Space Station Status Report for August 31

All ISS systems continue to function nominally, except those noted previously or below. More catching up on Science!

Progress M-06M/38P successfully undocked from the SM (Service Module) Aft port on time at 7:21am EDT after hook opening command at 7:18am. 38P will free-fly for about one week on autonomous mission and is scheduled to re-enter destructively on 9/6 (deorbit ~8:06am). [Earlier, Wheelock closed the protective shutters of the Lab, Kibo & Cupola windows, until about 7:46am, while Walker turned off the amateur/ham radio equipment, later back on. Yurchikhin monitored the undocking with the NIKON D3 camera with a f80-200 mm lens through SM window 26, focusing in particular on the Progress docking mechanism (STA) to verify that there were no missing or damaged O-ring seals on the docking interface. Kornienko used the Progress undocking for a test of the external Klest (KL-154M) TV camera, recording footage on the SONY HVR-Z1 camcorder for playback and downlink tomorrow. Later, FE-3 switched the SM-to-Soyuz PEV (Pressure Equalization Valve, Russian: KVD) manually to its Closed position, a standard post-undocking procedure.]

In support of the JAXA experiment MYCO (Mycological Evaluation of Crew Exposure to ISS Ambient Air), body samples were collected first thing in the morning by Doug Wheelock from FE-2 Tracy Caldwell-Dyson, FE-6 Walker & himself and then inserted for preservation into MELFI (Minus Eighty Laboratory Freezer for ISS) at +2 degC.…