NASA STS-133 Report #22 Monday, March 7, 2011 – 2:30 a.m. CST
Mission Control Center, Houston, Texas
HOUSTON – Space shuttle Discovery’s crew started its last day at the International Space Station with a special wake up call.
The “Theme from Star Trek,” performed by Alexander Courage, served as the wake up music for Discovery’s crew at 2:23 a.m. It received the second most public votes from a Top 40 list in a Space Shuttle Program-sponsored song contest. The top two songs with the most votes from that list earned the right to be played as wake up music for Discovery’s crew during its final mission. As a bonus, actor William Shatner recorded a special introduction to the song:
“Space, the final frontier. These have been the voyages of the Space Shuttle Discovery. Her 30 year mission: To seek out new science. To build new outposts. To bring nations together on the final frontier. To boldly go, and do, what no spacecraft has done before.”
It was a fitting beginning to the day that will see Discovery undock from the space station for the last time. Discovery was the first space shuttle to dock to the International Space Station, during the STS-96 mission in 1999, marking just one time it did what no spacecraft had done before.
Today’s undocking is scheduled for 6 a.m. Afterward, Pilot Eric Boe will fly the shuttle around the space station, allowing the shuttle crew to take photos of the station with its newest addition, the Leonardo Permanent Multipurpose Module. The fly around will begin at 6:29 a.m. When it’s complete, the shuttle will perform two engine firings, at 7:15 a.m. and 7:43 a.m., respectively, to begin increasing the distance between the two vehicles.
The crew’s afternoon will be devoted to a final inspection of Discovery’s heat shield using the orbiter boom sensor system and its suite of cameras. The imagery collected during today’s survey, which begins at 10:13 a.m., will be sent down to analysts on the ground. They’ll study it to ensure that no damage has been done to Discovery’s thermal protection system while it’s been in space.
The next status report will be issued at the end of the crew’s day or earlier if warranted. The crew is scheduled to begin their sleep period at 6:23 p.m.
The winning song in the contest will be played during Tuesday’s wake up call, at 2:23 a.m. To see the results for all 40 songs, visit: https://songcontest.nasa.gov
