European science equipment reaches station Sep 09, 2003 ( taken from SpaceFlightNow )

Preparations for the Spanish Soyuz mission on the International Space
Station (ISS) in October took another step forward with the successfuldocking of an unmanned Progress spacecraft with the International SpaceStation on 31 August at 05:41 Central European Time. The Progress M-48 onmission 12P to the ISS had been launched into orbit on Friday, 29 Augustat 03.48 Central European Time from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

The Progress spacecraft acts as a cargo supply vehicle for the ISS. Onboard the Progress M-48 was European experiment equipment which will playan important part in the mission of ESA astronaut Pedro Duque. TheSpaniard will be performing a number of physical science, humanphysiology, biology and education experiments.

The European cargo flown out by the Progress M-48 includes the WINOGRADstudent experiment which will investigate differences between the growthof Winogradski columns in weightlessness and on Earth.

A Winogradski column is a colony of different types of bacteria in whichthe waste products of one bacterium serve as nutrients for another andvice versa. On Earth they live in pond or lake water and need only lightfor photosynthesis. This makes them of interest to scientists,who want to find out more about a possible future role for bacteria inlong-duration spaceflight. Bacteria could help to dispose of waste or torecycle air and water, and their gas might be used as fuel.

WINOGRAD requires late access because of its living samples. As one of thelast payloads it was loaded onto the Progress M-48 just eight hours priorto launch. It will be activated in September by the current ISS crew andwill stay active until Pedro Duque arrives in October.

Another European experiment which had major constituents taken to the ISSby the Progress M-48 is PROMISS-2. This experiment aims to understand thefundamental processes which underly protein crystallization.

Equipment and components of three other life science experiments flew tothe ISS on this Progress M-48, two of them being NEUROCOG and CARDIOCOG.Belgian ESA astronaut Frank De Winne has already performed bothsuccessfully, during the Odissea mission in October 2002. His resultsneed to be followed up by more investigations.

NEUROCOG aims at understanding how humans perceive space, the role thatthe sensory information of sight, balance, motion and position plays inthis, and how their perception is affected by weightlessness. CARDIOCOGlooks into changes in the cardiovascular and respiratory systems of humansin weightlessness.

The third ESA life science experiment on this flight is called BMI. Itwill monitor changes in blood pressure rhythms over 24 hours and theresults could lead to measures to counter the phenomenon of blood poolingin humans in weightlessness.

In addition to the above experiments, a biology activation unit for ROOTand GENE experiment has been uploaded. The next flight will be on theSoyuz TMA-3 spacecraft which will be taking ESA astronaut Pedro Duque tothe ISS on 18 October.

Pedro Duque will have other duties during the Spanish Soyuz mission to theISS. One important task that he will be involved in is the replacement ofthe Soyuz TMA-2 spacecraft, the ISS lifeboat which has been at the stationsince April. This coincides with the ISS crew change.

Duque will be flight engineer on the Soyuz TMA-3, which will take him andthe ISS Expedition 8 crew (US astronaut Michael Foale and Russiancosmonaut Alexander Kaleri) to the ISS. He will return in the Soyuz TMA-2spacecraft with the Expedition 7 crew (US astronaut Ed Lu and Russiancosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko) who are currently on the ISS.

In preparation for his mission ESA astronaut Pedro Duque is currentlytraining in Star City in Moscow and will become the sixth Europeanastronaut to visit the International Space Station. For the first time aEuropean astronaut will be Pedro Duque's back-up, Dutch ESA AstronautAndre Kuipers, who is scheduled to fly on a Dutch Soyuz mission to the ISSin April 2004.