FINISHING TOUCHES TO RAHF AS EXCITEMENT BUILDS

Hello again
I hope everything is going well with you...

We had a good telecom discussion with Mission Management and KSC regarding further plans with our RAHF drinking water system. This telecom was on January 27, 1998.

We plan on increasing the iodine concentration in the water in the RAHFs to 45 ppm from 30 ppm. At the Orbiter Processing Facility (OPF) we will perform one more drain and fill operation with 45 ppm. We will leave our RAHFs half full and top off at L-10 [Launch minus 10] days using the 45 ppm concentration. This will keep the bacteria growth down to acceptable levels.

During the mission we plan on monitoring the water capacity in the RAHFs, and we plan for refills during the flight. By the time we fly, the water will be better than what we get out of our faucets at home.

I have just finished a thermal report with the assistance of Dave Mayer. He will perform the review and approval and then submit this to the Mission Management Office (MMO). This report is done prior to any life science mission, and it tells us what is happening to the heat our hardware is generating. We want to make sure we have good thermal distribution.

In addition, we are performing final problem report close-outs, otherwise known as Non-conformance reports (NCRs). Prior to any launch we want to make sure these reports are either closed or addressed so that we are not flying any unknown problems or unaddressed problems.

My team is also preparing the rodent cages for shipment to KSC and subsequent flight. Included in the preparation is assembling the rodent waste trays, feeders, and final cleaning of the cages. We plan on shipping 26 cages with feeders and waste trays to KSC around the beginning of March.

We will perform final cage operations on or about 3/24 to 3/29. Rodent load into the cages for flight is at L-35 [Launch minus 35] hrs where actual cage load into the Spacelab is at L-33 hrs.

I failed to mention earlier, while I was at KSC I witnessed the Endeavour night launch. This was quite an experience!!

Let me say that we have a strong team here at Ames in support of this project. This is probably the most exciting project I have been involved with. The excitement is starting to build around here as we get closer to the BIG DAY...

That's all for now, I have to finish off my paper work items.

Live long and prosper....

CB.