STS-102 Day 6 Highlights

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On Tuesday, March 13, 2001, 7:30 a.m. CST, STS-102 MCC Status Report # 11 reports:

Astronauts Paul Richards and Andy Thomas spent six and a half hours outside the International Space Station this morning, continuing work to outfit the station and prepare for delivery of its own robotic arm next month.

With help from shuttle robotic arm operator Jim Kelly and space walk choreographer Susan Helms, Richards and Thomas installed a stowage platform for spare station parts and attached a spare ammonia coolant pump to the platform. They also finished connecting several cables put in place by Astronauts Jim Voss and Susan Helms during their nearly nine-hour-long space walk Sunday. The cables, on the exterior of the Destiny laboratory module, will provide power and control of the station’s Canadian-built robotic arm. Known as the Space Station Remote Manipulator System, the arm will be delivered and installed by the STS-100 crew in April.

Commander Jim Wetherbee deactivated and then reactivated Leonardo’s DC-to-DC power converters and checked out the Lab Cradle Assembly, installed during the first space walk, which eventually will be used to connect the station’s large truss structure to Destiny’s hull.

Richards and Thomas also scaled the station to the top of its 240-foot-wide solar arrays and were successful in engaging a fourth latch for the port-side array’s structural brace. Several other get-ahead tasks also were accomplished during the space walk, including a check of a Unity module heater connection and inspection of an exterior experiment called the Floating Potential Probe that has been operating intermittently. The space walkers reported they did not see any status lights on the probe; investigators on the ground will use that information to continue troubleshooting.

“Well, Andy, we were on top of the world there for a while,” Richards said as the pair began returning to the airlock. “Yes, we were,” Thomas replied.

The second and final planned space walk of the mission began at 11:23 p.m. Monday, and concluded at 5:44 a.m. Tuesday. The 6-hour, 21-minute space walk brings the total exterior construction time on the station to 124 hours over the course of 18 space walks, and the total EVA time in shuttle program history to 392 hours, 36 minutes over 62 separate space walks.

As Richards and Thomas worked outside the station, returning Expedition One Cosmonauts Yuri Gidzenko and Sergei Krikalev – now members of the Discovery crew – exercised inside the shuttle to help prepare their bodies for the return to Earth after four and a half months in orbit.

Inside the station, Expedition One Commander Bill Shepherd, and Expedition Two Commander Yury Usachev and Flight Engineer Jim Voss continued to unload the Leonardo logistics module. Among the five tons of gear being transferred is the first station research rack, the Human Research Facility, which will be installed inside Destiny this evening.

Discovery’s crew will go to bed at 9:42 a.m. CST, and will get an extra half-hour of sleep before being awakened at 6:12 p.m. All station and shuttle systems are working well. The next Mission Control Center status report will be issued Tuesday evening.

On Tuesday, March 13, 2001, 7:00 p.m. CST, STS-102 MCC Status Report # 12 reports:

Ahead of schedule in their work and with a growing record of success, the astronauts and cosmonauts of Discovery and the International Space Station will spend today finalizing the swap of crew members aboard the orbiting science complex and continuing to unload supplies.

Discovery’s crew was awakened this evening for the seventh day of the mission with the song “Free Fallin” by Tom Petty, a favorite of astronaut Susan Helms who today will take up official residence on the station as a member of the outpost’s second crew. She will trade places with first expedition Commander Bill Shepherd, who is completing four and a half months aboard the complex. Though the crew transfer is complete tonight, the official end of the Expedition One increment occurs on Saturday when Discovery departs the ISS.

Usachev, Helms and Jim Voss are beginning a four-month stay in space. Shepherd, Flight Engineer Sergei Krikalev and Pilot Yuri Gidzenko have brought the station to life as members of the inaugural crew, launched Oct. 31, 2000, aboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft from Kazakhstan. Both the first and second station crews will have several hours set aside today to compare notes and hand over duties.

The crews are ahead of schedule in unloading the Leonardo logistics module, with all seven systems racks – equipment that includes electronics, communications gear, experiments and medical facilities – already moved to the station’s Destiny Laboratory. Included among those racks is the first major piece of station science equipment, called the Human Research Facility, which will study the effects of weightlessness on the human body. They will continue unloading supplies from the Italian Space Agency-developed cargo carrier today.

Helms, a Portland, Oregon, native, Usachev, Voss and Discovery Commander Jim Wetherbee will take a brief break from their work just after midnight for an interview with three Portland-area television stations.

Discovery and the International Space Station remain in excellent condition, orbiting Earth once every 92 minutes. The next Mission Control Center status report will be issued Wednesday morning.

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