Columbia’s Crew Conducts Experiments in Relaxation : Space shuttle: The astronauts’ exciting tasks of satellite deployment and retrieval are complete. Now they settle down to medical and scientific tests.
The Columbia astronauts soared past the halfway point of their 10-day space journey Sunday, focusing on experiments and photography as they spent a more relaxed day orbiting the Earth.
After releasing one satellite and rescuing another last week, the five astronauts turned their attention to the mission’s secondary goals--several scientific and medical tests.
“Welcome on board Columbia on a Sunday afternoon,” commander Daniel C. Brandenstein said while shuttle cameras beamed down sweeping views of the Earth. “Our Sunday, I think, was much like everyone else’s Sunday around the country. It was probably one of our easier days during the mission.
“We’re at the midpoint, and the high visibility and exciting activities of Syncom deploy and rendezvous are behind us, but we’re still working on numerous objectives in the materials processing and the extended duration orbiter medical experiments.”
Syncom, a Navy communications satellite, was released Wednesday. The Long Duration Exposure Facility, a scientific laboratory that had been in orbit nearly six years, was captured by the crew Friday and is now in the shuttle’s cargo bay.
Brandenstein said crew members also filmed parts of the Earth with the powerful IMAX camera, including the Galapagos Islands in the Pacific. The IMAX footage is to be used in a film called “The Blue Planet.”
Assessing the first half of the trip, flight director Al Pennington said: “It has been a flawless flight. We have a beautifully running orbiter.”
The 10-day flight is the second-longest in 33 shuttle missions and is intended as a stepping stone toward longer shuttle flights and months-long stints aboard space station Freedom. Columbia is scheduled to land Friday at 2:59 a.m. PST at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif.
Some of the television shots beamed to Earth showed mission specialist Bonnie J. Dunbar checking on an experiment that suffered a mishap Friday but was repaired Sunday.
The experiment involves melting and resolidifying the metal indium, which melts at a relatively low temperature. It was shut down while scientists on the ground studied videotape of a crack that had developed in a glass container, or ampul, within the experiment apparatus. Experts were concerned that the cracked glass could shatter, sending shards floating in the crew cabin.
On Sunday, Dunbar, wearing a mask and gloves, removed the cracked container and carefully vacuumed the machine, Pennington said. No glass fragments were discovered during the cleanup, and the broken ampul was replaced with a new one.
