Kelly Mark Credit - www.spacefacts.de

Personal: Male, Married, Two children. Born in Orange, New Jersey, USA. US Navy US Navy

Astronaut Career

Astronaut Group: NASA Group 16 - 1996. Active Entered space service: 1 May 1996. Number of Flights: 3.00. Total Time: 38.35 days.

NAME: Mark E. Kelly (Lieutenant Commander, USN)

NASA Astronaut Candidate (Pilot)

PERSONAL DATA:

Born February 21, 1964 in Orange, New Jersey, but considers West Orange, New Jersey, to be his hometown. Married to the former Amelia Victoria Babis of Roscommon, Michigan. They have one child. He enjoys running, weightlifting, basketball, golf. His parents, Richard and Patricia Kelly, reside in Flagler Beach, Florida.

EDUCATION:

Graduated from Mountain High School, West Orange, New Jersey, in 1982; received a bachelor of science degree in marine engineering and nautical science (with highest honors) from the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy in 1986, and a master of science degree in aeronautical engineering from the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School in 1994.

ORGANIZATIONS:

U.S. Merchant Marine Academy Alumni Association.

AWARDS:

Awarded four Air Medals (2 individual/2 strike flight) with Combat "V," Navy Commendation Medal with "V," Navy Achievement Medal, two Southwest Asia Service Medals, Navy Expeditionary Medal, two Sea Service Deployment Ribbons, Overseas Service Ribbon, and various other unit awards.

EXPERIENCE:

Kelly received his commission from the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy in June 1986, and was designated a Naval Aviator in December 1987. He then reported to Attack Squadron 128 at Naval Air Station (NAS) Whidbey Island, Oak Harbor, Washington, for initial training in the A-6E Aircraft. Upon completion of this training, he was assigned to Attack Squadron 115 based in Atsugi, Japan. While assigned to Attack Squadron 115 he made two deployments to the Persian Gulf aboard the USS Midway. During his second deployment he flew 39 combat missions in Operation Desert Storm. During this tour he was designated an Airwing Qualified Landing Signals Officer (LSO). Kelly was selected for the Naval Post Graduate School/Test Pilot School Cooperative Education Program in July 1991. He completed 15 months of graduate work at Monterey, California, before attending the U.S. Naval Test Pilot School in June 1993. After graduating in June 1994, he worked as a project test pilot at the Carrier Suitability Department of the Strike Aircraft Test Squadron, Naval Air Warfare Center, Patuxent River, Maryland, flying the A-6E, EA-6B and F-18 aircraft. Kelly was assigned to the U.S. Naval Test Pilot School as an instructor pilot in the F-18, T-38 and T-2 aircraft when selected for the astronaut program.

He has logged over 2,000 flight hours in more than 40 different aircraft and has over 375 carrier landings.

NASA EXPERIENCE:

Selected by NASA in April 1996, Kelly reported to the Johnson Space Center in August 1996 to begin two years of training and evaluation. Successful completion of initial training will qualify him for various technical assignments leading to selection as a pilot on a Space Shuttle flight crew.

• 5 December 2001 Flight: STS-108. Flight Up: STS-108. Flight Back: STS-108. Flight Time: 11.82 days.

• 4 July 2006 Flight: STS-121. Flight Up: STS-121. Flight Back: STS-121. Flight Time: 12.78 days.

• 31 May 2008 Flight: STS-124. Flight Up: STS-124. Flight Back: STS-124. Flight Time: 13.76 days.

5 December 1983 - NASA Astronaut Training Group 16 selected.. The group was selected to provide pilot, engineer, and scientist astronauts for space shuttle flights.. Qualifications: Pilots: Bachelor's degree in engineering, biological science, physical science or mathematics. Advanced degree desirable. At least 1,000 flight-hours of pilot-in-command time. Flight test experience desirable. Excellent health. Vision minimum 20/50 uncorrected, correctable to 20/20 vision; maximum sitting blood pressure 140/90. Height between 163 and 193 cm.

Mission Specialists: Bachelor's degree in engineering, biological science, physical science or mathematics and minimum three years of related experience or an advanced degree. Vision minimum 20/150 uncorrected, correctable to 20/20. Maximum sitting blood pressure of 140/90. Height between 150 and 193 cm.. 10 pilots and 25 mission specialists selected from over 2,400 applicants. 9 additional international astronauts.

Discovery's robotic arm and the four space suits the astronauts will use on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday space walks, checked out with no major problems.

As the crew prepared for its sleep period, Discovery was 1,100 statute miles behind Hubble, closing at a rate of 150 statute miles per orbit. Discovery's orbit had been adjusted by firing the two Orbital Maneuvering System engines, mounted in pods on either side of the spacecraft's vertical tail fin. That burn added 79 feet per second to the orbiter's speed. A subsequent firing of Discovery's smaller Reaction Control System jets further refined the orbit by changing Discovery's speed by about eight feet per second.

The pressure in Discovery's cabin was lowered to 10.2 psi at about 1 p.m. Monday. This is part of the procedure to reduce the amount of nitrogen in the blood of space-walking astronauts. Later they will breathe pure oxygen. Those steps are designed to eliminate the possibility of nitrogen bubbles forming in their blood during spacewalks and causing an attack of the "bends," a condition that can affect deep-sea divers brought to the surface too quickly.

A little after 8:30 p.m. CST, four members of the crew, Commander Curt Brown, Pilot Scott Kelly, and Mission Specialists Jean-Francois Clervoy and Mike Foale, participated in an on-orbit interview with three organizations - CBS News, the Hal Uplinger Millennium TV Network and ABS-PBS Millennium Broadcast.

On Tuesday Discovery will approach the space telescope with a series of burns to match its orbit. The rendezvous' terminal initiation burn is to occur at about 4:30 p.m. when Discovery is about eight miles behind Hubble. Brown and Kelly will maneuver the orbiter to a point directly beneath Hubble, then move upward toward it. Clervoy, using the orbiter's robotic arm, will grapple Hubble about 6:40 p.m. and place it on the Flight Service System in the rear of Discovery's cargo bay. There, it can be rotated and tilted to enable space-walking astronauts to better access its equipment bays.

Discovery is in an orbit with a high point of 367 statute miles and a low point of 352 miles. All systems are in excellent condition.

The seven astronauts were awakened at 7:50 a.m. to the song "We're So Good Together" by Reba McEntyre, played for Pilot Scott Kelly at the request of his wife.

This afternoon, Commander Curt Brown and Kelly will check out Discovery's flight control systems and surfaces to support Monday's planned return to the Kennedy Space Center. Later in the day, the astronauts will begin stowing the equipment they've used during the past week on orbit and start buttoning up Discovery's on-orbit systems. The Ku-band antenna, which provides most of the capacity for data and television relay, will be stowed around 8:45 p.m. today.

As the STS-103 mission winds down, the newly refurbished Hubble Space Telescope slowly moves through its checkout sequence prior to resuming science operations. Discovery's four space-walking astronauts spent 24 hours and 33 minutes upgrading and refurbishing the orbiting observatory, making it more capable than ever to renew its observations of the universe.

Hubble was released from the end of Discovery's robot arm at 5:03 p.m. Christmas Day. Less than half an hour later, controllers at the Space Telescope Operations Control Center in Maryland reported that the telescope was in normal operating mode. Controllers will perform two weeks of testing before observations resume. At 8 a.m. today, Hubble was approximately 45 miles away from Discovery and separating at the rate of about five miles per 90-minute orbit.

Also on tap at 10:50 a.m. today is the crew in-flight press conference with media at NASA Centers in the U.S. and reporters at European Space Agency sites in Geneva and Paris.

Engineers at the Mission Control Center outside of Moscow conducted a series of tests and verified that the exterior connections made by Commander Frank Culbertson and Pilot Vladimir Dezhurov during Monday's space walk had successfully brought the Pirs Docking Compartment's automated Kurs telemetry system to full functionality.

With the help of Flight Engineer Mikhail Tyurin, they spent Wednesday cleaning up, servicing and storing the Orlan spacesuits they had used on the 5-hour, 4-minute space walk. They also spent about 20 minutes answering questions posed by middle school students in Texas and Kansas as part of a regional education conference.

With those activities complete, the trio of space researchers began getting ready for a series of comings and goings, and packing for their impending return home. The Progress 5 resupply craft currently docked to the Zvezda service module is scheduled to undock Nov. 22; it later will be commanded to re-enter the Earth's atmosphere where it will burn up along with refuse being stored inside by the crew this week. Another supply vehicle, Progress 6, is scheduled to launch Nov. 26 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan and dock with the station Nov. 28.

All preparations for the launch of Space Shuttle Endeavour and the Expedition Four crew - Commander Yuri Onufrienko and Flight Engineers Dan Bursch and Carl Walz - are on schedule for launch at 6:42 p.m. CST Nov. 29. Mission managers will meet at Kennedy Space Center this Thursday to review all preparations for launch; an official launch target is expected at the conclusion of that meeting. The shuttle crew - Commander Dom Gorie, Pilot Mark Kelly and Mission Specialists Linda Godwin and Dan Tani - joined the new station crew in Florida for a final dress rehearsal of the launch last week.

While visiting the station, the shuttle crew will conduct a space walk to install insulation blankets on the beta gimbal assemblies for the station's large solar array wings. These large swivels, which allow the solar arrays to track the Sun's rays and provide maximum power generation, appear to be experiencing adverse effects related to the extreme temperature swings that occur as the station moves in and out of direct sunlight. These multi-layer insulation blankets are expected to reduce the temperature swings and allow normal operation of the solar arrays.

Meanwhile in Florida, the next major component to be launched to the space station has successfully completed acceptance testing and been moved to a work platform for final closeouts. One last software test remains, and that will be completed in January. The S-zero truss, which will serve as the base section of a framework connecting more large solar array wings, is scheduled for launch on STS-110 in March 2002.

With systems operating normally, the station is orbiting at an average altitude of 247 statute miles (397 km).

Science work aboard the station continues with emphasis on human physiology experiments as the crew nears the end of its time on orbit, and with autonomous microgravity materials research. Overall coordination of the research is the responsibility of the Payload Operations Center at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala. The Human Research Facility is managed by the Johnson Space Center.

The Progress, attached to the docking port at the rear of the Zvezda service module, is the fifth to visit the station. It will undock at 10:06 a.m. CST Thursday, to be deorbited and burn up in the atmosphere with its load of trash and unneeded equipment. Its undocking makes room for Progress 6, scheduled for launch from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 12:24 p.m. CST Monday. The new Progress, filled with fresh supplies, is planned to dock to the station at 1:45 p.m. on Wednesday, Nov. 28.

The Expedition Three trio also began preparations for their return home after about four months in space. They began packing up gear and readying station equipment in anticipation of the arrival of the space shuttle Endeavour, targeted for a launch to the space station from Kennedy Space Center on Nov. 29 at 6:41 p.m. CST on the STS-108 mission. Endeavour is commanded by Dom Gorie. Pilot is Mark Kelly and Mission Specialists are Linda Godwin and Dan Tani.

The major purpose of the mission is bring the Expedition Four crew, cosmonaut and Commander Yury Onufrienko and Astronauts Dan Bursch and Carl Walz, to the station and bring home Expedition Three. Also during the flight, Godwin and Tani will do a spacewalk to install thermal blankets over the station's beta gimbal assemblies of the orbiting laboratory's solar wings, which stretch 240 feet from tip to tip. The assemblies let the wings track the sun to provide maximum power.

Flight controllers at Houston's Mission Control Center have seen in those mechanisms occasional unexpected surges in the power required to turn the wings. They believe the surges are related to extreme temperature swings that occur as the station moves in and out of direct sunlight. Installation of the blankets is expected to reduce the temperature fluctuations and eliminate the "power spikes" seen as the wings pivot.

The spacewalkers will go out of Endeavour's airlock, then get a 50-foot lift from the shuttle's robotic arm. They will have to climb with the blankets another 30 feet to the worksite, atop the P6 Truss and about 80 feet from Endeavour's cargo bay.

With systems operating normally, the station is orbiting at an average altitude of 247 statute miles (397 km).

Human physiology experiments continue to be a focus of crew science activities as the crew prepares for its return home. Autonomous microgravity materials research continued to accumulate scientific experiment run time hours in a variety of disciplines. Overall coordination of the research is the responsibility of the Payload Operations Center at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala. The Human Research Facility is managed by the Johnson Space Center.

The Progress 6 craft, which launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan Monday, gently docked to the aft port of the Zvezda Service Module over Central Asia at 1:43 p.m. CST, completing a two-day automated flight.

On board the station, Expedition Three Commander Frank Culbertson, Pilot Vladimir Dezhurov and Flight Engineer Mikhail Tyurin monitored the docking, and prepared for the opening of the hatch between Zvezda and Progress later today.

The Progress is carrying more than a ton of food, fuel and equipment for the Expedition Four crew, Russian Commander Yury Onufrienko and U.S. Astronauts Dan Bursch and Carl Walz, who are scheduled to be launched aboard the shuttle Endeavour tomorrow night on the STS-108 mission to relieve the Expedition Three crew, which has been in orbit since August. They will be ferried to the ISS by Endeavour Commander Dom Gorie, Pilot Mark Kelly and Mission Specialists Linda Godwin and Dan Tani. Launch from the Kennedy Space Center is scheduled for 6:41 p.m. CST.

With systems operating normally, the station is orbiting at an average altitude of 247 statute miles (397 km).

Human physiology experiments continue to be a focus of crew science activities as the crew prepares for its return home. Autonomous microgravity materials research continued to accumulate scientific experiment run time hours in a variety of disciplines. Overall coordination of the research is the responsibility of the Payload Operations Center at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala. The Human Research Facility is managed by the Johnson Space Center.

STS-108 cargo bay payload was dominated by the Raffaello (MPLM-2) logistics module with 4 RSP and 8 RSR resupply racks. Also in the cargo bay were the MACH-1 and LMC experiment trusses flown under the Goddard small payloads program. MACH-1 was an MPESS-type Hitchhiker bridge carrying the CAPL-3 capillary thermal control experiment on top. On its forward side was the Starshine-2 launch canister, the CAPL-3 avionics plate, the Hitchhiker avionics plate, and the SEM-15 canister. On the aft side was the G-761 canister containing experiments from Argentina, the PSRD synchrotron detector (a prototype for the AMS antimatter experiment which will fly on Station later), and the COLLIDE-2 and SEM-11 canisters. The SEM (Space Experiment Modules) are collections of high school experiments. LMC, the Lightweight MPESS Carrier carried four canisters with materials science and technology experiments: SEM-12, G-785, G-064 and G-730. In addition, an adapter beam on the starboard sidewall carried G-221 and G-775, with materials science and biology experiments.

Raffaello was transferred back to the Shuttle payload bay on December 14. Endeavour undocked from the Station at 17:28 UTC on December 15 and made a half loop around the station before making a small separation burn at 1822 UTC. The Starshine-2 reflector satellite was ejected from the MACH-1 bridge in Endeavour's payload bay at 1502 UTC on December 16. Endeavour landed on runway 15 at Kennedy Space Center at 1755 UTC on December 17. The Expedition 3 crew of Culbertson, Dezhurov and Tyurin returned to Earth aboard Endeavour, leaving the Expedition 4 crew of Onufrienko, Bursch and Walz in charge of the Station.

The station was about 250 statute miles above the central Indian Ocean as Endeavour rocketed away from Launch Pad 39-B at the Kennedy Space Center, FL, on time at 4:19 p.m. CST. Endeavour will close in on the station for the next two days and dock with the complex on Friday to begin a week-long stay.

Endeavour is commanded by Dom Gorie with Mark Kelly serving as pilot. Mission Specialists are Linda Godwin and Dan Tani. Also aboard Endeavour are station Expedition Four crew members Commander Yuri Onufrienko and Flight Engineers Carl Walz and Dan Bursch, who are beginning more than five months in orbit.

Endeavour will bring home the Expedition Three station crew, Commander Frank Culbertson, Pilot Vladimir Dezhurov and Flight Engineer Mikhail Tyurin, who have been aboard the station since mid-August. In addition to the new crew, Endeavour is carrying more than three tons of food, supplies and equipment in the Raffaello logistics module to the orbiting outpost.

Endeavour's crew will spend the next few hours unpacking equipment, setting up computers and conducting the first of periodic engine firings that will occur over the next two days to refine the shuttle's approach to the station. The shuttle crew will begin a sleep period at 11:19 p.m. CST and will be awakened at 7:19 a.m. CST Thursday. On Thursday, Endeavour's crew will check out the shuttle's equipment and systems that will be needed for Friday's final approach and docking to the International Space Station. Docking is planned for just after 2 p.m. CST Friday. On Saturday, the Raffaello module will be lifted from the shuttle payload bay using Endeavour's robotic arm and attached to a station berthing port to be unloaded. Godwin and Tani are planned to conduct a four-hour space walk on Monday to install insulation around two solar array rotation mechanisms. Raffaello will be returned to the shuttle payload bay later in the mission and brought back to Earth.

In addition to a new station crew and supplies, Endeavour is carrying a host of scientific investigations, including experiments from space agencies, schools and universities across the United States, Europe and South America as well as a small satellite that has involved more than 25,000 students in 26 countries.

Endeavour Commander Dom Gorie and Pilot Mark Kelly fired the shuttle's steering engines and jets twice today to adjust course toward the station. Gorie and Kelly also checked out the rendezvous systems and navigation aids Endeavour will require for its final approach to the orbiting complex, finding everything in good shape. Later, Kelly, assisted by Mission Specialist Linda Godwin, powered up the shuttle's robotic arm to check its operation and to use its television cameras to survey the Raffaello cargo module and experiments housed in Endeavour's payload bay. On Saturday, the robotic arm will be used by Kelly to attach Raffaello to a station berthing port so that more than three tons of food, supplies and experiments it holds can be moved aboard the complex.

Godwin and Mission Specialist Dan Tani also powered up and tested the space suits they will wear for a four-hour space walk on Monday, finding all the equipment in good condition. Godwin and Tani will install extra insulation on mechanisms that rotate the station's solar arrays during the excursion. Also today, Godwin powered up Endeavour's docking mechanism and extended it into position to await contact with the station. The Expedition Four crew members aboard Endeavour, en route to begin an almost six-month mission aboard the station, assisted the shuttle crew today with preparations and worked with several secondary scientific investigations.

All crew members on the shuttle had a few hours off-duty this evening, providing a short break in advance of what will be a busy week docked with the International Space Station. Endeavour is scheduled to dock at the station at about 1:59 p.m. CST Friday. The final phase of the approach begins with an engine firing by Endeavour at about 11:44 a.m. CST, when the shuttle is some nine miles behind the complex. Gorie will take over manual control of Endeavour's approach just after 1 p.m. CST, when Endeavour moves within a half-mile underneath the station. Gorie will fly the shuttle closer, maneuvering a quarter-circle around the station to dock at the complex's front port. Hatches will be opened between the two spacecraft and the crews will greet one another around 4 p.m. CST.

Meanwhile, aboard the station today, the Expedition Three crew, Commander Frank Culbertson, Pilot Vladimir Dezhurov and Flight Engineer Mikhail Tyurin, spent their final solo day in flight packing for the trip home. The station crew, completing more than four months in space, also continued to unload a Russian cargo supply craft that docked to the station last week.

Endeavour's crew will begin a sleep period at 10:19 p.m. CST and awaken at 6:19 a.m. CST on Friday. Endeavour is now about 3,500 statute miles behind the station, closing in 260 miles with each orbit of Earth.

The crew, Commander Dom Gorie, Pilot Mark Kelly, Mission Specialists Linda Godwin and Dan Tani, Expedition Four Commander Yury Onufrienko, Flight Engineer Carl Walz and Flight Engineer Dan Bursch, was awakened by the song "Soul Spirit" and "Put a Little Love in Your Life," sung by Bursch's daughter and her second-grade classmates.

The crew will spend the day preparing shuttle systems for docking with the International Space Station, which is scheduled for about 2 p.m. CST Friday. Preparations include powering up the shuttle's robotic arm and checking out the airlock and the space suits that will be used on Monday's planned four-hour spacewalk by Godwin and Tani to place thermal blankets on the motors that rotate the solar arrays atop the P6 truss.

In addition to performing the spacewalk, other activities during the mission include a crew exchange on board the space station Saturday and the transfer of more than three tons of cargo. The cargo, housed in the Raffaello logistics module that will be attached to the Unity module, includes food, supplies and equipment that the Expedition Four Crew will use during its stay on the station. The Expedition Three crew, Commander Frank Culbertson, Pilot Vladimir Dezhurov and Flight Engineer Mikhail Tyurin have been living aboard the space station since mid-August and will return home on Endeavour.

Also on board Endeavour is a host of scientific investigations, including experiments from other space agencies, schools and universities across the United States, Europe and South America. Two experiments located in the Multiple Application Customized Hitchhiker-1 (MACH-1) in the shuttle payload bay had already completed 15% and 10% of their mission objectives by the time the crew went to sleep last night. Those experiments are the Capillary Pumped Loop Experiment (CAPL) and the Prototype Synchrotron Radiation Detector (PSRD) respectively. The CAPL demonstrates a multiple evaporator capillary pumped loop system and the PSRD measures cosmic ray background data.

Endeavour's crew - Commander Dom Gorie, Pilot Mark Kelly, Mission Specialists Linda Godwin and Dan Tani, Expedition Four Commander Yury Onufrienko, and Flight Engineers Carl Walz and Dan Bursch - will quickly move into their final rendezvous activities today, bringing the shuttle to a position about 9 ½ miles behind the International Space Station about 11:44 a.m. today.

From that position behind the station, Gorie and Kelly will command Endeavour 's jets in a final major rendezvous maneuver to begin the final phase of the approach for docking. Endeavour will close the final miles to the station during the next orbit of the Earth, about 90 minutes.

As Endeavour approaches the station, the on-board rendezvous radar system will begin tracking the station providing distance and closing rate information to the crew. During the approach, the shuttle can perform up to four, small mid-course corrections at regular intervals. Just after the fourth burn, Endeavour will be about one-half mile below the station. Gorie will take over manual control of the approach, slowing Endeavour's approach and maneuvering to a point about 600 feet directly beneath the station. There he will begin a quarter-circle of the station, slowly moving to a position in front of the complex, in line with its direction of travel.

Once Endeavour has firmly docked to the station, and required leak checks are complete, the hatches between the spacecraft will open around 4 p.m. allowing Expedition Three Commander Frank Culbertson, Pilot Vladimir Dezhurov and Flight Engineer Mikhail Tyurin to greet their newest guests.

Culbertson, Dezhurov and Tyurin began their formal residency on the station on August 13 as their custom-made Soyuz seat liners were installed on the Soyuz return vehicle. Their residency will officially end once those seat liners are transferred to Endeavour and the Expedition Four crew's seat liners are installed in the Soyuz on Saturday.

With the new Expedition Four station crew of Commander Yury Onufrienko and Flight Engineers Carl Walz and Dan Bursch looking on from Endeavour's flight deck, shuttle Commander Dom Gorie brought Endeavour to a gentle linkup with the ISS at 2:03 p.m. CST as the two craft sailed over England. Within minutes, Pilot Mark Kelly and Mission Specialists Linda Godwin and Dan Tani began to conduct post-docking checks of the mechanical interface between Endeavour and the station's Destiny Laboratory prior to the opening of the hatches on the two vehicles. At first, the shuttle's docking ring and the docking mechanism on the ISS did not align properly, but after allowing the two craft to dampen their relative motion against one another, the vehicles were hard mated for a week of joint operations by the ten crewmembers.

On board the ISS in their 119th day in space and their 116th day aboard the station, Expedition Three Commander Frank Culbertson, Pilot Vladimir Dezhurov and Flight Engineer Mikhail Tyurin watched as their replacements arrived for the start of more than five months of orbital duty. The only other visitors for the Expedition Three crew during its increment arrived on the ISS in October to deliver a new Soyuz return vehicle.

The hatches were opened between Endeavour and the ISS' Destiny Laboratory at 4:42 p.m. CST, enabling the ten crewmembers to greet one another. Onufrienko, Walz and Bursch will officially take over command of the ISS Saturday afternoon from Culbertson, Dezhurov and Tyurin after transferring custom made Soyuz seatliners and conducting leak checks to their spacesuits.

The crews now begin a busy week of handing over station responsibilities and unloading tons of supplies brought to the complex by Endeavour. Saturday's activities will be highlighted by Kelly's use of the shuttle's robotic arm to hoist the Italian-built Raffaello logistics module from Endeavour's payload bay and attach it to a station berthing port. Raffaello will stay attached to the station for most of the week while it is unloaded. The crews will begin a sleep period at 10:19 p.m. CST today and awaken at 6:19 a.m. CST on Saturday.

Pilot Mark Kelly and Mission Specialist Linda Godwin will work together to remove the Raffaello Multi-Purpose Logistics Module from Endeavour's payload bay and attach it to the Unity node of the International Space Station. Over the course of about three hours, Kelly will use the shuttle's robotic arm to gently lift Raffaello from the payload bay and maneuver it into place, securing it to the Earth-facing berthing port on the Unity module about 12:39 p.m. CST today.

As Kelly works to install the Raffaello module, the formal exchange of space station crews will occur as the Expedition Three crew - Commander Frank Culbertson, Pilot Vladimir Dezhurov, and Flight Engineer Mikhail Tyurin - and the Expedition Four crew - Commander Yury Onufrienko, and Flight Engineers Carl Walz and Dan Bursch, exchange their customized seat liners in the Russian Soyuz spacecraft. As each Expedition Four crew member's seatliner is installed in the Soyuz and checked out, he officially becomes a resident of the space station with the Expedition Three crew member moving over to become a member of the Endeavour crew. Handover briefings between the crews will continue throughout docked operations.

Mission Specialist Dan Tani will focus his attention on transferring equipment from Endeavour to the space station while Commander Dom Gorie tends to vehicle operations.

The three commanders onboard - Gorie, Culbertson and Onufrienko - along with Endeavour's Pilot Kelly will participate in media interviews at 3:44 p.m. CST. MSNBC, CBS News and WAGT-TV in Augusta, Georgia will have the opportunity to interview the crewmembers in the station's Destiny laboratory.

Two payload bay experiments located in the Multiple Application Customized Hitchhiker-1 (MACH-1) facility have already completed 50% and 76% of their mission objectives. Those experiments are the Capillary Pumped Loop Experiment (CAPL) and the Prototype Synchrotron Radiation Detector (PSRD) respectively. The CAPL demonstrates a multiple evaporator capillary pumped loop system and the PSRD measures cosmic ray background data.

The transfer of the Expedition Four seatliners to the Soyuz return vehicle attached to the station marked the official exchange of crews. Culbertson reported that his crew had completed the exchange and that Expedition Four Commander Yury Onufrienko and Flight Engineers Carl Walz and Dan Bursch had become official station residents at 4:11 p.m. CST. Handover briefings between the two crews will continue for the duration of docked operations.

While the crew exchange was under way, aboard Endeavour Pilot Mark Kelly and Mission Specialist Linda Godwin used the shuttle's robotic arm to lift the Raffaello Multi-Purpose Logistics Module from the shuttle payload bay and attach it to a berth on the station's Unity node. Raffaello was removed from the payload bay at 11:01 a.m. CST and secured in place on the station at 11:55 a.m. CST. The hatch to Raffaello was opened and the crews began unloading the cargo module just before 7:30 p.m. CST. Over the course of the next several days, the crews will work together to transfer approximately three tons of food and supplies from Raffaello to the station.

The crews will begin a sleep period at 10:19 p.m. CST and awaken at 6:19 a.m. CST Sunday. Sunday's work will focus on unloading Raffaello, continuing an exchange of information between the two station crews and some preparatory work for a space walk planned to take place Monday by shuttle astronauts Godwin and Dan Tani. Endeavour and the International Space Station remain in excellent condition with no significant systems problems of concern to Mission Control.

A New York firefighter presented Pilot Mark Kelly with today's wake-up music when Kelly visited the World Trade Center site with former NASA Administrator Dan Goldin shortly after the September 11 attacks. All the astronauts and cosmonauts on board Endeavour and the International Space Station will take time today to remember the victims, their families and rescue workers in a special message from space, at 4:24 p.m. CST today.

Commander Dom Gorie, Kelly, Mission Specialists Linda Godwin and Dan Tani, Expedition Three Commander Frank Culbertson, Pilot Vladimir Dezhurov and Flight Engineer Mikhail Tyurin, Expedition Four Commander Yury Onufrienko, and Flight Engineers Carl Walz and Dan Bursch will all gather in the Destiny laboratory aboard the station to display a U.S. flag and take a moment to honor the victim's families and survivors of the attacks.

Coordinated through the "Flags for Heroes and Families" campaign, which was initiated by Former NASA Administrator Dan Goldin, several American flags are being flown aboard the space shuttle Endeavour. Those flags include 6,000 small U.S. flags, one U.S. flag that was recovered from the debris of the World Trade Center, a Marine Corps flag that was retrieved from the Pentagon, and an American flag from the State of Pennsylvania. Also onboard, is a large New York Fire Department flag, 23 replica New York Police Department shields, and 91 New York Police Department patches. Those items are stowed away in the shuttle and will be distributed upon Endeavour's return to Earth.

The crew's activities today will focus on continuing transfer of several hundred pounds of equipment and supplies from the Raffaello Multi-Purpose Logistics Module that was attached to the station yesterday. Transfer of equipment, supplies and experiments to and from the shuttle mid deck is already complete. Today, Godwin and Tani will also check out and prepare the tools they will use for Monday's scheduled spacewalk.

The focus of activities aboard Endeavour today will be on the planned four-hour spacewalk to be conducted by Godwin and Dan Tani. Godwin and Tani will exit the shuttle's airlock about 11:24 a.m. and will be carried about half way up the truss of the space station by the shuttle's robotic arm, operated by Pilot Mark Kelly. Commander Dom Gorie will coordinate efforts as the two spacewalkers maneuver hand-over-hand to their worksite location at the top of the P6 truss, some 80 feet above Endeavour's cargo bay.

The prime objective of the spacewalk is to place insulating blankets on the two Beta Gimbal Assemblies (BGA) that control the rotation of the solar arrays as they track the sun. The thermal blankets will protect the BGAs from temperature variances experienced in space, which has been leading to current spikes from the motors inside the BGAs. Once that task is complete, the spacewalkers will perform some get-ahead-tasks including retrieving tools from an outside pouch and bringing them inside for use during a spacewalk on the next mission to the space station early next year.

With hatches between the two spacecraft closed for today's space walk, the Expedition Four Crew, Commander Yury Onufrienko, and Flight Engineers Dan Bursch and Carl Walz will continue transferring equipment and supplies from the Raffaello Multi-Purpose Logistics Module to the station. This is the crewmembers' first day alone on the space station after exchanging places with the Expedition Three Crew, Commander Frank Culberston, Pilot Vladimir Dezhurov and Flight Engineer Mikhail Tyurin, on Saturday.

Shortly after the crews onboard Endeavour and the International Space Station were awakened, they prepared to take a moment to pay tribute to those who lost their lives in the attacks on America on September 11, as part of President Bush's "Anthems of Remembrance" event. The event will take place at 7:46 a.m. CST, the exact moment of the attack three months ago.

The United States and Russian national anthems will be played in the shuttle and station flight control rooms in Mission Control and aboard the shuttle and the space station. The three commanders aboard the two spacecraft - Shuttle Commander Dom Gorie, Expedition Three Commander Frank Culbertson, and Expedition Four Commander Yury Onufrienko, will share their personal thoughts as well as play a special pre-recorded message from the rest of the crew currently in orbit.

Onufrienko, along with Expedition Three crew members Vladimir Dezhurov and Mikhail Tyurin, will take time today to talk with Russian media located at the mission control center outside Moscow in an interview scheduled to begin at 9:24 a.m. Later in the day, the full crews - Gorie, Onufrienko, Culbertson, Pilot Mark Kelly, Mission Specialists Linda Godwin and Dan Tani, Expedition Four flight engineers Carl Walz and Dan Bursch, along with Dezhurov and Tyurin - will have an opportunity to talk with American news media during a crew news conference scheduled for 2:04 p.m.

A ceremony to mark the change of command from Culbertson to Onufrienko will take place at 2:48 p.m. today. Culbertson, in his 123rd day in space, will ceremoniously pass command of the space station on to Onufrienko, its newest commander. The official crew exchange occurred Saturday, December 8 with the transfer of Soyuz seatliners for each crew member. Today's event continues the tradition begun by Expedition One Commander Bill Shepherd in March of this year, when he relinquished command of the ISS to Expedition Two Commander Yury Usachev.

The crews will also continue transferring equipment and supplies from the Raffaello Multi-Purpose Logistics Module to the space station for later use by the Expedition Four Crew. About 4,000 pounds of cargo has already been transferred from Raffaello to the station.

When the day began, the crews had already completed unloading more than 4,600 pounds of food, clothes, supplies and equipment from Raffaello, about 95 percent of the module's total cargo. They also had completed moving the 1,000 pounds of station gear and experiments that were launched in Endeavour's cabin to the orbiting complex.

In repacking the cargo module and Endeavour with unneeded equipment bound for Earth, the crews have loaded more than 1,800 pounds of material into Raffaello, almost half the amount expected by the time the packing is completed. Packing of Raffaello and Endeavour will continue on Thursday. On Friday, Raffaello will be detached from the station and moved back into Endeavour's payload bay for the trip home.

In addition, Endeavour's crew - Commander Dom Gorie, Pilot Mark Kelly, Mission Specialists Linda Godwin and Dan Tani, and offgoing station crew members Commander Frank Culbertson, Pilot Vladimir Dezhurov and Flight Engineer Mikhail Tyurin - assisted the new station Expedition Four crew in replacing most components of a station treadmill today. Expedition Four - Commander Yury Onufrienko and Flight Engineers Dan Bursch and Carl Walz - will use the new treadmill almost daily during their five and a half months aboard the station. The job went smoothly and the crews finished several hours ahead of schedule, loading the old treadmill parts into Raffaello to be refurbished on Earth and, eventually, reused. A third and final scheduled reboost of the station by Endeavour also was completed today. The three boosts performed during the mission, each accomplished by a gradual, hour-long periodic firing of the shuttle steering jets, have raised the station's altitude by a total of almost 9 statute miles. The station's average altitude is now about 241 statute miles.

On Thursday, the crews will continue maintenance work as well as packing, replacing a faulty compressor in a Russian air conditioner on the station. Although the new crew officially took over aboard the station on Saturday, a formal handover ceremony also is planned for the two station crews at 2:04 p.m. CST Thursday.

The crews begin a sleep period at 10:19 p.m. CST today and awaken at 6:19 a.m. CST Thursday.

Flight Day 8 for Endeavour's crew began with a wake-up call from Mission Control offering a rendition of "Fly me to the Moon", sung by Oliver "Ollie" O'Regin for Dan Tani.

The astronauts and cosmonauts have transferred more than 5,000 pounds of supplies and material from Endeavour's middeck, and the Raffaello Multi-Purpose Logistics Module to the station. Today, the crews will focus on packing up the Raffaello module with items bound for a return trip to Earth. Raffaello will be detached from the Unity module of the station onFriday and reberthed in Endeavour's cargo bay for its ride home.

With a one-day extension to the mission, Endeavour's crew - Commander Dom Gorie, Pilot Mark Kelly and Mission Specialists Linda Godwin and Tani - will spend today assisting the Expedition Four crew - Commander Yury Onufrienko and Flight Engineers Expedition Dan Bursch and Carl Walz - with maintenance tasks on board the station, including the replacement of some of the components of the on-board treadmill. Tomorrow, the crew will replace a failed compressor in one of the air conditioners in the Zvezda Service Module. As the Expedition Three crew - Commander Frank Culbertson, Pilot Vladimir Dezhurov and Flight Engineer Mikhail Tyurin - prepare for a return to Earth on Monday, they continue a series of handover briefings to acquaint the newest resident crew with their orbital home.

Endeavour is currently scheduled to undock from the ISS on Saturday morning, with landing planned for early Monday afternoon at the Kennedy Space Center.

The crew has already unloaded almost three tons of station food, clothes, experiments and other gear that was launched aboard Endeavour and Raffaello. Early today, the crews had also completed more than 70 percent of the repacking of Raffaello for the trip home, loading the cargo module with trash and gear from the offgoing station crew's mission such as individualized Soyuz space suits and seat liners.

The 10 astronauts and cosmonauts aboard the shuttle-station complex gathered this afternoon in the station's Destiny Laboratory for a formal change of command ceremony as Expedition Three ends and Expedition Four begins. The new crew officially took over duties aboard the station on Saturday. Expedition Three -- Commander Frank Culbertson, Pilot Vladimir Dezhurov and Flight Engineer Mikhail Tyurin -- spent 117 days as the station crew. Expedition Four -- Commander Yury Onufrienko and Flight Engineers Dan Bursch and Carl Walz -- will remain aboard the complex until May 2002.

On Friday, the crews will close the hatch on Raffaello and Endeavour Pilot Mark Kelly will use the shuttle's robotic arm to detach it from the station and lower it back into the shuttle's payload bay to be brought back to Earth. The crews also will continue maintenance work on the station, replacing a faulty air conditioner compressor. Endeavour will undock from the station on Saturday.

Endeavour and the International Space Station remain in good shape, orbiting at an average altitude of 241 statute miles. Last night, the crew and Mission Control noted a transient problem with one of the shuttle's three inertial measurement units (IMUs), the primary navigation units for the shuttle. Only two of the three IMUs were on line at the time, with the third unit off line to save electricity. The IMU that experienced a problem, designated IMU 2, was immediately taken off line and the third IMU brought on line. IMU 2 has operated well since then, but it has remained off line and is considered failed by flight controllers. The loss of one IMU has no impact on Endeavour's mission, and the other two units are operating in excellent condition. Endeavour could operate well on only one IMU if needed.

Endeavour's crew will begin a sleep period at 9:19 p.m. CST today and awaken at 5:19 a.m. CST on Friday.

Today's agenda for the shuttle crew - Commander Dom Gorie, Pilot Mark Kelly, and Mission Specialists Dan Tani and Linda Godwin - will focus on packing up the Raffaello Multi-Purpose Logistics module with unneeded equipment and supplies for the return flight home. Raffaello will be detached from the Unity module of the International Space Station tomorrow and reberthed in Endeavour's cargo bay for its ride back to Earth. Endeavour is currently scheduled to undock from the station on Saturday morning, with landing planned for early Monday afternoon at the Kennedy Space Center.

The Expedition Three crew will also continue handover activities with the Expedition Four crew - Commander Yury Onufrienko, and Flight Engineers Dan Bursch and Carl Walz.

A ceremony to mark the change of command from Culbertson to Onufrienko will take place at 3:09 p.m. CST. Culbertson, in his 125th day in space, will formally hand command of the space station on to Onufrienko, it's newest commander. The official crew exchange occurred Saturday, December 8 with the transfer of Soyuz seatliners for each crew member. Today's event continues the tradition begun by Expedition One Commander Bill Shepherd in March of this year, when he relinquished command of the ISS to Expedition Two Commander Yury Usachev.

With the crew completing the stowage of Raffaello for the trip home, work to replace a faulty compressor in an air conditioner unit in the Zvezda Service Module was deferred until tomorrow morning, concurrent with the closing of the hatch to the Raffaello module prior to its detachment from the ISS.

Raffaello has been loaded with unneeded equipment, as well as gear from the returning Expedition Three crewmembers, including their custom Soyuz spacesuits and seat liners. The hatch between Raffaello and the space station will be closed about 10 a.m. CST today once final transfers are complete. About 1:20 p.m., Pilot Mark Kelly and Mission Specialist Linda Godwin will begin the process of detaching Raffaello from the station using the shuttle's 50-foot long robotic arm. The process of removing Raffaello from the station and carefully placing it back in Endeavour's payload bay is expected to be complete shortly after 3:30 p.m.

The two station commanders - Frank Culbertson and Yury Onufrienko - will continue their handover briefings even as they prepare for Endeavour's scheduled departure Saturday morning. Expedition Three crew member Vladimir Dezhurov will join Onufrienko in some final maintenance work on the station this morning replacing a faulty compressor in an air conditioner unit in the Zvezda Service Module.

All of the crew members - Endeavour Commander Dom Gorie, Kelly, Godwin and Dan Tani, along with Expedition Three crew members Culbertson, Dezhurov and Mikhail Tyurin and the Expedition Four crew, Onufrienko, Dan Bursch and Carl Walz - will meet late in the day today for a final briefing in preparation for Endeavour's departure tomorrow. Following final farewells tomorrow morning, about 7:30 a.m., the hatches between Endeavour and the station will be closed for a final time during this mission. Endeavour will undock from the station at 10 a.m. Saturday, and after a brief fly-around of the station, a final engine burn will mark Endeavour's departure from the station, leaving the Expedition Four crew on board for a planned five-month stay.

Endeavour's crew was awakened at 5:12 a.m. today by a traditional Russian song, "My Sweetheart," played for Onufrienko, Dezhurov and Tyurin. The Expedition Four crew was awakened about a half-hour later with a wake-up tone on board the station.

Endeavour and the International Space Station remain in good shape, orbiting at an average altitude of 241 statute miles. Wednesday, the crew and flight control teams noted a transient problem with one of the shuttle's three inertial measurement units (IMUs), the primary navigation units for the shuttle. That IMU, designated IMU2, experienced about an hour-long "drift rate," subsequently returning to normal operation. Flight controllers have taken IMU2 off line and declared it "failed," though it has performed normally since the initial problem was observed. The remaining two IMUs on board are performing well and the loss of a single IMU has no impact on Endeavour's mission or planned landing. Endeavour could operate well on only one IMU if required.

Endeavour will leave the station with a new crew and almost three tons of new food, supplies, experiments and equipment. Endeavour will bring home the offgoing Expedition Three station crew -- Commander Frank Culbertson, Pilot Vladimir Dezhurov and Flight Engineer Mikhail Tyurin -- and more than two tons of unneeded station gear, food containers, clothes, and other cargo. The station's Expedition Four crew -- Commander Yury Onufrienko and Flight Engineers Dan Bursch and Carl Walz -- will remain aboard the outpost until May 2002.

Endeavour Pilot Mark Kelly used the shuttle's robotic arm to detach the Raffaello logistics carrier from the station today and reberth it in Endeavour's payload bay. Raffaello was latched back into the shuttle bay at 4:44 p.m. CST. This morning, Dezhurov and Onufrienko worked together to replace a faulty air conditioner compressor in the station's Zvezda living quarters module as the crews completed cargo transfer activities.

Flight controllers are planning slight changes to Endeavour's departure from the station Saturday, allowing time for a small jet firing by the shuttle to boost the station's future path away from a piece of space debris that could pass near the complex on Sunday. Mission Control was notified early today that a spent Russian rocket upper stage launched in the 1970s could pass within three miles of the station if Endeavour did not perform the engine firing. With the shuttle reboost now planned on Friday, the station is predicted to instead pass more than 40 miles away from the debris on Sunday.

The new plan for Saturday's activities will have the station and shuttle crews bid farewell to one another and close hatches between the two spacecraft at about 7:30 a.m. CST. Endeavour will pulse its steering jets gradually for about 30 minutes beginning at about 8:55 a.m. CST to raise the station's altitude by almost three-quarters of a mile. Endeavour will then undock from the station at about 10:37 a.m. CST. Because of the changes, Endeavour will not perform a full-circle flyaround of the station after undocking. Instead, Endeavour will undock from the station and fly only a quarter circle of the complex, to a point about 400 feet directly above the station where it will fire its engines at about 11:20 a.m. CST to depart the vicinity of the oribting outpost.

Endeavour's crew will begin a sleep period today at 8:19 p.m. CST and awaken at 4:17 a.m. CST Saturday.

Endeavour is bringing home the Expedition Three crew - Commander Frank Culbertson, Pilot Vladimir Dezhurov and Flight Engineer Mikhail Tyurin - who have been in space since they launched to the station on August 10. In addition to bringing home the Expedition Three crew, Endeavour carried to orbit both a new crew and almost three tons of supplies and experiments to the station. That new crew, Expedition Four Commander Yury Onufrienko and Flight Engineers Dan Bursch and Carl Walz, will remain aboard the space station until May.

The Endeavour astronauts were awakened for their 11th day in space at 4:17 a.m. by the song "Where I Come From," by Alan Jackson, for Pilot Mark Kelly from his family.

Overnight, flight controllers decided to execute an additional reboost of the space station, designed to add about three-quarters of a mile to the station's altitude. On Friday, flight controllers received word from U.S. Space Command that a spent Russian rocket upper stage, launched in the 1970s, could pass within three miles of the station. With today's scheduled reboost, beginning at 8:55 a.m. and using Endeavour's small firing jets for about 20 minutes, the space debris is now expected to pass more than 40 miles away from the station.

With Kelly at the controls, Endeavour is scheduled to undock from the station about 10:37 a.m., concluding more than a week of docked operations. Because today's scheduled reboost will use additional propellant, Endeavour will not perform a full-circle flyaround of the station after undocking. Instead, the shuttle will undock from the station, performing a quarter circle flyaround of the complex to a point about 400 feet directly above the station where it will fire its engines in a final separation burn at 11:20 a.m. beginning its departure from the orbiting outpost.

On the station, all systems are functioning well, including a newly refurbished air conditioning unit in the Russian Zvezda Service Module which received a new compressor yesterday. The air conditioner was tested last night and is functioning normally.

The STS-108 and Expedition Three crewmembers will take time this afternoon to discuss the progress of their mission with KGO-TV in San Francisco, the Fox News

Network and Associated Press in an interview scheduled to begin at 3:09 p.m. today on NASA TV. The crew also will enjoy several hours of scheduled off duty time today prior to gearing up for Monday's scheduled landing.

Homecoming at the Kennedy Space Center is scheduled at 11:55 a.m. Central time Monday. The early weather forecast calls for possible scattered and broken clouds and thunderstorms within 30 nautical miles of the landing strip.

Endeavour undocked from the station at 11:28 a.m. CST as the spacecraft flew 240 statute miles above the Indian Ocean off the Australian coast. Pilot Mark Kelly flew Endeavour through a half-circle of the station before firing jets to leave the vicinity.

Before undocking, Endeavour's jets were fired in a series of small pulses beginning at 8:55 a.m. CST to raise the altitude of the station about three quarters of a mile. The maneuver ensures the station will fly well clear of an old Russian rocket body that had been predicted to potentially pass close to the complex later this weekend. The final small reboost by the shuttle, coupled with three larger reboosts done earlier in the week, means the station was raised a total of more than nine statute miles by Endeavour.

The new station crew, Expedition Four Commander Yury Onufrienko and Flight Engineers Dan Bursch and Carl Walz, said goodbye to Endeavour's crew and the departing Expedition Three crew and closed hatches between the spacecraft at 7:16 a.m. CST. Now en route home, Expedition Three Commander Frank Culbertson, Pilot Vladimir Dezhurov and Flight Engineer Mikhail Tyurin completed 117 days as the primary station crew and spent 125 days aboard the station overall. When Endeavour lands on Monday, they will have spent a total of 129 days in space.

The crew members aboard Endeavour had several hours off duty after departing the station, a break from a very busy pace moving tons of supplies between the shuttle and station during the past week. Sunday's activities will focus on checking out systems used during descent and making preparations for a landing on Monday. Endeavour is set to land at the Kennedy Space Center, FL, about 11:55 a.m. CST Monday. The weather forecast predicts generally acceptable conditions except for a chance of rain showers in the vicinity of the landing site. Flight controllers determined today that all three Inertial Measurement Units on Endeavour, the primary navigation systems for the shuttle, would be usable for landing. One of the three units had been taken off line two days ago due to a brief fault. However, the unit has worked well since that time. Even if the problem were to recur, it would not affect Endeavour's entry and landing since the shuttle can operate with only one such unit if necessary. Endeavour's crew will begin a sleep period at 7:19 p.m. CST and awaken at 3:19 a.m. CST Sunday.

Endeavour is scheduled to return to the Kennedy Space Center about 11:55 a.m. CST tomorrow, weather permitting. Preliminary weather forecasts predict generally acceptable conditions at the landing site, with a chance of rain showers in the vicinity. Entry Flight Director LeRoy Cain and his team of flight controllers will oversee the crew's checkout of flight control systems and surfaces this morning from Mission Control. They also will receive updated weather forecasts for Monday's planned landing.

On what should be their final full day in space, Endeavour's crew - Commander Dom Gorie, Pilot Mark Kelly, Mission Specialists Linda Godwin and Dan Tani, along with the returning Expedition Three crewmembers Frank Culbertson, Vladimir Dezhurov and Mikhail Tyurin - were awakened at 3:14 a.m. by the song "I'll Be Home For Christmas," sung by Bing Crosby.

About 9 a.m. today, Endeavour's crew will deploy a small satellite called STARSHINE 2 from a canister located in the payload bay. More than 30,000 students from 660 schools in 26 countries will track STARSHINE 2 as it orbits the Earth for eight months. The students, who helped polish STARSHINE'S 845 mirrors, will use the information they collect to calculate the density of the Earth's upper atmosphere.

Endeavour's middeck will carry home the results of several experiments completed during Expedition Three's stay on the station. These include the Advanced Protein Crystallization Facility, the Dynamically Controlled Protein Crystal Growth experiment and cells from the Cellular Biotechnology Operations Support System (CBOSS). The CBOSS equipment aboard the space station will remain active during Expedition Four, growing ovarian and colon cancer cells, as well as kidney cells in microgravity.

Experiments in Endeavour's payload bay also will be coming home, to be returned to investigators around the world. The Multiple Application Customized Hitchhiker-1 (MACH-1) is carrying a wide array of experiments, including the Prototype Synchrotron Radiation Detector, the Collisions Into Dust Experiment-2, the Capillary Pump Loop, and the Space Experiment Module (SEM). The SEM is carrying experiments from Argentina, Portugal, Morocco and Australia, as well experiments from U.S. schoolchildren. Several other canisters in Endeavour's payload bay are also carrying student experiments.

Concluding a successful mission to the International Space Station, today's landing brings to an end a voyage of more than 4.8 million miles for Endeavour and marks the 57th shuttle landing at the Florida spaceport.

On Endeavour's flight deck are Commander Dom Gorie, Pilot Mark Kelly and Mission Specialists Linda Godwin and Dan Tani. On the middeck, strapped into recumbent chairs to reduce the effects of reentry, is the Expedition Three crew, Commander Frank Culbertson, Pilot Vladimir Dezhurov and Flight Engineer Mikhail Tyurin.

Following routine medical examinations, the STS-108 and Expedition Three crewmembers will enjoy a reunion with their families. All seven crewmembers are expected to return to a public welcome home at Hangar 990 at Houston's Ellington Field about 1 p.m. Wednesday.

During their 12 days in orbit, the STS-108 crew worked with both the returning Expedition Three and newly-arrived Expedition Four crews to transfer more than three tons of material, hardware and supplies from Endeavour to the station. Godwin and Tani also conducted a spacewalk to install thermal protection on motor assemblies that control the motion of the station's large solar arrays.

On board the International Space Station, the Expedition Four crew - Commander Yury Onufrienko and Flight Engineers Dan Bursch and Carl Walz - are settling in for a planned five-month stay on orbit, unloading the recently arrived Progress resupply vehicle.

The first KSC landing opportunity today would begin with a deorbit burn of Endeavour's large orbital maneuvering engines at 10:50 a.m. resulting in an 11:55 a.m. central time (12:55 p.m. eastern) landing. If weather precludes landing on that first opportunity, there is a second opportunity, one orbit later, with an engine firing at 12:28 p.m. resulting in a 1:32 p.m. central (2:32 p.m. eastern) touchdown. The alternate landing site at Edwards Air Force Base in California has not been called up for launch support today.

Just before 7 a.m., the crew will begin its formal deorbit preparations and by 8:10 a.m., Endeavour's payload bay doors should be closed in preparation for reentry. The crewmembers will begin climbing into their seats at 9:50 a.m., with a final "go, no go" call from the Entry Flight Director expected about 10:30 a.m. A landing today in Florida would conclude a voyage of more than 4.8 million miles for Endeavour and a 129-day stay in orbit for Culbertson, Dezhurov and Tyurin.

The first human spacecraft to launch on an Independence Day holiday, Discovery has begun a journey to resupply and service the International Space Station. Commander Steve Lindsey, Pilot Mark Kelly and Mission Specialists Mike Fossum, Lisa Nowak, Stephanie Wilson, Piers Sellers and Thomas Reiter, a European Space Agency astronaut, lifted off at 1:38 p.m. CDT. The launch followed a flawless countdown.

During the next 12 days, Discovery’s crew will demonstrate techniques for inspecting and protecting the shuttle’s thermal protection system, restore the station to a three-person crew for the first time since May 2003, and replace critical hardware needed for future station assembly. The crew is planned to conduct two spacewalks during the mission. If supplies allow, managers may extend Discovery's flight by an additional day, a day that will be used by the crew to conduct a third spacewalk.

A system of new and upgraded ground-based cameras, radar and airborne cameras aboard high altitude aircraft documented Discovery's launch. That imagery, along with data to be gathered from in-flight inspections, will be used to ensure Discovery's heat shield is in good condition. The in-flight inspections will be performed by the crew using the shuttle's robotic arm, an extension boom and laser system as well as photography to be taken from the station of a back flip the shuttle will perform as it approaches for docking.

Moments after main engine cutoff, less than nine minutes after liftoff, Fossum and Wilson used handheld video and digital still cameras to document the external tank after it separated from the shuttle. That imagery, as well as imagery gathered by cameras in the shuttle’s umbilical well where the tank was connected, will be transmitted to the ground for review.

As Discovery lifted off, the International Space Station was 220 miles above the southern Pacific Ocean, south of Tasmania. Aboard the outpost, Expedition 13 Commander Pavel Vinogradov and Flight Engineer and NASA Science Officer Jeff Williams watched the launch via a television transmission from Mission Control. Discovery is set to dock to the complex at about 9:51 a.m. CDT July 6.

The shuttle crew will test Discovery’s robot arm tomorrow and then use it to grasp a 50-foot long boom extension, called the Orbiter Boom Sensor System. That boom holds the laser system and TV cameras they will use to inspect the shuttle’s wings and heat shield.

During the two spacewalks, Sellers and Fossum will test the capability of the boom extension to be used as a work platform from which repairs could be performed to the shuttle heat shield. They also will repair a cable system on the station’s rail car, a system that will be a base for the station's robotic arm for future assembly work. If the mission is extended by a day, the third spacewalk will be used to test techniques under development for repair of the reinforced carbon-carbon that makes up the heat shield on the shuttle wing edges.

Carried inside the Leonardo multi-purpose logistics module in Discovery’s cargo bay and elsewhere on the shuttle, about 14 tons of hardware and supplies is on its way to the space station. Discovery's crew begins an eight-hour sleep period at 7:38 p.m. CDT. The astronauts will awaken at 3:38 a.m. CDT Wednesday to begin their first full day in orbit.

Today the crew will focus on thermal protection system inspections, preparing for docking to the International Space Station and getting spacesuits ready for two and perhaps three spacewalks.

Commander Steve Lindsey, Pilot Mark Kelly and Mission Specialists Mike Fossum, Lisa Nowak, Stephanie Wilson, Piers Sellers and Thomas Reiter got their wakeup call at 4:08 a.m. CDT, allowing them an extra 30 minutes of sleep after their first day in space ran long. The wakeup song was “Lift Every Voice and Sing” performed by the New Galveston Chorale.

Four crewmembers will spend much of the day looking for damage to Discovery's thermal protection system. Lindsey, Kelly, Fossum and Nowak will use the Orbiter Boom Sensor System (OBSS), a 50-foot boom on the end of the shuttle's robotic Canadarm, to look at the wings' leading edges and the nose cap.

The task involves about 6˝ hours of intense work for the crew members. Actual data takes will total about an hour, 20 minutes for each wing and the nose cap. The rest of that time is devoted to very careful movement of the Canadarm and the OBSS.

Later, after lunch, Nowak and Wilson will return the OBSS to its berth on the starboard sill of Discovery's cargo bay. Then they and Fossum will use cameras on the shuttle arm to photograph the outside of Discovery's cabin. That activity should take about an hour.

Wilson also will take digital hand-held camera photos of the orbital maneuvering system pods at the base of the shuttle's vertical tail fin.

Photos and sensor readings from the shuttle, as well as photos of launch and ascent from more than 100 ground-based and airborne cameras and radar and instrument data, will be reviewed by experts on the ground. The data, photos by the station crew and information from subsequent arm surveys at the station and after undocking, will be used to determine if Discovery sustained damage during launch and ascent or in space, to ensure that it is safe for the shuttle to re-enter the atmosphere to land.

In other activities today, Wilson and Reiter will get items on the middeck ready for transfer to the station. Spacewalkers Fossum and Sellers, helped by Kelly, the intravehicular officer who will coach the spacewalkers, will check out spacesuits.

Nowak and Sellers will extend the shuttle docking ring which will help secure Discovery to the station. Just before the shuttle crew goes to bed, Kelly and Sellers will check out and prepare docking tools, including laptop computers.

At 3:30 a.m., Discovery was trailing the station by 9,573 statute miles and closing at a rate of 870 statute miles per orbit. Docking is scheduled for 9:52 a.m. Thursday.

Today the space station crew, Commander Pavel Vinogradov and NASA Science Officer Jeff Williams, will continue to prepare the orbiting laboratory for Discovery's arrival. They will ready the digital cameras with 400mm and 800mm lenses they will use during Discovery’s approach to take high-resolution photos of the shuttle's heat shield. They also will pressurize the Pressurized Mating Adapter 2 at the end of the U.S. laboratory Destiny, where Discovery is scheduled to dock.

The several hours of inspection began just after 6:00 a.m. when Mission Specialists Lisa Nowak and Stephanie Wilson verified proper operation of the Space Shuttle’s robotic arm, then maneuvered it to lift the 50-foot-long OBSS from the starboard sill of the payload bay.

Assisted by Commander Steve Lindsey, Pilot Mark Kelly and Mission Specialist Mike Fossum, Nowak and Wilson began a slow and steady examination of the reinforced carbon-carbon panels along the leading edge of Discovery’s starboard wing just before 8:30 a.m., looking for any evidence of damage.

The inspection using the Laser Dynamic Range Imager, Laser Camera System, and Intensified Television Camera on the end of the boom continued across the shuttle’s nose cap and port wing. After returning the OBSS to its berth, Nowak, Wilson and Fossum spent an hour using the cameras on the shuttle robot arm to scan the outside of the crew cabin.

While the survey proceeded, Mission Specialist Piers Sellers completed the setup of on board computers and cameras and Mission Specialist Thomas Reiter of the European Space Agency prepared Discovery’s middeck for the planned transfer of supplies onto the International Space Station. The first item to be transferred after docking, scheduled for 9:52 a.m. Thursday, is Reiter’s customized seat liner for the Soyuz vehicle; that will make him an official member of the station’s Expedition 13 crew, and the first ISS crewmember who is neither an American nor a Russian.

Sellers and Fossum, who also installed the centerline camera in Discovery’s docking mechanism, completed a checkout of the spacesuits they will wear during scheduled spacewalks on Flight Days 5 and 7. The EVAs will evaluate the combination of ISS robot arm and OBSS as a work platform for astronauts repairing a damaged shuttle orbiter and restore the station’s Mobile Transporter to full operation to support continued station assembly.

On board ISS Commander Pavel Vinogradov and Flight Engineer Jeff Williams prepared the digital cameras with 400mm and 800mm lenses they will use to take high-resolution photos of the shuttle's heat shield when it flies a nose over tail somersault at a range of 600 feet below the station. They also prepared Pressurized Mating Adapter 2, at the forward end of the U.S. laboratory Destiny, where Discovery will dock tomorrow morning.

The astronauts on Discovery were scheduled to be awakened at 2:38 a.m. CDT Thursday to being final preparations for the docking with the ISS.

It will mark the first time since May 2003 that more than two long-duration crew members have called the orbiting laboratory home.

Discovery, with Commander Steve Lindsey, Pilot Mark Kelly and Mission Specialists Mike Fossum, Lisa Nowak, Stephanie Wilson, Piers Sellers and Thomas Reiter aboard, is scheduled to dock with the station at 9:52 a.m. CDT.

Shortly after the welcome by station Commander Pavel Vinogradov and NASA Science Officer Jeff Williams and a mandatory safety briefing, Reiter will transfer his seat liner to the Soyuz spacecraft attached to the station, making him an official station crewmember. Reiter is a European Space Agency astronaut from Germany, flying under a contract between ESA and the Russian Federal Space Agency.

During Discovery’s approach to the station, Lindsey will pilot the shuttle on what amounts to a back flip, called the Rendezvous Pitch Maneuver. At about 600 feet below the station, the flip will give Vinogradov and Williams a chance to photograph the thermal protection tiles on the bottom of Discovery. Using digital cameras with 400mm and 800mm lenses, they will take a carefully planned series of photos of the shuttle's underside.

The images will be downlinked for study by experts on the ground, starting with the more detailed images from the 800mm lens. More 800mm photos will be taken than during Discovery's approach during STS-114. One increased photo emphasis will be looking for protruding gap fillers, like those removed by STS-114 spacewalker Steve Robinson last year.

These photos and other data, including images from more than 100 cameras on the ground, in aircraft and on the shuttle, as well as data from the shuttle arm and the Orbital Boom Sensor System (OBSS) attached to it, will be used, along with data from subsequent surveys, to make sure that Discovery sustained no major damage on launch, ascent and in orbit.

About three hours after docking, both crews get to work with more robotic operations to prepare for additional surveys. Nowak, Wilson and Williams will operate the space station robotic arm, Canadarm2, from inside the Destiny Lab.

They will use the arm to lift the OBSS from Discovery's payload bay sill and hand it over to the shuttle arm, operated by Lindsey and Fossum. Clearance restraints around the shuttle’s docking mechanism do not allow the shuttle arm to grapple the boom on its own.

Transfer of cargo from the shuttle's middeck including spacesuits will begin shortly after docking. At least two spacewalks are scheduled, one on Saturday and another on Monday. A third may be done if the mission is extended a day.

Discovery’s crew was awakened at 2:38 a.m. Thursday by "Daniel," performed by Elton John and dedicated to Reiter. The station crew was awakened at the same time by its standard wakeup tone.

European Space Agency astronaut Thomas Reiter of Germany was delivered as the newest member of ISS Expedition 13 just hours after Space Shuttle Discovery docked at the station’s Pressurized Mating Adapter 2 at 9:52 a.m. CDT, as the two ships flew above the south Pacific Ocean south of Pitcairn Island.

Commander Steve Lindsey piloted Discovery’s approach to ISS, halting 600 feet directly below the station to perform the rendezvous pitch maneuver: the shuttle was commanded to do a nose-over-tail somersault so ISS Commander Pavel Vinogradov and Flight Engineer Jeff Williams could photograph the thermal protection system tiles on the orbiter’s underside. Imagery experts on the ground will study the high-resolution still pictures for evidence of any damage to the insulating tiles.

Lindsey and his crew—Pilot Mark Kelly and Mission Specialists Mike Fossum, Lisa Nowak, Stephanie Wilson, Piers Sellers and Reiter—greeted the station crewmembers when the hatches between the vehicles were opened at 11:30 a.m. CDT.

After Vinogradov’s safety briefing for the shuttle crew, he helped Reiter install his customized Soyuz seat liner into the Russian rescue vehicle and check his pressurized Sokol suit, finalizing Reiter’s transfer from Discovery to ISS. Other first-day transfers from Discovery included the spacesuits that Sellers and Fossum will wear on their spacewalks out of the Quest airlock on Flight Days 5 and 7.

In preparation for the first EVA, Nowak, Wilson and Williams lifted the Orbiter Boom Sensor System with the station’s robotic arm and handed it over to the shuttle’s robotic arm. During the first spacewalk Sellers and Fossum will simulate orbiter repair tasks while attached to the OBSS/shuttle arm combination to test that 100-foot-long construction crane as a work platform.

On the second spacewalk the astronauts will deliver a spare Pump Module to an external stowage platform before replacing a damaged power and data cable reel assembly in the station’s truss. The repair will allow the Mobile Transporter to move along the truss during installation of new truss segments on future shuttle assembly missions.

The first task of the day will be the relocation of the Leonardo Multi-Purpose Logistics Module (MPLM) from the shuttle payload bay onto the station’s Unity Module. Mission Specialists Lisa Nowak, Stephanie Wilson, Mike Fossum and Piers Sellers will use the station robotic arm, Canadarm2, to maneuver the module, with help from pilot Mark Kelly.

Once successfully mated to its temporary position on the station, shuttle Commander Steve Lindsey and new Expedition 13 Flight Engineer Thomas Reiter will conduct leak checks and enter the pressurized cargo container. Wilson will lead the transfer activities, which are scheduled to continue until next Thursday.

Later, using the shuttle robotic arm and boom system, Kelly, Nowak and Wilson will conduct additional inspections of the orbiter’s thermal protection system. They will target a few specific areas on the shuttle’s nose cap that were missed on the initial scans, as well as two gap fillers that appear to be protruding from Discovery’s underside. They also intend to get a closer look at a piece of fabric near the shuttle nose.

Fossum and Sellers will make preparations for Saturday’s planned spacewalk. They will configure tools and the U.S. airlock Quest for the spacewalk. They will repair the station's mobile transporter and test the capability of the robotic arm boom extension to carry spacewalkers. The results of that test will help engineers understand the feasibility of using the arm for thermal system inspections and repairs if needed on later flights.

The crew has time set aside at the end of the day for a review of the spacewalk procedures.

The newly augmented space station crew, including Flight Engineer Jeff Williams and Commander Pavel Vinogradov, will work closely with the shuttle crew, assisting with transfer activities and robotic arm operations.

Some crewmembers will talk with journalists. Lindsey and Kelly will chat in the morning with radio reporters from CBS, Fox, ABC and National Public Radio. Toward the end of the day, the Expedition crew will speak with CNN, CBS News and the Associated Press.

The space shuttle crew awoke at 2:14 a.m. CDT by the Beatles’ "Good Day Sunshine" dedicated to first time spaceflyer Lisa Nowak. The Expedition 13 crew awoke 30 minutes later with their standard wake up tone.

Mission Specialists Piers Sellers and Mike Fossum turned their spacesuits to battery power to officially start the spacewalk at 8:17 a.m. CDT. After they configured their tools and safety tethers, they moved to the S0 Truss and installed a blade blocker in the zenith Interface Umbilical Assembly to protect the undamaged power, data and video cable. Then they rerouted that cable through the IUA so the Mobile Transporter rail car could be moved into position on the truss for replacement of the Trailing Umbilical System containing the severed power and data cable during a spacewalk Monday.

The remainder of today’s spacewalk was devoted to testing the combination of space shuttle robotic arm and Orbiter Boom Sensor System as a platform for spacewalking astronauts to make repairs to a damaged orbiter. Sellers got into a foot restraint on the OBSS, almost 100 feet from where the shuttle arm is attached to the payload bay sill, and performed a set of motions designed to see how the arm/OBSS handled the forces generated by those movements; Fossum stood nearby and reported his observations of the arm/OBSS’ movements.

Then Fossum joined Sellers on the end of the OBSS for another round of demonstrations, with measurements again taken by a load cell mounted under the foot restraint. For the last measurement the arm maneuvered Fossum into position so he could push against the end of the P1 Truss.

Sellers, wearing the spacesuit with red stripes, and Fossum, wearing the white spacesuit, re-entered the station and started pressurizing the airlock at 3:48 p.m., concluding the first of three spacewalks planned for the mission. Today’s EVA was the fourth of Sellers’ career, and the first for Fossum.

Pilot Mark Kelly served as intravehicular crewmember, keeping the spacewalkers on time and relaying information from Mission Control in Houston, while Mission Specialists Lisa Nowak and Stephanie Wilson and Expedition 13 Flight Engineer Jeff Williams operated the shuttle robot arm and Discovery Commander Steve Lindsey monitored their activities while transferring water onto ISS.

During the EVA ISS Commander Pavel Vinogradov and Flight Engineer Thomas Reiter unloaded cargo from the Multipurpose Logistics Module. Today’s transfers included a new oxygen generator, to be installed in the Destiny laboratory in the coming months, and a Minus Eighty Degree Laboratory Freezer for ISS, which will provide low temperature storage for lab supplies and for experiment samples awaiting return to Earth.

Delivery of cargo from the MPLM onto ISS will be the centerpiece of activity on orbit Sunday, and the second of two spacewalks will take place Monday morning at 7:13 a.m. CDT.

Also Saturday, Mission Managers reported clearing for entry all but one area of the orbiter’s thermal protection system that engineers had been looking at closely. The remaining area, a protruding gap filler near the external tank umbilical doors, needs further analysis, according to Steve Poulos, Orbiter Project Office Manager. The outlook was favorable for clearing that area, as well, Poulos said, but image analysts will be working through the night Saturday to finish looking at it.

Overall, the spacecraft thermal protection system had relatively few “dings” and Chairman of the Mission Management Team John Shannon said that Discovery was by far the "cleanest" in terms of damage to the heat shield.

Spacewalkers Piers Sellers and Mike Fossum have two major tasks. First they will work to ensure that the second power and data cable linking the mobile transporter to the rest of the station is spared the fate of the mobile transporter's other trailing umbilical system cable. It was inadvertently severed by its safety cutter last December. The second activity is to test the capability of the shuttle's robotic arm and its 50-foot extension to act as a platform for spacewalkers making repairs.

Expedition 12 crewmembers tried to install a safety bolt to protect the remaining cable. They were unable to insert the bolt, so they removed the cable from the emergency cutter.

Sellers and Fossum will install a device to block the cutter blade. If that doesn't work, they'll install a new unit, called an interface umbilical assembly, this one without a blade. Once they reinstall the cable, the mobile transporter will again be able to move the station's robotic arm along the rails on the station's main truss. The arm is scheduled to be moved during the Monday spacewalk.

For the test of the arm as a repair platform, Sellers will work on the end of the 50- foot extension, called the orbital boom sensor system. Then both spacewalkers will simulate working motions at the end of the extension. That will be done in at least three arm positions.

Sellers will be the lead spacewalker and wear the spacesuit with red stripes. He did three spacewalks in October 2002 during the STS-112 mission of Atlantis to the station. On that mission he helped install the station's starboard one (S1) truss.

Fossum will wear the all-white spacesuit. He is making his first spaceflight. Discovery Pilot Mark Kelly will serve as the intravehicular officer, coaching and helping the spacewalkers from inside the station-shuttle complex.

Mission Specialists Lisa Nowak and Stephanie Wilson will operate the robotic arms during all three of the mission's spacewalks. They will maneuver the shuttle's Canadarm with its extension during the first, scheduled to begin at 8:13 a.m. CDT Saturday. They will use the station's Canadarm2 during the second spacewalk on Monday and the third on Wednesday.

Expedition 13 Flight Engineer and NASA Science Officer Jeff Williams and Discovery Commander Steve Lindsey also will help out during the spacewalk.

Meanwhile Thomas Reiter, the European Space Agency astronaut from Germany who became part of the Expedition 13 crew shortly after docking, will work with station commander Pavel Vinogradov to transfer cargo and equipment from the Leonardo multi-purpose logistics module.

In staggered wake ups, the shuttle crew arose at 2:08 a.m. CDT to the sound of "God of Wonders" by Marc Byrd and Steve Hindalong. The music was selected for Fossum by his family. The station crew was awakened about 30 minutes later.

Some preparations for the second spacewalk, on Monday, also are on today's plan.

The Discovery crew was awakened at 2:08 a.m. CDT with "I Have a Dream", by ABBA, for shuttle pilot Mark Kelly. It was requested by his children. The station’s crew woke up at 2:38 a.m. CDT for the third day of joint operations.

Every member of the two crews would have at least some involvement in the cargo activities throughout the day. Mission specialist Stephanie Wilson is leading the transfer effort, which will ultimately relocate the more than 7,400 lbs of equipment and supplies that were brought up in the cargo module named "Leonardo" and 1,800 lbs from the shuttle’s middeck.

Flight controllers reported that 14 percent of equipment and supplies from the MPLM has already been transferred, including the Minus Eighty Lab Freezer and the 1,400 lb Oxygen Generation System that will expand the station’s ability to support up to six crewmembers. Six percent of equipment from the shuttle’s middeck has been relocated thus far.

All nine crewmembers will participate in a joint news conference. They will field questions from U.S. media at NASA centers and journalists at the European Astronaut Center in Cologne, Germany.

Throughout the day, Mission Specialists Mike Fossum and Piers Sellers will work on post- and pre-extravehicular activity tasks. The two completed the first spacewalk of the mission on Saturday and are preparing for the second, scheduled for Monday. They will make configurations to the Quest Airlock and prepare the tools needed for this second trip into the vacuum of space. The rest of the Discovery's crew, Commander Steve Lindsey, Kelly, Wilson, and Mission Specialist Lisa Nowak will all participate in an EVA procedures review.

The astronauts also made preparations for the second spacewalk during joint docked operations, scheduled for Monday morning.

Leonardo, the Multipurpose Logistics Module that rode to orbit in the shuttle payload bay, launched with more than 7,400 pounds of new space station equipment and crew supplies. Today’s operations included transfer of a new heat exchanger for the Common Cabin Air Assembly, a component of the ISS environmental control system which collects condensate out of the air, and a spare U.S. spacewalk suit and emergency jet pack.

As they deliver the module’s contents onto the station, the astronauts are also refilling Leonardo with almost 4,400 pounds of material no longer needed on the station. That includes experiment samples, trash, and broken equipment.

For several hours today Mission Specialists Piers Sellers and Mike Fossum refreshed the systems of their spacesuits and prepared tools and equipment for tomorrow’s EVA. During that planned six and a half hour excursion, scheduled to begin at 7:13 a.m. CDT, they will deliver a spare cooling system Pump Module to a stowage platform and replace the Trailing Umbilical System on the nadir side of the S0 Truss. That replacement will give the station’s Mobile Transporter rail car a redundant pair of power, data and video cables so it can translate along the truss in support of future station assembly tasks.

Earlier today, Discovery Commander Steve Lindsey, Pilot Mark Kelly, and Mission Specialists Lisa Nowak, Stephanie Wilson, Fossum and Sellers joined Expedition 13 Commander Pavel Vinogradov and Flight Engineers Jeff Williams and Thomas Reiter to answer questions about their missions from reporters at NASA centers and at the European Astronaut Center in Cologne, Germany.

Late today John Shannon, the deputy shuttle program manager and chairman of the STS-121 Mission Management Team, reported that mission managers cleared Discovery for its return to Earth, declaring that the shuttle’s heat shield was free from any damage. The crew will conduct another inspection later in the mission looking for any other evidence of damage done by orbital debris prior to landing.

Discovery’s crew began its sleep period just after 5 p.m. CDT and will be awakened at 1:08 a.m. CDT Monday to begin the seventh day of the flight.

Spacewalkers Piers Sellers and Mike Fossum exited the Quest module’s airlock at 7:14 a.m. and climbed down into the shuttle payload bay, where they lifted the Pump Module from its stowage platform so Mission Specialists Lisa Nowak and Stephanie Wilson could grapple it with the station’s 58-foot-long robotic arm. While the arm moved the module to its destination, Sellers and Fossum moved to the S0 Truss segment to begin work on the primary task of the EVA, replacement of the nadir-side Trailing Umbilical System (TUS).

A TUS contains a power, data and video cable that serves the Mobile Transporter as it moves along the station’s truss; the nadir TUS cable was inadvertently severed late last year and required replacement. As the first step in that process Sellers replaced the Interface Umbilical Assembly - the component containing the cutter - with a new IUA, one without a blade.

By that time, Canadarm2 reached External Stowage Platform 2 on the forward side of Quest with the Pump Module; Sellers and Fossum moved to the platform to receive the module from the arm, secured it to the storage platform, and returned to the TUS work site.

The spacewalkers removed the damaged TUS from within the S0 Truss, and Fossum carried it to the payload bay while riding the station arm. When he arrived, Sellers removed the new TUS from the payload bay platform, and the two swapped cable reels. Sellers stowed the old TUS on the cross-bay carrier while the arm moved Fossum back to the truss work site, where Sellers rejoined his crewmate to complete installation of the TUS and properly route its power, data and video cable through the IUA.

At two points during the spacewalk Fossum paused to take care of a loose connection of the emergency jet thruster backpack on Sellers’ spacesuit, securing it the first time with a safety tether.

The spacewalkers closed the hatch and began to repressurize Quest to end the spacewalk at 2:01 p.m. to conclude a six-hour, 47-minute excursion; the combined time spent spacewalking on two EVAs on this mission so far is 14 hours, 18 minutes. A third spacewalk, devoted to testing potential repair techniques and materials, is scheduled for Wednesday.

During the spacewalk Pilot Mark Kelly oversaw the timeline for the spacewalkers while Commander Steve Lindsey managed the cameras and transferred two containers of water onto ISS. Expedition 13 Commander Pavel Vinogradov and Flight Engineers Jeff Williams and Thomas Reiter continued to work on delivery and stowage of equipment and supplies from the Multipurpose Logistics Module.

The shuttle crew was awakened at 1:08 a.m. CDT by "Clocks," performed by Coldplay. It was requested by Sellers' family for the day of the second spacewalk.

The spacewalk is scheduled to begin at 7:13 a.m. and expected to last nearly seven hours. First, Fossum and Sellers will make their way to the shuttle’s payload bay to a spare pump module for the station’s thermal control system. Once there, they will attach it to the fixed grapple bar which will allow Mission Specialists Lisa Nowak and Stephanie Wilson, inside at the controls of the robotic arm, to maneuver the pump to the external stowage platform.

While the module is being moved, Fossum and Sellers will stay in the payload bay and get ready for their next task, replacement of a trailing umbilical system (TUS) reel assembly, this one on the nadir side of the mobile transporter.

After they reconfigure the payload bay for the activity, they’ll then translate to the starboard zero truss segment, to get it ready for retrieval. Fossum will disconnect electrical cables while Sellers changes out the assembly. Once it is ready, they will leave that site to go to the stowage platform and assist with the detaching and installation of the pump into its permanent storage location. That pump is onboard as a spare should it be needed in the future.

The two spacewalkers will then return to the truss and remove the TUS reel assembly. Fossum, on the end of the robotic arm, will take the reel assembly to the payload bay. Sellers will move there on his own, and set up for the swap of that assembly with a new one. After the swap is complete, the two will go back to the worksite to install the new reel assembly, reroute the power and data cable and thus restoring the desired redundancy to the mobile transporter and enabling it again to be used for continued station assembly tasks.

Shuttle Commander Steve Lindsey and Pilot Mark Kelly will support the spacewalk with Lindsey monitoring the vehicle systems and video/television set ups and Kelly overseeing activities and coaching the spacewalkers.

The Expedition 13 crew, Commander Pavel Vinogradov and flight engineers Jeff Williams and Thomas Reiter, will be working steadily throughout the day transferring trash and unneeded equipment and supplies for return to Earth in the multipurpose logistics module Leonardo. More than 4,300 pounds of cargo will be packed for the return to Earth.

More than 4,300 pounds of experiment results, unneeded hardware and trash is scheduled to be loaded onto the pressurized cargo module for return to Earth in Discovery's cargo bay next week. Mission Specialist Stephanie Wilson serves as the loadmaster for the extensive transfer activity.

All nine shuttle and station crew members will help gather and stow the return cargo in Leonardo. It brought more than 7,000 pounds of clothing, food and other supplies for the station.

Throughout the day, Mission Specialists Mike Fossum and Piers Sellers will also have spacewalk preparation tasks. They’ll recharge the spacesuits, gather and organize needed tools, and configure the airlock.

Before the day’s end, they’ll be joined by Commander Steve Lindsey, Pilot Mark Kelly, and fellow Mission Specialists Lisa Nowak and Stephanie Wilson for a review of the spacewalk procedures.

Kelly, Fossum, Nowak, Wilson and Sellers will talk with representatives from the Associated Press and USA Today. That 20-minute chat is scheduled to begin at 7:18 a.m. CDT.

The shuttle crew was awakened at 1:08 a.m. by "All Star," performed by Smashmouth. It was for Nowak, requested by her family.

Expedition 13 Commander Pavel Vinogradov and Flight Engineers Jeff Williams and Thomas Reiter were awakened 30 minutes later, at 1:38 a.m.

Additional time was set aside today for procedural review for the third spacewalk planned to begin at 6:13 a.m. CDT Wednesday.

Expedition 13 Commander Pavel Vinogradov along with Flight Engineers Jeff Williams and Thomas Reiter spent most of the day loading items no longer needed on the station into the Multipurpose Logistics Module docked to the station’s Unity module. Before being returned to Discovery’s payload bay on Friday, the Italian-built Leonardo will be filled with almost 4,400 pounds of experiment samples, unneeded hardware and trash.

Included in the more than 7,400 pounds of supplies delivered to the station was a new window and window seals for the Microgravity Science Glovebox, a European Space Agency-developed enclosed workspace for science experiments involving fluids, flames, particles or fumes. Reiter, the ESA astronaut who joined the station crew last week, installed the new window and window seals today. Additional work will be needed after the shuttle departs before the MSG can resume operation.

Discovery Mission Specialists Piers Sellers and Mike Fossum, who already have spent 14 hours and 18 minutes outside the Discovery/ISS complex on two spacewalks, devoted much of the day to preparing their spacesuits and tools for the mission’s third Extravehicular Activity. The planned 6-˝ hour spacewalk is devoted to testing a non-oxide adhesive as a repair material for the reinforced carbon carbon panels that line a shuttle’s leading edge, and the use of an infrared camera to detect unseen damage to RCC.

At 7:18 this morning the spacewalkers joined Pilot Mark Kelly and Mission Specialists Lisa Nowak and Stephanie Wilson to talk about the progress of their flight in interviews with the Associated Press and USA Today.

Mission Specialists Mike Fossum and Piers Sellers will test techniques to inspect and repair damage to an orbiter's heat shield. The 6.5-hour spacewalk from the Quest airlock is scheduled to start at 6:13 a.m. CDT.

Sellers and Fossum will set up tools and a foot restraint on the station robotic arm. Sellers will position himself on the arm, operated by Mission Specialists Lisa Nowak and Stephanie Wilson. He will use an infrared camera to record about 20 seconds of imagery as the arm, and Sellers, move along the shuttle’s wing leading edge.

Sellers, designated EV1 and wearing the spacesuit with red stripes, will meet EV2 Fossum, in the all-white suit, in Discovery’s payload bay. There they will set up the worksite for the repair tasks. A pallet with 12 reinforced carbon-carbon panels is pre-positioned in the payload bay. Eight are pre-damaged and will be the subject of the repair test. Two are blank, to be used as a work palette, and the last two are for further imaging by the infrared camera.

Sellers and Fossum will use a variety of tools and methods for the repair work demonstration including a space-certified caulk gun and a variety of spatulas to manipulate the test materials.

They hope to finish demonstrations on at least two of those samples. Then they’ll do a 60-second recording using the IR camera of two other damaged tiles. The camera is designed to capture temperature gradients that will indicate invisible damage.

If they have time, they may take additional photos of some shuttle panels and move the fixed grapple bar in the shuttle payload bay.

The spacewalkers will clean up the worksite and inspect their spacesuits. Then Fossum will ride the robotic arm back to the airlock, again taking video of the wing leading edge as he passes it. Sellers will make his own way back.

Pilot Mark Kelly will again serve as the intravehicular activities officer. Commander Steve Lindsey will oversee the shuttle systems and spacewalk operations.

While the shuttle crew is helping with the spacewalk, repacking of the multi-purpose logistics module Leonardo will continue. The Expedition 13 crew, Commander Pavel Vinogradov, and Flight Engineers Jeff Williams and Thomas Reiter, will put experiment results, unneeded equipment and garbage into Leonardo.

The STS-121 crew woke this morning at 12:08 a.m. to "I Believe I Can Fly," played for Wilson. The Expedition 13 crew was awakened 30 minutes later.

The crew woke at 12:08 a.m. CDT to "Charlie's Angels Theme Song." It was for the entire crew, from their training team.

Moments later, Texas A&M University yell leaders performed briefly for Mission Specialist Mike Fossum from Mission Control. Fossum is the first A&M undergraduate alum to fly in space.

Fossum is scheduled to receive a call from Texas Gov. Rick Perry, also an A&M graduate and former member of the Corps of Cadets, at 11:58 a.m. It will air on NASA Television.

Later in the day, Fossum and Mission Specialist Lisa Nowak will talk with representatives of MSNBC and FOX News Live. That interview, at 12:23 p.m., also will be seen on NASA-TV.

Fossum, Nowak and shuttle Commander Steven Lindsey, Pilot Mark Kelly and Mission Specialists Stephanie Wilson and Piers Sellers then have off duty time with only a few isolated tasks and exercise planned.

International Space Station Expedition 13 Commander Pavel Vinogradov, and Flight Engineers Jeff Williams and Thomas Reiter will talk at 3:13 a.m. with European Space Agency Astronaut Pedro Duque, a journalist, students and the operations manager at the Columbus Control Centre, in Cologne, Germany. At 8:09 a.m. the crew will talk with Russian journalists at Mission Control Moscow. Those events will air on NASA-TV and be replayed with interpretation at 9 a.m.

First thing this morning Shuttle Commander Steve Lindsey and ISS Flight Engineer Thomas Reiter deactivated the cargo module, closed the hatch, and prepared it for removal from the Unity node. Just after 8:32 a.m. CDT Mission Specialists Lisa Nowak and Stephanie Wilson used the station robotic arm to uninstall Leonardo from ISS; the MPLM was reberthed in the shuttle payload bay at 10:00 a.m. CDT.

More than 7,400 pounds of cargo was delivered to ISS in the cargo module, and approximately 4,600 pounds of material including experiment samples, broken equipment and trash are now packed inside for return to Earth.

After the MPLM was returned to Discovery, Nowak and Wilson used the shuttle robot arm and the Orbiter Boom Sensor System to inspect the shuttle’s port wing. Similar to the pre-docking inspection on Flight Day 2, which was aimed at uncovering evidence of damage from debris at launch, this inspection looked for any signs of damage done by debris on orbit. None was found; inspection of the starboard wing and the shuttle’s nose cap will be done after undocking tomorrow, which is scheduled to occur at 5:08 a.m. CDT.

Early this morning, as Lindsey and Reiter worked at the MPLM, Nowak and Wilson joined Mission Specialists Mike Fossum and Piers Sellers, Pilot Mark Kelly, and ISS Commander Pavel Vinogradov and Flight Engineer Jeff Williams to discuss the mission in interviews with CNN, ABC, NBC and CBS.

After a day off, the crew will spend much of today getting ready for their undocking from the International Space Station.

The crew woke at 12:19 a.m. CDT with the Aggie War Hymn performed by the Fighting Texas Aggie Band. It was for Mission Specialist Mike Fossum, a graduate of Texas A&M University.

The first activity of the day will be media interviews for most of the crew -- shuttle Pilot Mark Kelly, Mission Specialists Fossum, Lisa Nowak, Stephanie Wilson and Piers Sellers, and station Expedition 13 Commander Pavel Vinogradov and Flight Engineer Jeff Williams. Beginning at 3:03 a.m. they will talk with journalists from CNN, ABC News, NBC’s Today Show, and CBS News.

Meanwhile, shuttle Commander Steve Lindsey and station Flight Engineer Thomas Reiter will deactivate the multipurpose logistics module Leonardo and begin preparing for its move back to Discovery’s payload bay. Nowak and Wilson will use the station robotic arm to maneuver Leonardo, which has been packed with more than 4,000 pounds of experiment results, unneeded supplies and equipment from the station, to its place in the cargo bay.

The two, joined by Lindsey, will also use the arm with the boom extension to conduct a scheduled final inspection of the shuttle’s port wing to ensure it has not been damaged by orbital debris during the docked operations.

Throughout the day, the remainder of the crew will continue with final transfer of supplies and equipment from the shuttle’s middeck, organize the spacewalk tools and do other tasks to get ready for Discovery's undocking from the station on Saturday.

The delivery of European Space Agency astronaut Thomas Reiter to join Expedition 13 on the International Space Station was one of the major goals achieved on this second return to flight shuttle mission. Discovery is now aiming for an 8:14 a.m. CDT Monday landing at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

The shuttle astronauts said goodbye to Reiter and his crewmates, Station Commander Pavel Vinogradov and Flight Engineer Jeff Williams, and Commander Steve Lindsey and Pilot Mark Kelly reported the hatches between the two ships closed at 3:15 a.m. CDT. Astronauts Lisa Nowak and Stephanie Wilson completed a leak check in the docking vestibule while Mike Fossum and Piers Sellers installed a centerline camera in the hatch window.

With Kelly at the controls, Discovery released its grip on the station at 5:08 a.m. CDT and springs pushed the two ships apart. Kelly guided the shuttle away to a distance of 400 feet and fired thrusters to separate the vicinity of the complex. A second engine firing, 50 minutes after undocking while above and behind the station, set Discovery on course that now has it about 46 miles behind the station and opening the distance slowly. No other shuttle engine firings are planned before it fires its engines to begin the descent to Earth Monday morning.

After Discovery left the station, the shuttle crew used the robotic arm and boom sensors to thoroughly inspect the starboard wing and nose cap heat shield, looking for damage from orbital debris. A similar survey of the port wing was conducted yesterday. After the nose cap survey, the boom was berthed along the starboard sill of the payload bay and the robot arm was powered down.

Mission managers reviewing the latest heat shield inspections of Discovery have found no concerns so far, and the analysis is continuing. Discovery is planned to fire its engines to deorbit at 7:07 a.m. CDT Monday. That is the first of two opportunities for landing on Monday at Kennedy. A second opportunity begins with a deorbit engine firing at 8:43 a.m. CDT leading to a landing at 9:50 am. CDT.

After almost nine days together, Discovery is scheduled to undock from the station today at 5:08 a.m. CDT.

Discovery crew members were awakened at 12:08 a.m. by "Beautiful Day," performed by U2. It was for Discovery Pilot Mark Kelly, on undocking day.

After a few final equipment transfers and system configurations, all nine crew members will gather for a televised farewell ceremony at 2:38 a.m. Hatch closure between the station and shuttle will immediately follow.

After undocking, Kelly will perform the two separation burns to take Discovery away from the station.

About three hours after undocking, Commander Steve Lindsey and Mission Specialists Lisa Nowak and Mike Fossum will use the shuttle's robotic arm and the orbital boom sensor system to perform final inspections of the starboard wing. Then Kelly and Mission Specialist Stephanie Wilson will do the same on the shuttle nose.

Discovery will remain about 45 miles behind the station until the mission management team reviews survey results and clears Discovery for landing, scheduled for Monday at Kennedy Space Center.

The Expedition 13 crew will resume normal station operations. Once their shuttle counterparts have departed, they will conduct some routine maintenance and exercise onboard. Commander Pavel Vinogradov and Flight Engineer Thomas Reiter will conduct emergency drills training and Flight Engineer Jeff Williams will depressurize the pressurized mating adapter.

Their day began at 12:18 a.m. with “Just Like Heaven,” by The Cure for Mission Specialist Piers Sellers. It was requested by his family.

At 3 a.m., Shuttle Commander Steve Lindsey, Pilot Mark Kelly and Entry Flight Engineer Lisa Nowak will do an hour-long flight control system checkout and fire the reaction control system jets. The checkout will let managers further assess the performance of one of the auxiliary power units. The APUs power flight control surfaces. Specialists had detected a small leak in the APU but have determined it is likely a nitrogen gas leak and should not affect re-entry.

Throughout the day, most of the crew members, including Mission Specialists Mike Fossum and Stephanie Wilson, will work on final clean up and stowage of the vehicle cabin area. All six crew members will participate in a deorbit briefing with the ground team as part of their final preparation for landing.

At 11:03 a.m. CDT, the STS-121 crew will participate in interviews with major television networks, including, ABC, CBS, CNN, FOX and NBC. That event will be televised on NASA television.

Mission managers continue to analyze images from the post-undocking inspection of Discovery's port wing and nose cone. Initial analysis indicated nothing amiss. A decision on whether to clear Discovery for landing is expected later today.

Discovery's deorbit burn is scheduled for 7:07 a.m. Monday, for an 8:14 a.m. CDT landing at Kennedy Space Center. A second opportunity would see a deorbit engine firing at 8:43 a.m. for a landing at 9:50 a.m.

Aboard the International Space Station, Expedition 13 Commander Pavel Vinogradov and Flight Engineers Jeff Williams and Thomas Reiter are enjoying an off-duty day after the intense activity during Discovery docked operations.

For that landing, Discovery's engines would be fired at 7:07 a.m. CDT Monday to begin its descent. A second opportunity is available for Discovery to land at Kennedy on Monday, beginning the descent with an engine firing at 8:43 a.m. CDT and leading to a touchdown in Florida at 9:50 a.m. CDT. Flight managers do not plan to consider other shuttle landing sites on Monday.

The weather forecast for landing on Monday calls for a chance of rain in the vicinity of Kennedy's shuttle runway that could be unacceptable for Discovery's landing.

Discovery Commander Steve Lindsey and Pilot Mark Kelly checked the shuttle landing systems and steering jets early today. A test run of one of the three generators that power the shuttle hydraulics found that auxiliary power unit operating normally. A minute leak in that system has remained at expected levels. All three units are planned to be run as normal for landing.

The astronauts spent the rest of their planned final full day in orbit stowing gear and securing the shuttle for the trip home. Key events leading up to Discovery's first landing opportunity on Monday include:

4:27 a.m. CDT -- Discovery's payload bay doors are closed 6:07 a.m. CDT -- Discovery's astronauts begin to strap in for landing 6:48 a.m. CDT -- Mission Control "go" or "no-go" for the deorbit engine firing

Discovery and its crew of six astronauts touched down on runway 15 at the Shuttle Landing Facility at 8:15 a.m. CDT, completing 12 days, 18 hours and 38 minutes in space covering 5.3 million miles. They delivered European Space Agency astronaut Thomas Reiter to the station to join Expedition 13 and completed three spacewalks, one to restore the station’s rail car to full capability and two to develop shuttle repair techniques.

The crew was awakened at 12:08 a.m. CDT today with “The Astronaut” by Something Corporate, played for Commander Steve Lindsey as he prepared to complete his fourth shuttle flight. Returning to Earth aboard Discovery with Lindsey were Pilot Mark Kelly and Mission Specialists Mike Fossum, Lisa Nowak, Stephanie Wilson and Piers Sellers.

Discovery’s deorbit engines were fired for three minutes at 7:07 a.m. CDT above the Indian Ocean to begin the descent. The shuttle flew above Guatemala and Mexico, the Gulf of Mexico and the southwest Florida coast on the way to landing.

Later, Reisman deactivated the COL EDR (European Drawer Rack) and PCDF EU (Protein Crystallization Diagnostic Facility Electronic Unit), concluding with some close-up imaging using the COL's VCA1 (Video Camera Assembly 1).

In preparation for the subsequent VSPLESK installation (which required turning off the BITS2-12 Onboard Telemetry Measurement System), FE-1 Kononenko supported TsUP-Moscow in deactivating the Elektron O2 generator. As part of the standard deactivation process the Elektron was purged with N2 (nitrogen), controlled from laptop. (Elektron will be reactivated on 5/29.)

Additional Details: ISS On-Orbit Status 05/27/08.

(Garrett collected three 450 mL samples (for postflight microbial analysis) and two 750 mL samples (for postflight chemical analysis) from each of three ports (SRV-K hot, SRV-K warm, SVO-ZV) for return on STS-124/1J. The small amounts of water used for flushing the equipment were later reclaimed from the flush bag.)

CDR Volkov serviced the Russian BMP (Harmful Impurities Removal System), starting the "bake-out" cycle to vacuum on absorbent bed #2 of the regenerable dual-channel filtration system. The regen process will be terminated tonight at ~5:15pm EDT. Filter bed #1 was regenerated yesterday. (Regeneration of each of the two cartridges takes about 12 hours and is conducted only during crew awake periods.)

Additional Details: ISS On-Orbit Status 05/30/08.

STS-124/Discovery (ISS-1J) lifted off right on time (5:02pm EDT) with all systems performing nominally, for ISS rendezvous on Monday (6/2), to dock at ~1:54pm EDT. At launch, the ISS was off Halifax/Canada, at 42.8 deg N Lat, 57.6 deg W Long. The Orbiter is carrying the seven-member crew of CDR Mark Kelly, PLT Ken Ham, MS1 Karen Nyberg, MS2 Ron Garan, MS3 Mike Fossum, MS4 Akihiko Hoshide & MS5 Greg Chamitoff. Chamitoff will replace ISS Flight Engineer 2 Garrett Reisman who returns on 6/14 (nominal) with STS-124. STS-124 is the 123rd space shuttle flight, the 35th flight for Discovery, the 26th flight to the station and the third Shuttle flight in 2008. Its primary payload, the largest so far, is the 32,000-lbs, 36.7-ft long JPM (Japanese Pressurized Module) with its RMS (Remote Manipulator System). We are off to another great mission! (The eighth crewmember on board is a stow-away: Buzz Lightyear.)

Additional Details: ISS On-Orbit Status 05/31/08.

Flight Day 3 (FD3) of STS-124/1J. ISS crew work cycle today: wake 6:32am EDT; sleep 10:02pm.

STS-124/Discovery docked smoothly at the PMA-2 (Pressurized Mating Adapter-2) port at 2:03pm EDT, nine minutes behind timeline, in darkness (orbital sunset ~1:23pm), after successfully completing the RPM (R-Bar Pitch Maneuver) in daylight at ~1:08pm and arriving at +V-Bar (straight in front of ISS) at ~1:11pm. The station now hosts ten occupants again as Mission 1J is underway. (The combined crew is comprised of ISS CDR Volkov, FE-1 Oleg Kononenko, FE-2 Garrett Reisman, STS CDR Mark Kelly, PLT Ken Ham, MS1 Karen Nyberg, MS2 Ron Garan, MS3 Mike Fossum, MS4 Akihiko Hoshide (Japan), and MS5/FE-2-17 Greg Chamitoff who replaces Reisman as FE-2, as the latter returns on Discovery as MS-5.)

Additional Details: ISS On-Orbit Status 06/02/08.

ISS crew work cycle remains unchanged: wake 6:32am EDT; sleep 10:02pm.

Arigato Gozaimasu! Congratulations, JAXA! There is Hope in space! At ~5:09pm EDT, the JPM (Japanese Pressurized Module) of the JEM 'Kibo' laboratory complex was opened and ingressed by Aki Hoshide and Karen Nyberg for the first time, joined later by the rest of the crew who clearly enjoyed the voluminous super laboratory. (Kibo is permanently attached at the Node-2 (Harmony) portside hatch since last night.)

FE-1 Oleg Kononenko performed the periodic (currently daily) checkout/verification of IP-1 airflow sensors in the various RS (Russian Segment) hatchways, including the DC1-to-Soyuz tunnel, and the FGB-to-Node passageway. (This is especially important when the ventilation/circulation system has to cope with a larger crew on board, currently ten persons, and one of the two Russian SKV air conditioners off (SKV-1).)

Additional Details: ISS On-Orbit Status 06/04/08.

ISS crew work cycle remains unchanged: wake 6:32am EDT; sleep 10:02pm.

Crew activities aboard the ISS today centered on three major areas: (1) The second 1J spacewalk, (2) activation of the JPM (Japanese Pressurized Module) Kibo, and (3) preparations for tomorrow's relocation of the JLP (Japanese Logistics Pressurized Module).

Mission 1J's EVA-2 was completed successfully by Mike Fossum & Ron Garan in 7h 11min, accomplishing all its objectives. (During the spacewalk, Fossum (EV1) & Garan (EV2) -

Additional Details: ISS On-Orbit Status 06/05/08.

ISS crew work cycle shift begins with an earlier sleeptime: wake 6:32am EDT; sleep 9:32pm (Shuttle crew remaining at 10:02pm).

Crew activities aboard the ISS today centered on three major areas: (1) JLP (JEM Logistics Pressurized Module) relocation, (2) JPM (Japanese Pressurized Module) Kibo outfitting, and (3) start of JEM RMS (Robotic Manipulator System) activation & checkout.

JLP was successfully installed at its final location on the Kibo JPM at 4:04pm EDT. (After JLP/Node-2 vestibule demating and depressurization, MS1 Nyberg and FE-2-17 Chamitoff used the SSRMS (Space Station Remote Manipulator System) to grapple, unberth, transfer and reberth the JLPon Kibo's overhead port (1st stage capture 3:54pm, SSRMS wrist limped 3:58pm, 2nd stage capture with all 16 bolts 4:04pm). Karen, Greg & Aki Hoshide then latched the JPM overhead hatch via ratchet & crank handle, pressurized the connecting vestibule partially and initiated the standard vestibule gross leak check, later configuring the gear for the usual overnight fine leak check. After the installation, ISS attitude was maneuvered to the new TEA (Torque Equilibrium Attitude) which the addition of the JLP has changed. JLP was delivered on orbit by STS-123/Endeavour and docked at the Node-2 zenith port on 3/14.)

Additional Details: ISS On-Orbit Status 06/06/08.

ISS crew work cycle shifted another 30 min to the left: wake-up 6:02am EDT; sleep 9:02pm (Shuttle crew 30 min later: 9:32pm).

Crew activities aboard the ISS centered on three major areas: (1) Initial deployment of JEM RMS (Japanese Experiment Module Robotic Manipulator System) activation & checkout, (2) JLP (JEM Logistics Pressurized Module) post-relocation outfitting (Part 1), (3) Preparations for EVA-3 & EV1/EV2 Campout.

Before breakfast, FE-2 Reisman & FE-2-17 Chamitoff collected a 'wet' saliva sample (the third for Greg) for the biomed experiment INTEGRATED IMMUNE (Validating Procedures for Monitoring Crew member Immune Function). (IMMUNE protocol requires the collection to occur first thing post-sleep, before eating, drinking and brushing teeth, and all samples are stored at ambient temperature. Along with NUTRITION (Nutritional Status Assessment), INTEGRATED IMMUNE samples & analyzes participant's blood, urine, and saliva before, during and after flight for changes related to functions like bone metabolism, oxidative damage and immune function to develop and validate an immune monitoring strategy consistent with operational flight requirements and constraints. The strategy uses both long and short duration crewmembers as study subjects. The saliva is collected in two forms, dry and liquid. The dry samples are collected at intervals during the collection day using a specialized book that contains filter paper. The liquid saliva collections require that the crewmember soak a piece of cotton inside their mouth and place it in a salivette bag; there are four of the liquid collections during docked operations.)

Additional Details: ISS On-Orbit Status 06/07/08.

Ahead: Week 8 of Increment 17.

ISS crew work cycle shifted another 30 min. to the left: wake-up 5:32am EDT; sleep 8:32pm (Shuttle crew 30 min later: 9:02pm).

Crew activities aboard the ISS centered on three major areas: (1) Spacewalk #3 (EVA-3), (2) more JLP (JEM Logistics Pressurized Module) outfitting, and (3) sample collections from Kibo air & surfaces plus Node-2 ITCS coolant.

Mission 1J's EVA-3 was completed successfully by Mike Fossum & Ron Garan in 6h 33min, accomplishing all its objectives.
(During the spacewalk, Fossum (EV1) & Garan (EV2) -

Additional Details: ISS On-Orbit Status 06/08/08.

Underway: Week 8 of Increment 17.

ISS crew work cycle shifted another 30 min. to the left: wake-up 5:02am EDT; sleep 8:02pm (Shuttle crew 30 min later: 8:32pm).

Crew activities aboard the ISS addressed five major areas: (1) IWIS Dedicated Thruster Firing, (2) JEM RMS Final Deployment, (3) R&R of two A/L BCMs (Airlock Battery Charger Modules), (4) JLP/JPM vestibule final outfitting plus JLP ingress, (5) crew media conference & photo.

For the biomed experiment INTEGRATED IMMUNE (Validating Procedures for Monitoring Crew member Immune Function), FE-2 Reisman collected a 'wet' saliva sample before breakfast while FE-2-17 Chamitoff collected his first dry saliva samples, five times during the day. (IMMUNE protocol requires the collection to occur first thing post-sleep, before eating, drinking and brushing teeth, and all samples are stored at ambient temperature. Along with NUTRITION (Nutritional Status Assessment), INTEGRATED IMMUNE samples & analyzes participant's blood, urine, and saliva before, during and after flight for changes related to functions like bone metabolism, oxidative damage and immune function to develop and validate an immune monitoring strategy consistent with operational flight requirements and constraints. The strategy uses both long and short duration crewmembers as study subjects. The saliva is collected in two forms, dry and liquid. The dry samples are collected at intervals during the collection day using a specialized book that contains filter paper. The liquid saliva collections require that the crewmember soak a piece of cotton inside their mouth and place it in a salivette bag; there are four of the liquid collections during docked operations.)

Additional Details: ISS On-Orbit Status 06/09/08.

JAXA/Japan to IMMT: 'Arigato Gozaimasu! This flight was 100% successful for the Kibo elements. Thank you to everyone involved for the excellent support in preparation and execution of this mission!'

ISS crew work cycle (now including Greg Chamitoff) shifted another 30 min. to the left: wake-up 4:32am EDT; sleep 7:32pm (Shuttle crew 30 min later: 8:02pm, now including Garrett Reisman).

Crew activities aboard the ISS stack addressed five major areas: (1) Waste water dump from the Orbiter, (2) installation of JEM RMS Backup drive system, (3) PAO event, (4) Crew Sayonara, (5) hatches closing & ODS leak check.

Additional Details: ISS On-Orbit Status 06/10/08.