Discovery undocked from the International Space Station today at 7:42 a.m. EDT, ending its almost nine-day stay at the orbital outpost.
STS-124 arrived at the station June 2, delivering the Japanese Pressurized Module, the second pressurized component of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency’s Kibo laboratory, to the station.
In addition, the STS-124 astronauts delivered Expedition 17 Flight Engineer Greg Chamitoff, who replaced Garrett Reisman, now a mission specialist returning to Earth aboard Discovery. The crew also performed three spacewalks while at the station.
Discovery is scheduled to land at Kennedy Space Center, Fla., Saturday.
One of the mission highlights; Astronaut Mike Fossum, STS-124 mission specialist, participates in the mission's second scheduled session of extravehicular activity (EVA) as construction and maintenance continue on the International Space Station. During the seven-hour, 11-minute spacewalk, Fossum and astronaut Ron Garan (out of frame), mission specialist, installed television cameras on the front and rear of the Kibo Japanese Pressurized Module (JPM) to assist Kibo robotic arm operations, removed thermal covers from the Kibo robotic arm, prepared an upper JPM docking port for flight day seven's attachment of the Kibo logistics module, readied a spare nitrogen tank assembly for its installation during the third spacewalk, retrieved a failed television camera from the Port 1 truss, and inspected the port Solar Alpha Rotary Joint (SARJ).
Bye for now,
Nick
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