There are 2 messages totalling 63 lines in this issue

Topics of the day:

1. STS-127 MCC Status Report #04
2. STS-127 MCC Status Report #05

Date: Fri, 17 Jul 2009 07:20:25 -0500 From: info@JSC NASA GOV Subject: STS-127 MCC Status Report #04

STS-127 Report #04 Friday, July 17, 2009 - 7:00 a m CDT Mission Control Center, Houston, Texas

The International Space Station population will grow to a record 13 today once the space shuttle Endeavour completes its orbital chase and docks at 12:55 p m CDT

Today’s wake-up call, “Here Comes the Sun” by The Beatles, was chosen for Commander Mark Polansky He and the rest of the shuttle crew – Pilot Doug Hurley and Mission Specialists Chris Cassidy, Tim Kopra, Tom Marshburn, Canadian Julie Payette and Dave Wolf – were awakened at 6:03 a m

The astronauts aboard Endeavour will begin rendezvous preparations at 7:23 a m and perform the terminal initiation engine burn at 10:17 a m to begin the shuttle’s final approach All of the tools the crew will use to accomplish the rendezvous checked out as expected Thursday

Meanwhile, on the station, Expedition 20 Commander Gennady Padalka and Flight Engineer Mike Barratt are ready to document the condition of Endeavour’s heat protection tiles with photos as Polansky guides the shuttle through a slow back flip at a distance of 600 feet Those digital images will be downlinked to Mission Control and evaluated along with data from Thursday’s 3-D scans of the shuttle’s reinforced carbon-carbon thermal protection materials

Once docked, Koichi Wakata of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, Roman Romanenko of Russia, Bob Thirsk of the Canadian Space Agency and Frank De Winne of the European Space Agency will join their Expedition 20 colleagues in opening hatches at 2:03 p m to begin 11 days of docked operations

After a brief greeting and thorough safety briefing for the visiting crew, Kopra’s specially fitted seat liner will be transferred to one of the two Soyuz spacecraft docked to the station and he will become the newest Expedition 20 crew member Wakata will be returning home aboard Endeavour after more than four months aboard the station

The next status report will be issued near the end of the joint crew’s day, or before, if events warrant

#

NASA Johnson Space Center Mission Status Reports and other information are available automatically by sending an Internet electronic mail message to listserv@listserver jsc nasa gov In the body of the message (not the subject line) users should type "subscribe hsfnews" (no quotes) This will add the e-mail address that sent the subscribe message to the news release distribution list The system will reply with a confirmation via e-mail of each subscription Once you have subscribed you will receive future news releases via e-mail

Date: Fri, 17 Jul 2009 17:56:53 -0500 From: info@JSC NASA GOV Subject: STS-127 MCC Status Report #05

STS-127 Report #05 Friday, July 17, 2009 - 6 p m CDT Mission Control Center, Houston, Texas

HOUSTON – The Space Shuttle Endeavour docked with the International Space Station at 12:47 p m CDT, delivering the final pieces of the Japanese Kibo complex and a new flight engineer to join the Expedition 20 crew

Endeavour commander Mark Polansky guided the shuttle to a docking as the two aircraft flew 220 miles about the northern coast of Australia Before closing the final 600 feet to the station, Polansky commanded Endeavour through a “backflip” allowing the station’s Expedition 20 Commander Gennady Padalka and Flight Engineer Michael Barratt to take photos that imagery experts will review to assess the health of Endeavour’s heat shield

The shuttle and station crews opened hatches and greeted one another at 2:48 p m , beginning more than a week of joint operations between the two crews

One of the first major tasks of the crews was to swap station crew member Koichi Wakata for NASA astronaut Tim Kopra The official swap occurred when a specially fitted seat liner was installed in the Soyuz crew vehicle That swap at 4:22 p m signified the official designation change making Kopra an Expedition 20 flight engineer and Wakata a shuttle mission specialist

The mission’s main objective Saturday will be to install the Japanese Exposed Facility to Kibo during the first spacewalk planned by Mission Specialists Dave Wolf and Tim Kopra

Preparations for Saturday’s EVA will take place tonight with Wolf and Kopra spending the night in the station’s Quest Airlock They will “campout” at a reduced air pressure overnight to prepare their bodies for the spacewalk planned to last six and a half hours

Before going to bed, a minor reboost of the station will be performed at 7:27 p m to ensure plenty of clearance in relation to an unknown piece of space debris That maneuver using Endeavour’s small vernier thrusters will last about 15 minutes and change the overall velocity of the shuttle/station complex by about 0 8 meter per second

The station crew is scheduled to go to bed at about 9:30 p m and the shuttle crew 30 minutes later at 10 Wake up Saturday is scheduled for 6:03 a m

The next shuttle status report will be issued after crew wake, or earlier if events warrant

#

NASA Johnson Space Center Mission Status Reports and other information are available automatically by sending an Internet electronic mail message to listserv@listserver jsc nasa gov In the body of the message (not the subject line) users should type "subscribe hsfnews" (no quotes) This will add the e-mail address that sent the subscribe message to the news release distribution list The system will reply with a confirmation via e-mail of each subscription Once you have subscribed you will receive future news releases via e-mail

End of HSFNEWS Digest - 17 Jul 2009 to 18 Jul 2009 (#2009-72)

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