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02/11/10: STS-130 astronauts prepare for tonight's spacewalk.
Mission: STS-130
Orbiter: Endeavour
Launch Pad: 39A
Launch Date: Feb 8, 2010, 04:14 EST (09:14 UT)
Landing: Shuttle Landing Facility, Kennedy Space Center; Feb 21, 22:20 EST/03:20 UT Feb 22 (deorbit burn: 21:15 EST)
Main gear touchdown: 22:20:31 EST
Nose gear touchdown: 21:20:39 EST
Wheels stop: 22:22:10 EST
Orbital Altitude: 122 nautical miles (140 miles)
Orbital Insertion: 191 nautical miles (220 miles)
Orbital Inclination: 51.6 degrees
Distance traveled: ~5.7 million miles
Crew:- Commander: George D. "Zambo" Zamka; Pilot: Terry Virts; Mission Specialists:- MS1 Kathryn P. "Kay" Hire, MS2 Stephen Robinson, MS3 Nicholas Patrick, MS4 Robert L. Behnken.
7 a.m. CST Thursday, Feb. 11, 2010
Mission Control Center, Houston, Texas
Endeavour and International Space Station crew members worked on spacewalk preparations, did some long-awaited repairs on a water recycling system and transferred equipment and supplies between the shuttle and station.
Endeavour's crew members, Commander George Zamka, Pilot Terry Virts and Mission Specialists Kathryn Hire, Stephen Robinson, Nicholas Patrick and Robert Behnken, got some afternoon time off and the welcome news that a more detailed focused inspection of the shuttle's heat shield system would not be needed.
The morning included installation of the Water Recovery System's refurbished Distillation Assembly and replacement of the system's Fluids Control Pump Assembly by station Commander Jeff Williams. The system processes urine into drinking water. Zamka, Hire and Robinson worked to transfer equipment and supplies.
Patrick and Behnken began their overnight campout in the station's Quest airlock a little before 7 a.m. CST in preparation for today's first of three spacewalks during space shuttle Endeavour's visit to the orbiting laboratory. They are sleeping in the reduced 10.2 psi pressure of the airlock to avoid decompression sickness, or the bends.
An earlier checkout of Behnken's spacesuit revealed a problem with a power harness that provides power to its wireless video system and glove heaters. Zamka and station Flight Engineer Soichi Noguchi changed out the suit's upper torso to resolve the issue.
The crews wrapped up their workday with an hour-long review of spacewalk procedures beginning about 3:10 a.m. Williams and Flight Engineers Noguchi and T.J. Creamer also participated.
The spacewalk, set to begin at 8:09 p.m. and scheduled for 6.5 hours, will prepare Tranquility for its move from Endeavour's cargo bay. After it is installed on the station's Unity node by station robotic arm operators Virts and Hire, the spacewalkers will begin hooking it up to the station's infrastructure. They also will move a temporary platform from the Special Purpose Dexterous Manipulator, or DEXTRE, to the station's port truss and install two handles on the robot.
After the crews' hour-long lunch break beginning a little before 10 p.m., the six shuttle astronauts, Williams and Creamer talked with reporters from KXTV-TV in Sacramento, Calif., WKRG-TV in Mobile, Ala., and KMOX Radio in St. Louis. Robinson is from Sacramento, Hire from Mobile and Behnken from St. Louis. After those interviews, crew members enjoyed most of their afternoon off duty.
The next shuttle status report will be issued after the crew's 3:14 p.m. wakeup call, or earlier if warranted.
NASA astronaut Nicholas Patrick, STS-130 mission specialist, poses for a photo between two Extravehicular Mobility Unit (EMU) spacesuits in the Quest airlock of the International Space Station. Image credit: NASA
NASA astronaut T.J. Creamer, Expedition 22 flight engineer, holds a still camera while occupying the commander's station on the flight deck of space shuttle Endeavour. Image credit: NASA
Timezones: EST = (UT - 5 hours)
EDT = (UT - 4 hours) = (CDT + 1 hour)
CST = (UT - 6 hours)
CDT = (EDT - 1 hour) = (UT - 5 hours)
PST = (UT - 8 hours)
PDT = (UT - 7 hours)
MDT = (UT - 6 hours)
UT [GMT] = (EDT + 4 hours)
BST = (EDT + 5 hours) or (CDT + 6 hours) = (UT + 1 hour)
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EDT, CDT, PDT, MDT daylight saving time = EST, CST, PST, MST +1hr. From 2007, this begins on the second Sunday in March, and ends on the first Sunday in November.
[Until 2007, EDT, CDT, PDT, MDT used to start at 02:00 local time on the first Sunday in April. EST, CST, PST started at 02:00 local time on the last Sunday in October.]
UT is also known as GMT (Greenwich Mean Time), Z, and UTC (Coordinated Universal Time). It is the time set on the International Space Station.
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