STS-114<br />Report #08 <br />Friday, July 29, 2005 – 11:45 p.m. CDT <br />Mission Control Center, Houston, Texas <br /> <br />Astronauts Soichi Noguchi and Steve Robinson will step outside for their first <br />spacewalk, and the first of this mission, early Saturday. The six and a half <br />hour spacewalk is scheduled to begin from Discovery’s airlock at 3:44 a.m. CDT.<br /><br />Discovery’s crew was awakened at 10:43 p.m. CDT by the Japanese song “Sanpo,“ <br />sung by a group of children, including Noguchi’s. The Station crew was awakened <br />at 11:09 p.m. CDT by a tone onboard.<br /><br />Noguchi and Robinson’s spacewalk preparations, including a pure oxygen <br />pre-breathe and exercise procedure, will get underway at 12:39 a.m. CDT, with <br />Intravehicular (IV) crewmember Andy Thomas’ assistance. The procedure will purge the <br />spacewalkers’ blood of nitrogen to prevent the painful symptoms of “the bends” <br />while wearing their low-pressure spacesuits.<br /><br />About the same time, Station Commander Sergei Krikalev and NASA Science Officer <br />John Phillips will maneuver the Station’s robotic arm into a position to <br />support the spacewalk. At 12:55 a.m. CDT the pair will “walk off” Canadarm2 from the <br />Mobile Base System to the Destiny lab and change its operating base. The arm <br />will be operated by Shuttle Pilot Jim Kelly and Mission Specialist Wendy Lawrence <br />during the spacewalk to help install the External Stowage Platform-2 (ESP-2) <br />Attachment Device (ESPAD) onto Station.<br /><br />After the excursion begins and the spacewalkers have completed about an hour of <br />tool setup, the first task is to test thermal protection system repair <br />techniques. Noguchi and Robinson will work side-by-side in Discovery’s cargo bay at a <br />pallet of purposely damaged orbiter heat shield samples. They will practice the <br />Emittance Wash Applicator (EWA) repair of tile samples and the NOAX (Non-Oxide <br />Adhesive eXperimental) repair of Reinforced Carbon-Carbon samples.<br /><br />After the testing is complete, the pair will move on to their Station assembly <br />tasks. They will install the ESPAD and associated cabling on the Station’s <br />Quest airlock so that the ESP-2 can be installed on top during the third spacewalk. <br /><br />Next, Noguchi will replace a Global Positioning System (GPS) antenna on the <br />Station’s truss structure. At the same time, Robinson will retrieve tools for the <br />second spacewalk’s Control Moment Gyroscope-1 replacement and swap connectors <br />to restore power to the Station’s CMG-2. The last job will be for both <br />crewmembers to route cabling for the ESP-2 installation on the third spacewalk.<br /><br />Once the spacewalk has begun and the Station’s airlock’s hatch is opened as an <br />emergency door, the hatches between Discovery and Station will be re-opened so <br />the crews can work together to support the spacewalk and continue transfer <br />work. Commander Eileen Collins, Mission Specialist Charlie Camarda, Krikalev, <br />Phillips and Lawrence will continue transferring water and other equipment to the <br />Station from Discovery and the Raffaello cargo module. The hatches will be closed <br />before the end of the spacewalk again to allow the crew to re-enter the Shuttle <br />airlock. Once the crew is inside and the Shuttle’s airlock is repressurized, <br />the hatches will be re-opened.<br /><br />At 8:09 a.m. CDT, Kelly and Camarda are scheduled to perform additional surveys <br />of Discovery’s wing leading edge Reinforced Carbon-Carbon with the Shuttle arm <br />and Orbiter Boom Sensor System. They will use the sensors to focus on seven <br />areas of interest along the port wing.<br /><br />The crews of Discovery and the Station are scheduled to go to sleep about 2:39 <br />p.m. CDT.<br /><br />The next STS-114 mission status report will be issued Saturday afternoon, or <br />earlier, if events warrant.