STS-105 Day 9 Highlights

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On Saturday, August 18, 2001, 5:30 a.m. CDT, STS-105 MCC Status Report # 16 reports:

Discovery astronauts Dan Barry and Pat Forrester will perform the second space walk of the STS-105 mission today, hooking up heating cables and installing handrails on the International Space Station's Destiny Laboratory in advance of the arrival of a large truss structure at the complex next year. Meanwhile, the new Expedition Three crew aboard the station will continue packing the Multi-Purpose Logistics Module Leonardo for its return to Earth

Discovery's astronauts, including the returning Expedition Two crew, were awakened at 4 a.m. Central time by "Hotel California," performed by the Eagles. It was requested for Expedition Two Commander Yury Usachev by his wife.

The new station crew, Commander Frank Culbertson and Cosmonauts Vladimir Dezhurov and Mikhail Tyurin, are beginning a four-month stay on the station. They will be separated from Discovery's crew by closed hatches to accommodate today's space walk Barry and Forrester are to emerge from the shuttle's airlock a little after 9 a.m. Central time. Commander Scott Horowitz will operate the shuttle's robotic arm to move the space walkers around while Pilot Rick Sturckow will serve as the space walk choreographer.

The heating cables Barry and Forrester will install are for the S0 truss, to be delivered to the station next year. The space walk is the 26th in support of the assembly of the International Space Station and is expected to last around 6 hours.

Discovery and the station are orbiting the Earth every 90 minutes at an average altitude of 246 statute miles with all systems functioning well.

On Saturday, August 18, 2001, 4:00 p.m. CDT, STS-105 MCC Status Report # 17 reports:

Astronauts Dan Barry and Pat Forrester successfully strung two 45-foot heater cables and installed handrails down both sides of the Destiny laboratory of the International Space Station today during a 5 hour, 29 minute spacewalk, setting the stage for the delivery of a large truss structure to the complex next year.

The cables would provide backup power to the S0 truss, if needed, in the unlikely event it could not be installed in a timely fashion on the station next spring as the centerpiece for a 300-foot girder, which will serve as the backbone for the orbital outposts external experiments, solar arrays and the future mobile base for the Canadian-built station robotic arm.

Barry and Forrester began their spacewalk at 8:42 a.m. Central time, and ended their final excursion outside Discovery at 2:11 p.m., completing the 26th spacewalk devoted to the assembly of the International Space Station, 24 of which were staged from the Shuttle, and the 68th spacewalk in Shuttle program history. Other spacewalk statistics following today's activity include:

-- Total spacewalk time in Shuttle program history: 431 hours, 39 minutes. -- Total spacewalk time to assemble the ISS: 167 hours, 24 minutes. -- Total Shuttle spacewalk time for ISS assembly: 163 hours, 3 minutes. -- Total spacewalk time for the two EVAs on STS-105: 11 hours, 45 minutes.

While the spacewalk was being conducted, Expedition Three Commander Frank Culbertson and his crewmates, Vladimir Dezhurov and Mikhail Tyurin, continued loading the Leonardo cargo module on the station, which will be detached from the ISS Unity module Sunday and returned to Discovery's payload bay for the trip back home.

The astronauts and cosmonauts will begin an eight-hour sleep period at about 8 tonight Central time and will be awakened at 4:10 a.m. Sunday to begin the 10th day of this mission.

The two spacecraft are in excellent health orbiting the Earth every 90 minutes at an altitude of 250 statute miles.

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