Saturday, July 18, 2009

Spacewalkers Camping Out in Airlock; Station Steering Clear of Debris

A minor reboost of the International Space Station will be performed at NASA Space Station 8:27 p.m. EDT to ensure plenty of clearance in relation to an unknown piece of space station debris. That maneuver using Endeavour’s small vernier thrusters will last about 15 minutes and change the overall velocity of the shuttle/station complex by about 0.8 meter per second.

Spacewalkers of NASA Space station Dave Wolf and Tim Kopra will begin their “campout” at 9:28 p.m., spending the night in the Quest airlock to reduce the preparation time needed for the mission’s first spacewalk on Saturday. The International space station crew is scheduled to go to bed at about 10:30 p.m. and the space shuttle mission crew 30 minutes later at 11. Wake up for both crews Saturday is scheduled for 7:03 a.m.

International Space Shuttle Mission: STS-127


S127-E-006351 -- Space Shuttle Endeavour
International Space, Shuttle, Station Crews Begin 11 Days of Joint Operations

The International space shuttle and space station mission Endeavour docked with the International Space Station at 1:47 p.m. EDT, delivering the final pieces of the Japanese Kibo complex and a new flight engineer to join the Expedition 20 crew.

Nasa space station Endeavour Commander Mark Polansky guided the space shuttle to a docking as the two aircraft flew 220 miles about the northern coast of Australia. Before closing the final 600 feet to the international space station, Polansky commanded Endeavour through a “backflip” allowing the space station’s Expedition 20 Commander Gennady Padalka and Flight Engineer Michael Barratt to take photos that imagery experts will review to assess the health of Endeavour’s heat shield.

The space shuttle and space station crews opened hatches and greeted one another at 3:48 p.m., beginning more than a week of joint operations between the two crews. One of the first major tasks of the space station crews was to swap station crew member Koichi Wakata for NASA space station astronaut Tim Kopra.

The official swap occurred when a specially fitted seat liner was installed in the Soyuz crew vehicle. That swap at 5:22 p.m. signified the official designation change making Kopra an Expedition 20 flight engineer and Wakata a space station as well as shuttle mission specialist.

STS-127 Additional Resources

› Mission PressKit (6.9 Mb PDF)
›Mission Summary (429 Kb PDF)
›Meet the STS-127 Crew

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