The shuttle Discovery is closing in on the international space station today for a long-awaited linkup that will boost the lab's crew size to three, provide more than 5,000 pounds of equipment and supplies and give mission managers their first detailed view of the fragile heat shield tiles on the shuttle's belly.

"Good morning, Discovery!" mission control told the crew in a morning uplink package. "Great day yesterday, finishing flight day 2 early, that's amazing. As for today, just a rendezvous. However, you will be losing a crewmember at the end of the day, but then again, you're gaining a Station."

European Space Agency astronaut Thomas Reiter will remain aboard the station when Discovery departs, boosting the lab's crew size to three for the first time since downsizing in the wake of the Columbia disaster.

But first, shuttle commander Steve Lindsey has to get him there. Lindsey will follow a standard rendezvous profile, approaching the lab complex from behind and below. The terminal phase of the rendezvous procedure begins around 8:05 a.m. with the shuttle trailing the station by about 9.2 miles.

On final approach, at a distance of about 600 feet directly below the station, with Discovery's nose facing forward and its open payload bay facing the station, Lindsey will carry out a slow 360-degree rendezvous pitch maneuver, or RPM, that will point the belly of the shuttle at the station. The maneuver is expected to begin around 9:51 a.m.

As the shuttle's underside rotates into view, Expedition 13 commander Pavel Vinogradov and flight engineer Jeff Williams will photograph Discovery's belly with handheld digital cameras equipped with 400mm and 800mm lenses. The 800mm lens provides one-inch resolution to look for signs of even small damage around sensitive areas like the shuttle's landing gear doors. The 400mm lens provides three-inch resolution.

Imagery from the station will be downlinked to Houston for detailed analysis.

In the morning "execute package" uplinked to the shuttle crew, flight controllers passed on a detailed update from NASA's Mission Management Team (MMT) on what engineers have seen so far assessing video, radar data, still images and data from wing leading edge impact sensors during launch Tuesday:

Wing Leading Edge Sensors - All the WLEIDS data has been downlinked and the preliminary assessment is that the system detected 6 probable impacts during ascent (tripped the .87 Grms sensor limit). Three of these were on the port wing and three were on the starboard wing. This is very similar to the number of probable impacts that were observed on STS-114 (Editor's note: Discovery's last mission) and there may be some correlation between the two missions.

Imagery - The teams continue to review the ascent imagery data (ET LOX feedline camera, 2 ground cameras, WAVE aircraft video, and debris radar). The preliminary characterization is the debris environment was substantially less than that observed for STS-114 (Editor's note: Discovery's last flight). These reports show two events that may have impacted the Orbiter. The first event was at approximately 19 seconds and the other was at about 285-294 seconds. Both of these are outside the critical debris region of concern that spans from 35 seconds to 140 seconds. Exact size and velocity estimates are still being refined.

The 19 second event that was observed to be a single piece of debris traveling between ET (Editor's note: External Tank) and Orbiter fuselage which could indicate an impact although the image quality is poor. For the 285-294 second event, multiple (5-12) pieces of ET debris were observed and one piece possibly impacted the Orbiter. The debris originated from aft of bipod on -Y side of LO2 feedline, traveled toward the Orbiter fuselage, changed direction abruptly, and then fell aft breaking into several pieces after possible contact with Orbiter. Early prediction are a 33 feet/sec average velocity with a maximum velocity of 67 feet/sec. The ascent camera views have not detected any visible signs of TPS (Editor's note: Thermal Protection System) damage as a result of these events.

The LDRI (Editor's note: Laser Dynamic Range Imager) FD2 imagery shows a protruding gap filler on the port side near outer edge of wing. It is located in an area where GAP fillers were not replaced with a tile thickness of 2.6 inches. Initial measurements estimate the protruding GAP filler to be about 1/2 inch. The aeroheating community is analyzing this to determine if any future action is required to remove. Additionally, all of the Tyvek covers on the FRCS thrusters were reported to have come off within about 8 seconds MET, which meets the velocity requirements for all of these covers. Finally, the imagery experts reviewed the ET handheld photography and confirmed the MCC assessment of ice being the unusual item reported by Mike Fossum. Ice was also observed in the STS-114 handheld photography and this has been observed on other missions as well.

Of course we'll have a better assessment of the TPS (wing leading edge RCC and tile) after tomorrow's FD 3 MMT when the FD2 inspection data.

After completing the RPM maneuver, Lindsey will position Discovery about 400 feet directly ahead of the space station with the shuttle's nose facing deep space and its cargo bay facing the lab complex. He then will guide the spacecraft to a docking with a pressurized mating adaptor attached to the Destiny laboratory module. Docking is expected around 10:52 a.m.

After leak checks, Vinogradov and Williams will welcome the shuttle crew aboard the station and provide a safety briefing before all nine astronauts get down to work.

One of the first items on the agenda is to transfer a Soyuz seat liner from Discovery to the station and to check out Reiter's re-entry pressure suit. Once those tasks are accomplished, about four hours after docking, the European astronaut will become an official member of the Expedition 13 crew. He is scheduled to remain aboard the outpost until late December, returning to Earth with the crew of the year's third shuttle mission.

While Reiter's equipment is being transferred, Wilson and Nowak will use the station and shuttle robot arms to redeploy the OBSS boom for additional inspection work and photo support of the upcoming spacewalks. Because of clearance issues after the shuttle is docked, Discovery's robot arm cannot unberth the OBSS on its own. Instead, the space station's arm - the SSRMS - will pluck the sensor boom from the shuttle's cargo bay and hand it off to Discovery's arm about five hours after docking.

The astronauts also will begin moving station equipment stowed in the shuttle's middeck area over to the space station, along with tools that will be used in the upcoming spacewalks.

Here is the Flight Day 3 timeline, including a detailed rendezvous timeline (in EDT and mission elapsed time):

TIME      DD   HH  MM  EVENT

03:38 AM   01  13  00  STS crew wakeup
03:38 AM   01  13  00  ISS crew wakeup
04:53 AM   01  14  15  Group B computer powerup
05:13 AM   01  14  35  Rendezvous timeline begins
06:34 AM   01  15  56  NC4 rendezvos rocket firing
07:23 AM   01  16  45  RPM photo setup verification
08:05 AM   01  17  27  Terminal phase (TI) rendezvous rocket firing
08:43 AM   01  18  05  Sunset
09:03 AM   01  18  25  Range: 10,000 feet
09:12 AM   01  18  34  Range: 5,000 feet
09:18 AM   01  18  40  Range: 3,000 feet
09:20 AM   01  18  42  Sunrise
09:22 AM   01  18  44  MC-4 rendezvous burn
09:26 AM   01  18  48  Range: 1,500 feet
09:31 AM   01  18  53  Range: 1,000 feet
09:34 AM   01  18  56  KU antenna to low power
09:35 AM   01  18  57  +R bar arrival 725 feet directly below ISS
09:40 AM   01  19  02  Range: 600 feet
09:47 AM   01  19  09  Noon
09:51 AM   01  19  13  RPM start window open
09:51 AM   01  19  13  Start pitch maneuver
09:55 AM   01  19  17  RPM full window close
09:59 AM   01  19  21  End pitch maneuver
10:02 AM   01  19  24  Initiate TORVA pitch up maneuver to +V bar
10:04 AM   01  19  26  RPM start window close
10:13 AM   01  19  35  +V bar arrival; range: 310 feet in front of ISS
10:14 AM   01  19  36  Range: 300 feet
10:15 AM   01  19  37  Sunset
10:18 AM   01  19  40  Range: 250 feet
10:22 AM   01  19  44  Range: 200 feet
10:25 AM   01  19  47  Range: 170 feet
10:27 AM   01  19  49  Range: 150 feet
10:31 AM   01  19  53  Range: 100 feet
10:34 AM   01  19  56  Range: 75 feet
10:38 AM   01  20  00  Range: 50 feet
10:41 AM   01  20  03  Range: 30 feet; start stationkeeping
10:46 AM   01  20  08  End stationkeeping; push to dock
10:51 AM   01  20  13  Sunrise
10:51 AM   01  20  13  Range: 10 feet
10:52 AM   01  20  14  DOCKING
11:13 AM   01  20  35  Leak checks
11:43 AM   01  21  05  Group B computer powerdown
11:43 AM   01  21  05  Orbiter docking system preps for ingress
12:13 PM   01  21  35  Hatches open; welcome aboard!
01:03 PM   01  22  25  Safety briefing
01:28 PM   01  22  50  Russian seat liner installation
01:48 PM   01  23  10  OBSS grapple by space station arm (SSRMS)
02:13 PM   01  23  35  OBSS unberthing
02:43 PM   02  00  05  SSRMS moves to OBSS handoff position
02:43 PM   02  00  05  ROOBA leak check
03:28 PM   02  00  50  Reiter officially joins ISS crew
03:53 PM   02  01  15  OBSS handoff to shuttle arm (SRMS) from SSRMS
04:23 PM   02  01  45  Spacewalk tools transfer
04:23 PM   02  01  45  SRMS moves to logistis module inspection point
07:08 PM   02  04  30  Crew sleep begins

Additional coverage for subscribers:
VIDEO: INITIAL TANK ASSESSMENT DIAL-UP | BROADBAND
VIDEO: DAY 2 MISSION STATUS BRIEFING DIAL-UP | BROADBAND
VIDEO: FLIGHT DIRECTOR EXPLAINS INSPECTIONS WITH BOOM PLAY
VIDEO: FLIGHT DIRECTOR EXPLAINS ROBOT ARM INSPECTIONS PLAY

VIDEO: THE FULL LAUNCH EXPERIENCE PLAY
VIDEO: RIDE ALONG DURING LAUNCH VIA CREW MODULE CAMERA PLAY
VIDEO: AMAZING FOOTAGE FROM WB-57 HIGH-ALTITUDE AIRCRAFT PLAY

VIDEO: SHUTTLE LANDING FACILITY TOWER PLAY
VIDEO: PLAYALINDA BEACH TRACKER PLAY
VIDEO: BEACH MOUND TRACKER PLAY
VIDEO: PATRICK AFB TRACKER PLAY
VIDEO: UCS 23 TRACKER PLAY
VIDEO: UCS 11 TRACKER PLAY
VIDEO: CS 6 TRACKER PLAY
VIDEO: CS 2 TRACKER PLAY
VIDEO: CS 1 TRACKER PLAY
VIDEO: VEHICLE ASSEMBLY BUILDING ROOF PLAY
VIDEO: LAUNCH PAD FRONT CAMERA PLAY
VIDEO: COMPLEX 39 PRESS SITE PLAY
VIDEO: LAUNCH PAD SIDE VIEW PLAY
MORE: STS-121 VIDEO COVERAGE
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