STS-105 Status Report #10 – 15 Aug 2001 – 5:30 AM CDT
Discovery’s astronauts
were awakened shortly after 4 a.m. Central time to the sounds of “Big
Boy Toys”, a country and western tune by Aaron Tippin, selected
for Pilot Rick Sturckow by his wife.
The wakeup call
began a day that will focus on preparations for the first of two space
walks by Mission Specialists Dan Barry and Pat Forrester on Thursday,
while members of the International Space Station Expedition Two crew
will continue the handover of station operations to their Expedition
Three replacements.
The crews also
have time scheduled for logistical activities, including the transfer
of more equipment and supplies from Discovery to the station and the
transfer of discarded station equipment to Leonardo, the Multi-Purpose
Logistics Module, which was installed on the station on Monday. The
7,000 pounds of material carried into space aboard Leonardo, including
two scientific experiment racks for the U.S. Laboratory Destiny, has
been unloaded.
Sturckow will
assist Barry and Forrester as they checkout their spacesuits and space
walking tools for their planned 6*-hour excursion outside Discovery
tomorrow. During the space walk, Barry and Forrester will install the
Early Ammonia Servicer on the station’s P6 truss structure. It contains
spare ammonia that could be used in the station’s cooling system should
the need arise. They will also attach an experiment to the station to
expose samples of engineering materials to the space environment. The
samples will be returned to Earth for analysis in about a year.
A second space
walk will be conducted by Barry and Forrester Saturday to hook up heater
cables for a truss structure which will be delivered to the station
next year.
Hatches between
Discovery and the station will swing shut around 4:30 Central time this
afternoon in advance of tomorrow’s space walk
Earlier today,
Russian flight controllers successfully completed the reloading of upgraded
software into the computers of the Zvezda Service Module in preparation
for next month’s arrival of a new module to the station — the Russian
Docking Compartment — which will serve as a new docking port for visiting
Russian vehicles.
Additionally,
everything remains on schedule for the launch next week of a new unmanned
Progress resupply vehicle to the station, carrying more supplies and
hardware for the new Expedition Three crew. The Progress will be launched
from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Tuesday and will link
up to the station on Aug. 23.
Discovery and
the station are orbiting the Earth every 90 minutes at an average altitude
of 244 statute miles with no systems issues being worked by the flight
control team. The next status report will be issued around 6 p.m., or
earlier, if events warrant.