a number of unfriendly governments may have penetrated the US Government sites and planted spybots, viruses, trojans, etc.