STS 124 and Expedition 17 Report

STS-124 Report

6 a.m. CDT Wednesday, June 4, 2008

Mission Control Center, Houston, Texas

HOUSTON – The crew of STS-124 and Expedition 17 will focus on continuing the setup and initialization of the Kibo laboratory today.

At 3:52 p.m. today, the astronauts are due to open the hatch to Kibo and enter the new laboratory for the first time.

The shuttle crew awoke this morning to "Have You Ever," performed by Brandi Carlile. The song was played for Mission Specialist Karen Nyberg.

In addition to the continuing work on Kibo, the crew will work to remove and replace one of the beds on the carbon dioxide removal assembly (CDRA). The CDRA is part of the International Space Station’s environmental controls. It works to remove carbon dioxide from the air on board the spacecraft.

The crew will also check out the sensors on the end of the orbiter boom sensor system (OBSS). The OBSS was retrieved from the outside of the station during yesterday’s spacewalk, and it will remain attached to the shuttle’s robotic arm until it is used to conduct the late inspection of the shuttle’s heat shield on flight day 12. It will then be stowed in Discovery’s payload bay for the return trip back to Earth.

Discovery crew members are Commander Mark Kelly, Pilot Ken Ham, and mission specialists Nyberg, Ron Garan, Mike Fossum, Aki Hoshide and Garrett Reisman. The Expedition 17 crew is Commander Sergei Volkov and flight engineers Oleg Kononenko and Greg Chamitoff.


Wed, 4 Jun 2008 19:36:25

Mission Control Center, Houston, Texas

HOUSTON – The door to more experiments and more space opened up aboard the International Space Station.

The crew of STS-124 and Expedition 17 worked on activation and entry of the Kibo Japanese Pressurized Module. At 4:05 p.m. Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Akihiko Hoshide and NASA astronaut Karen Nyberg opened the hatch to the lab. After checking the atmosphere, all ten crew members entered the module to experience the enormous space. The largest module on the space station, it can hold 23 phone-booth sized operating racks, including 10 dedicated to experiments.

Cosmonaut Oleg Kononenko installed the spare gas liquid separator pump into the station’s toilet at 10:27 a.m. After testing, Mission Control, Moscow indicated the toilet was repaired and ready for normal operations. The toilet had been working in a degraded fashion for the past couple weeks, prompting the replacement part’s addition to Discovery’s cargo.

Discovery Commander Mark Kelly and Pilot Ken Ham confirmed sensors on the end of the orbiter boom sensor system (OBSS) are working. The OBSS was retrieved from the outside of the station during Tuesday’s spacewalk, and it will remain attached to the shuttle’s robotic arm until it is used to conduct the late inspection of the shuttle’s heat shield on flight day 12.
As planned, astronauts Garrett Reisman and Greg Chamitoff replaced one of the beds in the carbon dioxide removal assembly that cleanses air onboard the station.

The crew is scheduled to go to sleep at 9:32 p.m. Wednesday and awaken at 5:32 a.m. Thursday. Spacewalkers Ron Garan and Mike Fossum will stay in the Quest airlock at a lower pressure overnight again to purge nitrogen from their systems.

Bye for now,
Nick.
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