Extra day of joint docked operations STS-130/ISS

6 p.m. CST Wednesday, Feb. 17, 2010


Mission Control Center, Houston, Texas

02.17.10 STATUS REPORT : STS-130-20 STS-130 MCC Status Report #20

HOUSTON – The astronauts and cosmonauts on space shuttle Endeavour and the International Space Station have started an extra day of joint docked operations to complete relocation of the station’s regenerative life support system into the new Tranquility module.



The 3:17 p.m. wakeup call music for the shuttle astronauts was “Oh Yeah” by Johnny A., played for Mission Specialist Stephen Robinson.



About an hour later, all 11 astronauts and cosmonauts on the docked vehicles received a congratulatory phone call from President Barack Obama, who was accompanied at the White House by a dozen middle school students from across the country who are in Washington, D.C. for a national engineering competition.



Internal outfitting of the new station modules fills up most of the timeline for this extra day on orbit, which was added specifically to support this activity. Crew members will relocate the remaining system racks of the regenerative environmental control and life support system—both Water Recovery System racks, the Waste Hygiene Compartment, and the Oxygen Generation System—into empty rack spaces in Tranquility, and finish setting up hardware in the new cupola module.



The plan to relocate the station’s robotic arm work station from Destiny into the cupola has been deferred for the station crew to complete after the shuttle departs to afford time for the on orbit crew and specialists in Houston to resolve issues of structural interference from hardware in the cupola.



Shortly after midnight Thursday, the station’s altitude will be raised slightly by firing Endeavour’s small vernier thrusters for 33 minutes. This adjustment combined with future altitude adjustments will set the stage for future spacecraft arrivals, including that of Discovery on the STS-131 mission in early April.



The crew heads to bed shortly after 6 a.m. Thursday for an eight hour sleep period ending with a musical wakeup call from Mission Control at 2:44 p.m.



The next shuttle status report will be issued after the crew’s work day ends, or earlier if events warrant.