Space Station Status Report for July 20

All ISS systems continue to function nominally, except those noted previously or below. >>>Today 41 years ago, Apollo 11 landed on the Moon. Congratulations - Neil, Buzz & Mike!<<<

Upon wake-up, CDR Skvortsov performed the regular daily early-morning check of the aerosol filters at the Russian Elektron O2 generator which Maxim Suraev had installed on 10/19/09 in gaps between the BZh Liquid Unit and the oxygen outlet pipe (filter FA-K) plus hydrogen outlet pipe (filter FA-V). [The CDR will inspect the filters again before bedtime, currently a daily requirement per plan, with photographs to be taken if the filter packing is discolored.]

Skvortsov also performed the periodic maintenance of the active Russian BMP Harmful Impurities Removal System, starting the "bake-out" cycle to vacuum on absorbent bed #1 of the regenerable dual-channel filtration system. The process will be terminated later tonight (~5:15pm EDT) before sleeptime, followed tomorrow by Bed #2 regeneration. [Regeneration of each of the two cartridges takes about 12 hours and is conducted only during crew awake periods. The BMP's regeneration cycle is normally done every 20 days. (Last time done: 6/29-6/30).]

Afterwards, the CDR performed another sun-glint observation session with the Russian DZZ-12 RUSALKA ("Mermaid") experiment from SM window #9, using the hand-held spectrometer (without use of the TIUS three-stage rate sensor), synchronized with a coaxially mounted NIKON D2X camera for taking snapshots, and later downloading the data to laptop RSE1 for subsequent downlink via OCA.…