STS-104 Mission Control Center Status Report # 12 Tuesday, July 17, 2001 – 6 p.m. CDT
The combined crews
of the Space Shuttle Atlantis and the International Space Station will
focus their efforts tonight on the mission’s second spacewalk. During
the 5½-hour spacewalk, scheduled to begin around 9:30 p.m., Atlantis
Mission Specialists Mike Gernhardt and Jim Reilly will work with the
Expedition Two crew in the installation of two high-pressure gas tanks
on the station’s new Quest airlock.
Early this morning,
mission managers decided to add an additional docked day to the flight
between the second and third spacewalks. The mission’s third spacewalk,
which will be the first out of the Quest airlock, will now occur Friday
evening on Flight Day 10 instead of Thursday evening.
The two crews are
about half a day behind schedule due to a small water leak that occurred
when the astronauts were linking the new airlock to the station’s Moderate
Temperature Loop. The crews also have been troubleshooting a leaky air
valve in an Intermodule Ventilation (IMV) Assembly in the rear, right
side of the station’s Unity node. Troubleshooting efforts to pinpoint
where the valve is leaking and why will continue tomorrow and for now
the astronauts have installed a cap on the valve to stop the leak. Should
replacement of the valve become necessary, several identical valves
are available aboard the station.
The Atlantis crew
was awakened at 4:08 p.m. by “Happy Birthday Darlin'” sung
by Conway Twitty. It was played for Atlantis Mission Specialist Janet
Kavandi who is celebrating a birthday today as she soars 235 miles above
the Earth.
During tonight’s
spacewalk, Expedition Two Flight Engineers Susan Helms and Jim Voss,
working from a robotics workstation in the station’s Destiny lab, will
maneuver the station’s robotic arm, the Canadarm2, over Atlantis’ payload
bay and grapple oxygen tank one. They will then maneuver the tank to
Quest where the tank will be attached to the airlock by Gernhardt and
Reilly. During the spacewalk, Gernhardt, wearing the spacesuit with
the red stripes on the legs, will be on the end of the shuttle robotic
arm, which will be controlled by Kavandi. Pilot Charlie Hobaugh will
coordinate the spacewalk from inside Atlantis. The procedure will be
repeated for nitrogen tank four. The remaining two tanks will be removed
from Atlantis’ payload bay Friday evening during the mission’s third
spacewalk.
The next mission
status report will be issued about 6 a.m. Wednesday or as events warrant.
