NASA STS-127 Report #09 4:30 p.m. CDT Sunday, July 19, 2009
Mission Control Center, Houston, Texas
HOUSTON – The Space Shuttle Endeavour and International Space Station crews were successful in their robotic arm tasks today, but encountered a problem with one of the bathrooms on the station.
Robotic arm operators aboard Endeavour and the station installed the Integrated Cargo Carrier – Vertical Light Deployable, or ICC-VLD — a cargo pallet— on the port side of the space station’s mobile base system. Station arm operators Julie Payette and Tim Kopra finished the move at 11:55 a.m. CDT.
The pallet contains three hardware spares that spacewalkers Dave Wolf and Tom Marshburn will move to a stowage platform on the outside of the Port 3 truss during Monday’s spacewalk.
The Kibo robotic arm was commanded through a series of calibrations in preparation for later use in the mission, when Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency payloads will be transferred from the Exposed Section, another platform where the experiments are temporarily mounted, to the newly installed Exposed Facility for operation. The Exposed Facility was installed on the aft end of Kibo Saturday.
Wolf and Marshburn spent the remainder of their day preparing special tools, reviewing procedures and beginning their campout for the second spacewalk, which is set to start Monday at 10:28 a.m. CDT.
Meanwhile, station flight controllers and crew members spent part of the day troubleshooting a problem with the Waste and Hygiene Compartment, or WHC, the toilet in the U.S. Destiny module. The system’s dose pump failed after running for about 15 minutes Sunday. The pump introduces the correct amount of chemicals into the system to help separate liquids from solid waste. About six liters of pre-treated water may have flowed into the pump separator and other areas where it should not have, flooding the separator.
Astronauts Mike Barratt and Frank De Winne began work on the toilet to replace parts that likely were contaminated. The suspect dose pump and a control panel are also on tap for replacement to restore the toilet.
The WHC is one of two toilet systems aboard the space station. Temporarily, the six station crew members will use the facilities in the Russian Zvezda module while the seven astronauts will use the shuttle Waste Compartment System, or WCS, that is located in Endeavour’s middeck.
The temporary shutdown of the U.S. toilet on the station will not impact joint docked operations.
Shortly after 5 p.m. Canadian Space Agency Astronauts Bob Thirsk and Payette will speak with the Canadian Minister of State for Science and Technology Gary Goodyear, Member of Parliament Steven Bleany and CSA President Steve MacLean. This mission marks the first time the pair of astronauts has been in space together at the same time.
The crew is scheduled to go to bed about 9:30 p.m. and wake up at 5:33 a.m. on the 40th anniversary of the first landing by humans on the moon on Apollo 11 on July 20, 1969.
The next shuttle status report will be issued at the beginning of the crew’s work day, or earlier if events warrant.
