Materials ISS Experiment (MISSE): The crew installed three MISSE Sample Carriers (MSCs) onto MISS Transfer Tray 2 (MTT 2), and installed the MTT onto the JEM airlock slide table. This is in preparation for a subsequent robotic external exchange of several MISSE Flight Facility MSCs later this week. The MISSE-FF platform provides the ability to test materials, coatings, and components or other larger experiments in the harsh environment of space, which is virtually impossible to do collectively on Earth. Testing in low-Earth orbit (LEO) allows the integrated testing of how materials react to exposure to ultraviolet radiation (UV), atomic oxygen (AO), ionizing radiation, ultrahigh vacuum (UHV), charged particles, thermal cycles, electromagnetic radiation, and micro-meteoroids in the LEO environment.

MVP-2 (Multi-use Variable-g Platform-02): In preparation for the Cell-03 investigation tomorrow, the crew replaced the hard drive and installed a new door on the MVP-2 unit. The commercially developed, owned and operated Techshot MVP includes 2 internal carousels that simultaneously can produce up to 2 g of artificial gravity. MVP is used to conduct research in space with a wide variety of sample types, such as fruit flies, flatworms, plants, fish, cells, protein crystals and many others.

Nanoracks Module-9 (Mod-9) ops 2: The crew performed the second set of operations (“Ops 2”) on the Nanoracks mod-9 tubes. Ops 2 involved only the deactivation of Mixture Tube #1, which looks at double-stranded DNA break repair in haploid Saccharomyces cerevisiae under spaceflight conditions. The deactivation is accomplished by opening the blue clamp and missing the contents by shaking the tube. The experiments use NanoRacks MixStix, miniature laboratories activated by ISS crew and eventually returned to the student teams on Earth for analysis.

Systems

Water Storage System (WSS) Acoustic Measurements: The Nitrogen (N2) vent cap o-ring was removed on January 3rd to help mitigate unacceptably loud noise that the WSS N2 vent generates when venting the Storage Tanks. Before this mitigation was implemented, the noise level was around 85 dBA with crew wearing hearing protection during the last vent operation after the tank equalizations, which was above the limit for intermittent noise which is 78 dBA for less than 2 minutes. Today the crew completed the first set of acoustic measurements on the WSS N2 vent following this mitigation. Crew photo documented the measurements and ground teams will review the imagery.

Completed Task List Activities:

None

Today’s Ground Activities:

All activities are complete unless otherwise noted.

Payload operations support

JEMAL Slide Table ops/MISSE install

WSS acoustic test

Lookahead Plan

Friday, 3/13 (GMT 073)

Payloads:

Food Acceptability

ISS HAM pass

MVP2-cell-03

OsteoOmics

Standard Measures

Phage Evolution

Systems:

WHC maintenance

Saturday, 3/14 (GMT 074)

Payloads:

CGBA stat check

ISS Experience SD c/o

MELFI icebrick insertions

MVP-Cell-03

Nanoracks Mod-51

Systems:

Crew off duty; housekeeping

Sunday, 3/15 (GMT 075)

Payloads:

MELFI icebrick insertions

Probiotics

Standard Measures

Systems:

Crew off duty

Today’s Planned Activities:

All activities are complete unless otherwise noted.