SUBMITTED BY ARTHUR N1ORC - AMSAT A/C #31468

*Crew Begins New Week of Science*

ISS015-E-26252 : Clay Anderson with SAME hardwareImage above: Flight Engineer Clay Anderson works on the Smoke and Aerosol Measurement Experiment (SAME) hardware setup located in the Microgravity Science Glovebox (MSG) in the Destiny laboratory of the International Space Station. Credit: NASA - TO VIEW IMAGE GO TO:http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/main/index.html

The Expedition 15 crew members kicked off a new week of science and maintenance aboard the International Space Station as they prepare for next week's departure of a Progress cargo craft and the arrival Space Shuttle Discovery in October.

In the Destiny lab, Flight Engineer Clay Anderson worked with the computers in the EXPRESS rack, swapping out a laptop computer and loading software. The EXPRESS rack is a standardized payload rack system that transports, stores and supports experiments aboard the space station.

Commander Fyodor Yurchikhin and Flight Engineer Oleg Kotov worked with PILOT, a Russian experiment that tests the cosmonauts' proficiency in manual spacecraft control during long-duration spaceflights.

Yurchikhin later stowed unneeded items in the docked ISS Progress 25 cargo craft. The Progress will undock from the station Sept. 18 and burn up in the Earth's atmosphere.

Engineers in Moscow and Houston are performing safety analyzes for the upcoming retraction of Zarya's solar array wings. While Space Shuttle Discovery is docked to the station during the STS-120 mission, the station's starboard radiators will be deployed, followed by the port radiators shortly after Discovery departs. To avoid physical contact with the radiators, the Zarya arrays must be completely retracted. The date for the retraction has not been determined.

Over the weekend, Anderson conducted a "Saturday Science" session with the Smoke Aerosol Measurement Experiment (SAME). The results of SAME will help scientists improve smoke detectors on future spacecraft.

+ Read more about Expedition 16 http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/expeditions/expedition16/index.html + View Hurricane Felix imagery http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/multimedia/exp15_hurricane_felix.html + Read about the PMA-3 relocation http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/expeditions/expedition15/pma3move.html + Read more about Expedition 15 http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/expeditions/expedition15/index.html + View crew daily timelines http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/timelines/index.html