STS-114 MCC Status Report #04

STS-114
Report #04
Wednesday, July 27, 2005 - 11:45 p.m. CDT
Mission Control Center, Houston, Texas

Visitors on a Space Shuttle will arrive at the International Space Station
for the first time in over two years today. The Space Shuttle Discovery is
scheduled to catch up and dock to the Station at 6:18 a.m. CDT Thursday.

During Discovery's approach to the Station, Commander Eileen Collins will
pause with the orbiter 600 feet below the Station and perform the first
Rendezvous Pitch Maneuver. The motion will flip the Shuttle end over end at
three quarters of a degree per second as the Station residents look on with
digital cameras at the ready. The flip will provide Expedition 11
crewmembers, Sergei Krikalev and John Phillips, about 93 seconds to
photograph the underside of Discovery and its heat-resistant tiles in
detail.

The images from Station will be downlinked and added to the host of imagery
and data obtained during Discovery's launch and Wednesday's robotic surveys
that engineers are analyzing. Imagery released Wednesday showed a piece of
foam being shed from the external tank during Discovery's ascent. Other
photos showed a variety of smaller tile and foam dings that will be reviewed
over the next several days. The crew will also downlink the video taken of
the External Tank as it fell away from Discovery on Tuesday and video of the
clearance between the Orbiter Boom Sensor System and the Ku-band antenna for
review.

Once Discovery's crew has had a safety briefing from the Space Station crew,
both crews get to work with more robotic operations to prepare for
additional surveys. Discovery Pilot Jim Kelly, Mission Specialist Wendy
Lawrence, with assistance from Phillips, will operate the Space Station
robotic arm, Canadarm2, from inside the Destiny Lab. They will use the arm
to lift the Orbiter Boom Sensor System from the payload bay sill and hand it
over to the Shuttle arm. Mission Specialists Charlie Camarda and Andy Thomas
will operate the Shuttle arm. Clearance restraints around the Shuttle's
docking mechanism do not allow the Shuttle arm to grapple the boom on its
own.

Spacewalkers Steve Robinson and Soichi Noguchi have two hours to prepare
their tools and equipment for their three spacewalks. Among other things,
the first spacewalk Saturday will test thermal protection system repair
techniques. Two other spacewalks will repair and install critical hardware
outside the Station.

Discovery's crew was awakened at 10:39 p.m. CDT by "It's a Wonderful World"
by Louis Armstrong for Camarda. The Station crew was awakened at the same
time by a tone onboard.

The next STS-114 mission status report will be issued Thursday afternoon, or
earlier, if events warrant.



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Jacques :-)

www.spacepatches.info