Atlantis and International Space Station astronauts continue with robotics activities

STATUS REPORT : STS-132-08 STS-132 MCC Status Report #08

HOUSTON – With a new day comes a new dawn as Atlantis and International Space Station astronauts continue with robotics activities today to add a new module to the orbiting complex.

The crew members woke at 1:50 a.m. CDT to the tunes of The Village People. “Macho Man” was the featured song played for Mission Specialist Garrett Reisman.

Today, the crew will be focused on the addition of the Russian Mini-Research Module-1 (MRM-1) to the station. The module, named Rassvet, Russian for “dawn,” will be docked to the Earth-facing port on the Zarya module.

Shuttle Commander Ken Ham and Pilot Tony Antonelli will maneuver the shuttle robotic arm to unberth the module from Atlantis’ payload bay and position it for handoff to the station robotic arm. Reisman and Mission Specialist Piers Sellers will be at the station arm controls to maneuver MRM-1 to its new position on the Russian segment. Expedition 23 Commander Oleg Kotov will monitor the activities from the Russian segment as the MRM-1 engages into its automated docking sequence for the final attachment to station.

 

Meanwhile, Mission Specialists Michael Good and Steve Bowen will prepare for the mission’s next spacewalk. They will prepare the suits and gather tools needed for their extravehicular excursion on Wednesday.

Their Expedition crew counterparts, Flight Engineer Alexander Skvortsov, Tracy Caldwell Dyson, Mikhail Kornienko, Soichi Noguchi and T.J. Creamer will work on station maintenance activities and experiments.

 

At 1:20 p.m., Ham, Reisman, Sellers, Kotov, Skvortsov and Caldwell Dyson will gather in the Harmony module to talk with reporters from MSNBC, Fox News and CNN.