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.