Docked Endeavour Prepares for Spacewalks
Early this morning, Thursday March 13, 2008, the space shuttle Endeavour docked to the International Space Station as its excited crewmembers boarded. High over Southeast Asia, the meeting was 212 miles over Singapore early this morning at 0349 GMT. Two days earlier, the space shuttle had launched from the Kennedy Space Center, located in Florida.
Traditionally, when a docking is completed on the International Space Station a bell is rang to welcome the newly arrived shuttle and its crew–a tradition honored and borrowed from an early nautical practice. At 0528 GMT, three of the ISS crew and seven Endeavour members greeted one another in anticipation of the next couple of weeks in enjoyment of having company to enjoy.
One hour before the Endeavour docked to the ISS, Dominic Gorie had guided the space shuttle through a back-flip maneuver. Over 300 digital pictures were taken of the underbelly of the space craft, as shuttle commander Dominic Gorie professionally guided the shuttle. The pictures will be sent to Earth in order for NASA to look for damaging signs to the thermal tiles. This has been a routine practice since the Columbia disaster in 2003, analyzing signs of potential harm before it can occur and destroy lives.
As Gorie guided the shuttle through its final steps of docking to the ISS, the Endeavour was carefully aligned to the space station at 18,000 miles per hour. Plans to follow are 12 days of joint operations that will consist of five spacewalks that will include the installation of the Japanese laboratory, considered to be the largest and last research module being attached to the ISS.
The name of the laboratory, Kibo, actually means “Hope” in Japanese language–a micro gravity research facility opening a vital new stage for deeper space exploration at a price of 10 billion dollars. This will make Japan a major player with Europe, Russia, and the United States aboard the ISS. Its second step for the final Kibbo installation is due March 2009, an inter-orbit communications system unit that will be called the Exposed Facility.
In addition to Kibo, a piece of hardware from Canada will be installed. This piece is a component for the robotic arm that they call Dextre, a special technical piece of equipment that is used for delicate and tight detailed work normally reserved for astronauts who are outside on a space walk. Not only will time be saved, but lives may be considered more secure with spacewalks less risky for the lives of the astronauts.
This entry was posted on Thursday, March 13th, 2008 at 10:04 am and is filed under Space Agency News, Technical Concerns, The Gear to Get There. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
