STS-105 Day 8 Highlights

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On Friday, August 17, 2001, 5:30 a.m. CDT, STS-105 MCC Status Report # 14 reports:

The ten astronauts and cosmonauts aboard Discovery and the International Space Station will focus on transfer activities today, continuing to place equipment, discarded items and belongings of the Expedition Two crew aboard the Multi-Purpose Logistics Module Leonardo for return to Earth.

Expedition Two Commander Yury Usachev and Flight Engineers Jim Voss and Susan Helms will continue handover briefings with the Expedition Three crew. The new station commander, Frank Culbertson, and Russian cosmonauts Mikhail Tyurin and Vladimir Dezhurov have taken up residence aboard the station. The Expedition Two crewmembers, who spent more than five months on the station, will return home aboard Discovery next week.

Aboard Discovery, Commander Scott Horowitz, Pilot Rick Sturckow, and Mission Specialists Pat Forrester and Dan Barry, along with the Expedition Two crewmembers, were awakened at 4:10 a.m. Central time to the sounds of "Time Bomb", a song performed for Forrester by his sons, Patrick and Andrew.

On the heels of their successful space walk yesterday to install an ammonia coolant reservoir and a suite of experiments on the station, Barry and Forrester will be reviewing procedures and will check out hardware for the mission's second space walk on Saturday to hook up heater cables for a truss structure to be delivered to the station next year

Horowitz and Sturckow will perform the mission's second reboost of the station this morning, this one to raise the ISS 'altitude by about two statute miles. The three Russian crewmembers aboard the shuttle/station complex will field questions from Russian reporters at the Russian Mission Control Center outside Moscow at 11:15 a.m. Central time. Three hours later, at 2:15 p.m., all ten crewmembers will hold a news conference with U.S. reporters at NASA centers. At 3 p.m., the crewmembers will gather for a change of command ceremony on the station as Expedition Two Commander Usachev passes the baton to Expedition Three Commander Culbertson. The formal handover of command actually occurred late Monday afternoon after the crews exchanged custom-made Soyuz seat liners for the return capsule docked to the station.

Discovery and the station are orbiting the Earth every 90 minutes at an average altitude of 244 statute miles with systems functioning well.

On Friday, August 17, 2001, 6:00 p.m. CDT, STS-105 MCC Status Report # 15 reports:

While Discovery's astronauts looked on, the Expedition Two crew ceremoniously handed command of the International Space Station to its Expedition Three replacements. The ceremony occurred just prior to closing the hatches between the two spacecraft in preparation for the final planned space walk of the STS-105 mission.

Expedition Two Commander Yury Usachev and Flight Engineers Jim Voss and Susan Helms continued handover briefings with the Expedition Three crew while stowage of equipment, discarded items and belongings of the Expedition Two crew continued aboard the Leonardo Multi-Purpose Logistics Module for return to Earth.

The new station Commander, Frank Culbertson, and Russian cosmonauts Vladimir Dezhurov and Mikhail Tyurin, officially took command of the station Monday afternoon to begin a four month stay on the ISS. The Expedition Two crewmembers, which spent more than five months on the station, will return home aboard Discovery next week. In preparation for the space walk set to begin about 9 a.m. Saturday, Dan Barry and Pat Forrester reviewed procedures and checked hardware that will be used during the excursion outside the station to hook up heater cables for a truss structure to be delivered to the station next year.

Shuttle Commander Scott Horowitz and Pilot Rick Sturckow performed the mission's second reboost of the station early in the day, raising the average altitude of the ISS by 2.2 statute miles (3.5 kilometers). Discovery's thrusters were systematically fired 253 times over the course of an hour. It was the final reboost planned prior to Discovery's departure Monday morning.

The crew heads to bed about 9 tonight, Central time and will be awakened by Mission Control at 4:10 a.m. CDT Saturday.

Discovery and the station are orbiting the Earth every 90 minutes at an average altitude of 247 statute miles with all systems functioning well.

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