As of tomorrow, crews have lived and worked on the station more than 1,826 consecutive days.

"This milestone for the station is really only the first leg in a much longer journey," said Bill Gerstenmaier, NASA's associate administrator for space operations. "The experiences we're having on station with crews on long-duration missions are teaching us what it will take to send astronauts on longer missions to the moon and into the solar system."

The station is an important step in international space exploration; 16 countries joined together on the largest, most complex peacetime multinational space program in history.

Since the first crew arrived Nov. 2, 2000, the station has grown from a room with a fantastic view into an unparalleled, state-of-the-art laboratory complex.

"International space station was built by tens of thousands of individuals in the U.S. and in partner nations, in an era when many said it could not be done," said Bill Shepherd. He was the commander of Expedition 1, the first crew to live on the station.

"The shape of our future space exploration is still to be formed. We may have adequate technologies, but exploration is more about purpose. We are at a crossroads, deciding whether we are bound to inhabit only the Earth, or if humans are to live and work far from the home planet. Station is a start to this journey. Let us continue with new explorations which are more expansive and bold; voyages which will define us as a space faring civilization," Shepherd said.

The station's 12th resident crew, Commander William McArthur and Flight Engineer Valery Tokarev, began a six-month stay aboard the complex Oct. 3. Since the first crew's arrival, the station's internal volume has increased from the size of an efficiency apartment to a conventional three-bedroom house.

"What NASA and our international partners are learning by building and operating the space station will directly benefit future exploration," said International Space Station Program Manager Michael Suffredini.

The station has a unique microgravity environment that cannot be duplicated on Earth, and it provides a home with 15,000 cubic feet of habitable space. It has living quarters, a galley and a weightless "weight room," where astronauts do aerobic and resistance exercises.

Critical issues in human health must be resolved before humans go on missions to Mars. Scientific investigations ranging from basic science to exploration research have been done on the station. Many of these experiments will answer key questions that will help shape spacecraft and life-support design decisions for future exploration.

NASA scientists have made great strides understanding the significant rate of bone loss by crews while in orbit and determining where that loss is occurring; vital information for long-duration missions. Because cosmic radiation is a major risk factor in human space missions, NASA scientists have used the station to test techniques to characterize the environment and generate computer models for shielding.

Crews have trained on and experimented with medical ultrasound equipment as a research and diagnostic tool. They use a telemedicine strategy that could have widespread applications in emergency and rural care situations on Earth.

Crews have used in-space soldering to test hardware repair techniques, providing a better understanding of fabrication and repair methods astronauts may need on long flights. Station crews have taken more than 177,000 images of Earth, providing scientists with information pertinent to scientific disciplines from climatology to geology.

There have been 97 visitors onboard the station from 10 countries in the past five years. Twenty-nine have lived aboard as members of the 12 station expedition crews. Russian cosmonaut Sergei Krikalev is the only one to serve as a member of two resident crews, Expedition 1 in November 2000 and Expedition 11 this year.

The station partnership includes NASA, the Russian Federal Space Agency, the Canadian Space Agency, the European Space Agency and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency.

Station Spacewalk to Install New Cameras, Jettison FPP

Houston TX (SPX) Nov 02 - It will be on with the new and off with the old during the first station-based spacewalk in U.S. suits in more than two years.

Members of the 12th station crew, Commander and NASA Science Officer Bill McArthur and Flight Engineer Valery Tokarev, are scheduled to install a new camera assembly during the Nov. 7 spacewalk, beginning about 9:30 a.m. EST. They also will remove and jettison the Floating Potential Probe.

Expedition 12 Commander Bill McArthur (left) and Flight Engineer Valery Tokarev train for a spacewalk inside a mockup of the Quest airlock. European Astronaut Thomas Reiter (center) assists the two crewmembers. Credit: NASA

McArthur is designated EV1 (for Extravehicular Activity) and will wear the spacesuit with red stripes. Tokarev, EV2, will be in the all-white suit.

The camera assembly installation on the Port 1 Truss is the first of the two primary tasks. The new device is similar to the camera assembly on the Starboard 1 Truss, and will be installed on a P1 lower outboard stanchion. It will have a big role in future station assembly.

The camera assembly will be used after arrival of the P3 and P4 truss segment during STS-115, station assembly flight 12A, next year. It will offer visual perspective to arm operator Steve MacLean, a Canadian astronaut, as he maneuvers the truss segment for installation.

The truss segment brings with it another radiator and another set of solar wings. Stretching 240 feet from tip to tip, the solar assembly will almost double the total electricity generating capacity of the station.

McArthur and Tokarev are scheduled to spend about three of the spacewalk's planned 5�-hours on the camera assembly installation. They then move, with McArthur in the lead, up the P6 truss to the Floating Potential Probe.

The FPP is situated atop the P6 Truss between the station's solar wings. It was designed to measure the station's electrical potential and compare it to the surrounding plasma. It isn't working.

Photos show FPP fasteners have backed out. That has raised concerns that the fasteners could become detached and perhaps cause damage.

McArthur and Tokarev will release and stow a grounding wire, then release the FPP housing from its stanchion. They will check its condition and then report lighting conditions to Houston with an eye to jettisoning the FPP.

Getting rid of the FPP is a little more complicated than just tossing it away. To ensure its safe departure, McArthur is to jettison the device backwards in relation to the direction the station is moving with a smooth motion. He will aim for a velocity of at least half a foot per second. He'll try to throw the FPP 30 degrees upward and 10 degrees to the left of the back of the station.

The spacewalkers are scheduled to spend about 1� hours on the FPP. If they have time they may do one or more additional tasks at the end of the outing, the first U.S. Quest airlock-based spacewalk from the station since an Expedition 6 spacewalk by Commander Ken Bowersox and NASA Science Officer Don Pettit on April 8, 2003.

One is retrieval of a rotary joint motor controller that has failed. The station uses a number of those controllers, with more coming. Engineers are anxious to get this one back to see what went wrong.

Another is removal and replacement of a remote power controller module, a kind of circuit breaker. This one is on the mobile transporter, which moves along railroad-like tracks on the station's main truss.

The spacewalk is scheduled to end about 3 p.m. EST.

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