STS-106, Mission Control Center Status Report #09 Sept. 12, 2000 – 7 a.m. CDT

The crew of Atlantis
opened the doors to a spacious new home on orbit late Monday and began
the work of outfitting the interior of the International Space Station.

The five astronauts
and two cosmonauts opened the first hatch into a connecting tunnel at
9:40 p.m. Monday, proceeded smoothly through 10 more doorways and cracked
the final hatch into a Russian cargo ship at 1:22 a.m. CDT Tuesday.

Crewmembers first
floated into the new Zvezda service module at 12:20 a.m. CDT, wearing
breathing filters and eye goggles as a precaution against possible atmospheric
contamination and debris inside the newest module of the station that
will serve as the living quarters and command and control center for
the complex.

Within minutes
the crew reported that air quality and other conditions inside Zvezda
were excellent, removed the precautionary equipment and went to work
installing ventilation and removing restraint bolts put in place for
Zvezda’s ride to orbit two months ago today. No longer required, these
launch restraints along with the manual docking system hardware in the
station’s first module, Zarya, will be brought back to Earth aboard
Atlantis.

After a scheduled
8 hour sleep period, the crew will be awakened at 6:46 this evening.
Major tasks are to install three batteries inside Zvezda and remove
and replace two batteries in Zarya. Because of weight, Zvezda was launched
with five of its eight batteries in place. The two batteries to be replaced
in Zarya were the only two of six that were not changed during Atlantis’
visit in May on the STS-101 mission.

In and around the
battery work, the transfer of almost three tons of hardware will begin
during five or six days of docked operations.

The next mission
status report will be issued about 7 p.m. Tuesday or sooner if events
warrant