STS-107
Report #05 
Sunday, January 19, 2003 - 4:00 p.m. CST 
Mission Control Center, Houston, Texas 
 
Columbia's astronauts studied combustion properties and the response of their own 
bodies in weightlessness and the behavior of soot in space one-quarter of the way 
through their marathon scientific research mission.

Red Team members Commander Rick Husband, Mission Specialists Kalpana Chawla and 
Laurel Clark and Israeli Payload Specialist Ilan Ramon completed the first data 
collection sessions with the Combustion Module in the Spacehab research module 
housed in Columbia's cargo bay. One of three experiments housed in the Combustion 
Module --- the study of Laminer Soot Processes (LSP) --- is designed to gain a 
better understanding of soot formation, oxidation and radiative properties within 
flames.

Additional data was gleaned from the Mechanics of Granular Materials experiment 
(MGM) in the Spacehab module, which is providing information on the behavior of 
saturated sand when exposed to confining pressures in microgravity. The experiment 
could provide engineers with valuable data for strengthening buildings against 
earthquakes.

Work was also accomplished with a series of biomedical experiments studying the 
human body's response to weightlessness --- particularly dealing with protein 
manufacturing in the absence of a gravity environment, bone and calcium production, 
the formation of chemicals associated with renal stones and how saliva and urine 
change in space relative to any exposure to viruses.

Experiments continued with the MEIDEX cameras in the cargo bay observing dust 
storms in the Mediterranean region and with the SOLSE experiment, geared to studying 
the amount of ozone in the Earth's atmosphere by using a special imaging spectrometer 
in the payload bay to look across the limb of the Earth during specifically scheduled 
orbits.

Columbia's Blue Team science cadre --- Pilot Willie McCool and Mission Specialists 
Dave Brown and Mike Anderson --- planned to continue the more than 80 experiments 
on board Columbia following their wakeup call this afternoon. The Red team will 
begin its eight-hour sleep period just before 9 p.m. Central time. 

Earlier today, TV cameras in the Spacehab research module captured Ramon conducting 
work with the Combustion Module. He reported that the materials science facility 
was operating perfectly as are all of the other experiment facilities aboard Columbia.