STS-97 Day 9 Highlights

Back to STS-97 Flight Day 08 Highlights:

On Friday, December 8, 2000, 9:00 a.m. CST, STS-97 MCC Status Report # 16 reports:

The International Space Station recorded another milestone today – the arrival of its first houseguests.

The crew of the Space Shuttle Endeavour and the station’s Expedition 1 crew opened the hatches of their respective spacecraft at 8:36 a.m. CST Friday. Station Commander Bill Shepherd, Pilot Yuri Gidzenko and Flight Engineer Sergei Krikalev shook hands with their first station guests in 38 days -- STS-97 Commander Brent Jett, Pilot Mike Bloomfield and Mission Specialists Marc Garneau, Carlos Noriega and Joe Tanner.

The meeting was the first face-to-face contact between the crews, even though their spacecraft have been docked together since last Saturday, orbiting the planet at an altitude of 230 statute miles. At least one hatch remained closed at all times to maintain different atmospheric pressures so that the shuttle crew could conduct three spacewalks and succeed in its primary mission objectives, the delivery, installation and activation of the first U.S. solar power system for the International Space Station.

The new solar arrays are working well, converting the Sun’s rays into electricity and providing an average of 13 kilowatts of additional energy for use by the space station, supplementing the power supplied by solar arrays on the Russian Zarya and Zvezda modules. Other station systems, including a carbon-dioxide removal system and an air conditioner that failed earlier in the week but were repaired by the station crew, are working well.

After a short welcoming ceremony and safety briefing, the eight spacefarers got right to work conducting joint activities including structural tests of the station and its solar arrays, transfer of equipment, supplies and refuse back and forth between their two spacecraft and checking out a television camera cable that will help the next shuttle crew deliver and install the station’s first laboratory module, Destiny.

A joint crew news conference is scheduled for 3:57 p.m. CST today.

The space station crew is scheduled to go to bed about 6 p.m. CST, and the shuttle crew a little later about 10 p.m.

On Friday, December 8, 2000, 6:00 p.m. CST, STS-97 MCC Status Report # 17 reports:

They'd been next-door neighbors since last Saturday, but they didn't get to meet face-to-face in space until Friday morning.

The crews of the International Space Station and Space Shuttle Endeavour opened the last hatch separating them at 8:36 a.m. Space station commander Bill Shepherd and cosmonauts Yuri Gidzenko and Sergei Krikalev greeted the Endeavour astronauts, Commander Brent Jett, Pilot Mike Bloomfield and Mission Specialists Marc Garneau, Carlos Noriega and Joe Tanner, with handshakes.

The two crews had remained separated because the pressure aboard Endeavour had been reduced to help prepare Tanner and Noriega for their spacewalks.

The solar arrays they helped get ready for deployment and later repaired are functioning well. Systems aboard the space station are working well and Endeavour is performing almost perfectly.

"It has been a great mission," lead shuttle flight director Bill Reeves said at a Friday briefing. All objectives already have been accomplished, he said, except for the fly around of the space station by Endeavour after the Saturday undocking.

The eight crewmembers worked together to transfer equipment and supplies between the two spacecraft, and take refuse from the station aboard Endeavour for return to Earth. They did structural tests of the station and its solar arrays. They also finished setting up and checking out a TV system. Tanner and Noriega installed a cable for that system Thursday during their third spacewalk. The system will help a shuttle crew attach the U.S. laboratory Destiny to the station during a January mission.

Both crews held a news conference beginning at 3:57 p.m. Friday. They spoke live with reporters at Johnson Space Center in Houston, at Kennedy Space Center.in Florida and at Canadian Space Agency headquarters near Montreal. Immediately afterwards they talked with the Discovery Channel.

The space station crew was scheduled to go to bed about 6 p.m. and wake up at 2:36 a.m. on Saturday. The shuttle crew will begin its sleep period about 10 p.m. and be awakened at 6:06 a.m. Saturday. Endeavour is scheduled to undock from the space station at 1:13 p.m. Saturday and, after the flyaround of the ISS, begin final separation at 2:17 p.m.

The next STS-97 status report will be issued Saturday morning.

Go to STS-97 Flight Day 10 Highlights: