STS-126 Status Report #11
Home improvements continued aboard the International Space Station with installation of two new bedrooms and preparations to activate a water recycling facility. Station flight engineer Sandra Magnus and her predecessor Greg Chamitoff moved the port and starboard crew quarters to the station and installed them in the Harmony node. They also installed a rack with equipment for return to Earth inside the Leonardo Multi-Purpose Logistics Module.
Other crew members also continued moving equipment and supplies between the two spacecraft. Transfer of all of the phone-booth-sized racks planned for this mission has been completed. Transfer work overall is about twenty five percent complete. Former Expedition 6 station resident, Endeavour mission specialist Don Pettit and Expedition 18 station commander Mike Fincke spent a bulk of the day configuring hardware on the new Water Recovery System.
The facility will treat wastewater and provide recycled water clean enough to drink. The system will be activated for initial checkouts tonight. It will take about two days of initial operations before the first sample of water processed from urine is available for testing. Later today, the crew members will prepare for the second of four spacewalks by gathering tools and reviewing procedures. Subsequently, spacewalkers Heidemarie Stefanyshyn-Piper and Shane Kimbrough will begin the standard pre-spacewalk campout in the station’s Quest airlock.
The campout will begin at 10:20 p.m. Piper and Kimbrough will be in Quest overnight, with its pressure at 10.2 psi compared to the station’s 14.7 psi, to reduce their systems’ nitrogen content. That is to avoid the possibility of decompression sickness. Endeavour’s crew is scheduled to go to bed at 11:55 p.m. today and be awakened at 7:55 a.m. Thursday. The spacewalk is set to start at 12:45 p.m. Thursday.
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