STS-123 MCC Status
Report #19
(19 March 2008) The crews of space
shuttle Endeavour and the International Space Station spent the afternoon
speaking with audiences around the world and preparing for tomorrow's spacewalk
to evaluate a shuttle heat shield tile repair technique.
Mission
Specialist Takao Doi was joined by shuttle Commander Dom Gorie and station
Commander Peggy Whitson for a phone call from Yasuo Fukuda, Japan's prime
minister, who conveyed his congratulations for the successful installation of
the first component of the Kibo laboratory at the station. The astronauts also
answered questions from Japanese students. Afterward, all 10 crewmembers
discussed their flight with CBS News, NBC News and WMUR-TV in Manchester,
N.H.
Mission Specialists Bob Behnken and Mike Foreman, along with their
spacewalk co-ordinator Rick Linnehan, configured the tools they will use during
Thursday night's spacewalk. Behnken and Foreman will employ a tool called the
Tile Repair Ablator Dispenser (T-RAD) - a caulk-gun-like device - to apply a
substance called Shuttle Tile Ablator-54 (STA-54) into purposely damaged heat
shield tiles. Behnken and Foreman will then smooth the substance in place with
foam-tipped tools. Those test samples will be returned to Earth to undergo
extensive testing on how STA-54 performs in the environment of space. The
demonstration is considered important in advance of the Hubble Space Telescope
servicing mission later this year since that flight will be conducted
independently of a "safe haven" capability at the ISS in the event the shuttle
incurs damage to its heat shield.
Additional objectives of the spacewalk
include replacement of a failed Remote Power Controller Module (RPCM) on the
station's truss, including the temporary shutdown and spinup of Control Moment
Gyroscope-2 (CMG). The RPCM replacement is needed to restore redundant power to
CMG-2 and CMG-3.
Both crews reviewed procedures for that spacewalk,
scheduled to start at 5:28 p.m. on Thursday and last 6.5 hours. Behnken and
Foreman will sleep in the station's Quest airlock overnight for the standard
spacewalk "camp out" procedure to purge the nitrogen from their
bodies.
The fifth and final spacewalk is scheduled for Saturday to move
the shuttle's Orbiter Boom Sensor System (OBSS) onto the station. This is
caused by the size of the huge Japanese Kibo pressurised laboratory module,
which will be delivered to the station aboard Discovery in May, preventing the
shuttle from carrying its own OBSS. Once Kibo is installed, Discovery's
astronauts will detach the OBSS left behind by Endeavour, use it to perform
tile inspections and bring it home.
The next STS-123 status report will
be issued after crew wake-up, about 12:30 p.m. Thursday, or earlier if events
warrant.
(source: NASA)
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