once again we're receiving downlink
video from inside
the surface tension driven convection
experiment
there are several components to this
chamber
along the edge we see the chamber walls
the
pi team concurs as flat as can be
other features in this facility are
the
submerged heater
which
payload specialist fred leslie has
recently
moved from
a point at which it was
sticking out from
the silicon fluid to a point where it is
now
actually submerged he filled this
container with this silicon oil
the silicone oil contains small
particles which you see
in the aero region are floating
along the surface of the fluid
and
fred leslie has just reported that
he has obtained a flat surface and
experimenters on the ground
have confirmed that they agree that the
surface is flat as is desired at this
point in the test
we are currently receiving another
video image from inside the surface
tension driven convection experiment
this camera is an infrared imaging
camera that allows the experiment team
to look at the temperature variations
that exist on the surface
of the oil
okay step one
okay that's complete
do we have any other lights now
well the same indications i'm getting
the light keeps coming on about once
every three seconds stays on for about
did the messages displayed change or do
we have the same messages
uh the left window shows uh 17 on
channel now and 95 in temperature
and that's a two decimal zero in slot
seven
okay
os temp light is on pcg verify light tcg
normal light and run light
okay copy that
left to right top to bottom 33.6
43.3 34.3
43.9 second row
5.01
that's five point zero one
zero zero eight
three three point eight four four point
two
third row
one one point six
one two zero
zero nine one nine nine or eight
this is mission control houston this
view is of a
television that was recorded previously
on board columbia over the past uh
two days that it's been in orbit by the
crew they're playing that back now to
the ground dumping
this video down this video showing the
cargo bay of columbia and the left hand
payload bay door
which has been in that
halfway shut position uh since uh
just a few hours after uh columbia set
up shop on orbit to that halfway open
position is designed to
help further protect colombia from
any possible impacts by orbital debris
that it may encounter in its
fairly low altitude orbit of
145 nautical miles and also its extended
time that will be spent in orbit of 16
days
this is space lab operations huntsville
payload commander kathy thornton working
the controls of the drop physics module
for the first attempt at deploying an
actual liquid drop in that facility here
on the
during the mission
and as we can see she has the drop
suspended now uh still attached to the
two injector
needles
and this first attempt as we heard a few
minutes ago we'll be using a
four cubic centimeter
drop of liquid
for evaluation purposes
yesterday she was working a fair amount
with the system but using
solid test spheres or calibration
spheres
rather than liquids so
she's proceeding
slowly and carefully here to see if
and there it is suspended
and uh
kent rominger now uh taking a few photos
of uh payload specialist al sacco who
continues to be
working with his
hands inside the space lab glovebox
he's in a fairly lengthy set of
procedures to
initiate protein crystal growth samples
initiate
the
growth of protein samples rather
using individualized or customized
startup
procedures for the samples
and we can see two of the payload
general support computers there in the
lower left-hand corner of our current
view
thornton now making an entry on one of
them
and we also see that one of those pgse
laptop computers shows the
columbia's ground track
a tpr session in about five minutes
this is space lab operations huntsville
and as uh kathy thornton continues to
work with the
drop physics module uh
kent romenger the sts-73 pilot now is in
the module to take a few still photos to
document the operations
uh that's uh typically done uh to
provide some additional
information about
experiment operations during the course
of the mission
romans are on duty uh has
on the redshift he serves as uh
for the orbiter support functions that
uh
are necessary to provide
the smooth platform that
columbia has been
providing so far during the mission
and we obviously see the change of
parameters
causing uh
some rather wide gyrations of the drop
now
which thorn will be trying to bring back
under control by
further modifying some of the
some of the inputs
when we hear the
instructions about
up
obviously uh there's uh
rather large effects from some of these
changes and uh in understanding
uh what the result is going to be from
particular changes it's a certain amount
of
learning process or trial and error
thornton continuing to try to see if
some adjustments to the
acoustic energy will
get the drop centered up again and
and reduce the
motion
and now she's actually looking inside
the window of the test chamber rather
than seeing the video
it uh
since the drop is no longer visible on
the video monitors
this was a drop of water
just distilled water with the only
additive to it being some small plastic
particles
that are suspended in the water
in the case of this particular operation
the the water has those particles in
there for purposes of
watching to see how the water droplet is
rotating
and now we can see she opens the
access door to the
experiment bay
for the drop physics module
and then we'll be
accessing the actual test chamber
and uh
two previous drops
were manipulated and
maintained in levitation for quite some
period of time
she has now uh
after um
maintaining levitation on this drop for
some period of time she's
she is
testing the procedure to
contact the drop with the injector
needles
and
suck it back into the
containment
system of the drop physics module
and uh we now see
that
kathy no need to reply but dpm says
bravo very good job
i'm having a lot of fun doing this
we're having a lot of fun watching it
thank you
and it is the flow along this top
surface that scientists are interested
in
there are
what are referred to as thermo capillary
flows that result from the surface
tension driven the surface tension
variation along the surface of this
liquid
and the
motion of these flows
can be manipulated so that
it become it goes from a two-dimensional
flow
to a three-dimensional flow
this is accomplished by heating the
surface
with either a
uh
laser
flux
or
a by heating the internal
center of this fluid by a submerged
heater
this in turn causes
temperature variations across the
surface of the oil and changes
the direction of the flows
changing from a two-dimensional to a
three-dimensional mode
it is this
transition from two-dimensional to
three-dimensional flow that the
scientists are most interested in
investigating
you