OREANDA-NEWS. July 09, 2009. ISS-20 commander Gennady Padalka starts the first series of the experiment which is considered as `deserving Nobel prize` by the scientists. MCC informs that Padalka will commence Plasma Crystal experiment today. The experiment is supposed to last till the end of the week. On Wednesday and Thusday, ISS commander will prepare the hardware. The experiment will be carried out on the weekend.

The unique experiment devoted to studies of dust plasma has been conducted in orbit for 11 years, beginning from the Mir station. The results provide the opportunity to develop "a vacuum-cleaner" capable of deactivating radioactive atmospheric contaminations caused by nuclear accidents, as well as developing powerful small nuclear power supplies for spacecraft, and growing up artificial diamonds.

PK-3- plus equipment is used in the experiment. Next-generation set PK-4 will arrive at the station soon.

Today in the afternoon the extended crew is going to conduct station depress on-board training. Each crew runs several simulations of this type in a mission. ODF files onboard the ISS provide necessary information about the steps to be undertaken in case of any emergency. MCC experts define initial conditions for the crew - for example, which sensor detects fire - and the crew has to recover the station.

Such sims are also performed during crew rotation periods, in order for the arrived crew members to get familiar with the procedures, and then repeated a couple of times during the mission to refresh the crew`s skills. Similar training is required for ISS reconfiguration scenarios. The crew tests the instructions onboard and provides the comments to the ground, for further updating of the procedures. Today`s simulation is controlled by MCC-Houston.