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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