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STS-123 day 9 highlights

Flight Day 9 saw Dextre moved to the Destiny lab, stowing the assembly pallet and a group dinner in the Zvezda module.

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STS-123 day 8 highlights

Finishing assembly of Dextre and delivering spare parts to the station occurred during the spacewalk on Flight Day 8.

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STS-123 day 7 highlights

The space station's handyman robot Dextre flexed its arms for the first time during Flight Day 7.

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STS-123 day 6 highlights

Flight Day 6 was dedicated to the second spacewalk and continued assembly of the Dextre robot.

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STS-123 day 5 highlights

The station and shuttle crews opened up and entered Japan's new Kibo logistics module during Flight Day 5.

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STS-123 day 4 highlights

Highlights of the Kibo logistics module's attachment to the station and the first spacewalk to begin Dextre assembly.

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STS-123 day 3 highlights

This movie shows the highlights from Flight Day 3 as Endeavour docked to the space station.

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STS-123 day 2 highlights

Flight Day 2 of Endeavour's mission focused on heat shield inspections. This movie shows the day's highlights.

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STS-123 day 1 highlights

The highlights from shuttle Endeavour's launch day are packaged into this movie.

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Launching on the shuttle

Video cameras on the boosters and tank, plus a cockpit camera show what the shuttle and its astronauts experience during the trek to space.

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STS-120: In review

The STS-120 crew narrates highlights from its mission that delivered the station's Harmony module and moved the P6 power truss.

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 Mission film

STS-123: TCDT

The STS-123 astronauts complete their countdown dress rehearsal at Kennedy Space Center.

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STS-123: To the pad

Endeavour travels to pad 39A in the overnight hours of Feb. 18 in preparation for liftoff on STS-123.

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Introduction to ATV

Preview the maiden voyage of European's first Automated Transfer Vehicle, named Jules Verne. The craft will deliver cargo to the International Space Station.

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Astronauts enjoy some
mid-mission off-duty time

BY WILLIAM HARWOOD
STORY WRITTEN FOR CBS NEWS "SPACE PLACE" & USED WITH PERMISSION
Posted: March 19, 2008

Midway through a grueling 16-day mission, the Endeavour astronauts and their space station counterparts enjoyed a second half-day off today, taking a call this evening from Japan's prime minister and fielding questions from reporters before gearing up for a fourth spacewalk Thursday.

In an interview with CBS News, station commander Peggy Whitson said the time off was a welcome break.

"We're having a great time, taking a break, just relaxing a little bit," she said. "I think we really needed it. For the station guys and for the shuttle guys, we had to do a pretty big sleep shift to get to this time, to (get in synch) with the launch and the landing and everything. So it was nice to be able to get eight hours of sleep."

The Endeavour crew gave flight engineer Garrett Reisman a lift to the space station. He will remain behind when the shuttle undocks next Monday night and European Space Agency astronaut Leopold Eyharts will return to Earth in his place after a month and a half in orbit.

Asked to describe the fast-growing space station, Reisman said the crew was struck by the view during final approach and similarities with the famous space station scene in the movie "2001: A Space Odyssey" by Stanley Kurbrick and Arthur C. Clarke. Clarke died Tuesday at the age of 90.

"It's interesting you should bring that up," Reisman said. "As we were rendezvousing, a bunch of us commented about that movie and how much the view out the window of the space station approaching, all we needed was 'The Blue Danube' playing in the background and it would have been just like the movie.

"Coming in from the shuttle, which is relatively small volume, it was pretty overwhelming. It's amazing how big station is, it's about the same size from stem to stern as a Boeing 767 and it's been astonishing to me how long it takes just to get from one end to the other. It's so big, you actually have to plan how you carry your stuff around because if you have to go back and get something, it takes time. And that's really marvelous."

For his part, Eyharts said he's looking forward to seeing his family again. And returning to a bit more relaxed life style.

"Of course, I'm looking forward to seeing my family after seven weeks on board the station," he said. "It has been a relatively short flight for a (station crew member), but very busy, with two shuttle flights and a lot of work with Columbus. So I'm looking forward also to having a little bit of rest and kind of a normal life back on Earth."

Linnehan, veteran of three spacewalks during Endeavour's mission and three during a 2002 Hubble Space Telescope servicing flight, provided an interesting insight into what it's like to walk in space.

"We were talking about this yesterday. I feel really lucky to have had the opportunity to have gone to Hubble and now the station," he said. "You know, we talk about 'spacewalks' but it's a bit of a misnomer. It's more like 'space floating' You're really not out there walking. I guess the best analogy I can tell everybody is, if you can imagine yourself scuba diving in a suit of armor, that's about what spacewalking is like."

The astronauts were awakened for their 10th "day" in space around 1:40 p.m. by a recording of Elvis Presley's "Burning Love" radioed up from Houston.

"Good morning, Endeavour, these were words from the 'King' for another sort of king, I guess, captain, U.S. Navy, MIke Foreman," radioed Canadian astronaut Julie Payette. "Good morning to you all."

"Good morning, Houston, and thank you Elvis," Foreman replied. "And I especially want to thank my wife, Lorrie, whom I've been with for a long time and I still have a burning love for her. I couldn't do it without you."

The Canadian Space Agency's Dextre maintenance robot, now fully assembled and mounted on the Destiny lab module, is in good shape and ready for use when needed. Station Flight Director Ginger Kerrick said one minor glitch during testing Tuesday, when the robot's waist joint turned the opposite direction from what controllers expected, can easily be fixed with a software patch.

"It is on its new temporary home on the lab," Kerrick said. "I say temporary, but it'll stay there until we have a planned use for it. Right now, we don't have a planned use for it until the 2 J/A mission sometime next spring. It's in great shape. You may have heard about some software funnies as we attached it to the lab yesterday. We have taken a look at that, we understand what happened and it's just going to take a quick fix, nothing to worry about and no concerns for future operations."

Work with the mission's other major payload, a Japanese equipment storage room now attached to the station's Harmony module, also is complete, as are a variety of get-ahead tasks. The storage module ultimately will be attached to Japan's huge Kibo pressurized laboratory module, scheduled for attachment to the station in late May.

"There's not a whole lot of exciting things to tell you about that right now," Kerrick said of the logistics module. "They are done. They were pretty much done with the setup yesterday, not only on the activities that were scheduled for this docked mission, but also for the activities that were scheduled after the shuttle left, before the arrival of the next shuttle. So you'll see a couple of five- to 10-minute activities on the timeline but it's really just to take pictures and to document the configuration that it's in."

Japanese astronaut Takao Doi, Whitson and shuttle commander Dom Gorie chatted with Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda this evening, showing off the newly attached logistics module and answering questions from school kids.

"Doi-san, thank you for the hard work. Congratulations on the completion of the first stage of (the attachment of) Kibo," Fukuda said in Japanese. "Congratulations. Doi-san, for a very long time have been engaged in this project. How do you feel now, the fact that you've completed the first step, what is your impression? What are your thoughts?"

"Hello, prime minister, from space station," Doi replied. "Kibo module is filled with the dreams of the Japanese people. I'm very happy to be able to complete the first step, the attachment. People on the ground have been working hard supporting us up in space and we thank all of you very much indeed."

Said Whitson: "It's been a very special honor to me to welcome JAXA (the Japanese space agency) officially aboard the space station with the addition of this module. We are very happy to have Kibo up here with us."

Here is an updated timeline of today's activity (in EDT and mission elapsed time; includes revision G of the NASA television schedule):


EDT........DD...HH...MM...EVENT

03/19/08
02:58 PM...08...12...30...ISS crew off duty
04:28 PM...08...14...00...STS crew off duty
07:08 PM...08...16...40...Japanese VIP event
08:58 PM...08...18...30...CBS News, NBC News, WMUR-TV interviews
09:28 PM...08...19...00...Joint crew meal
11:00 PM...08...20...32...Mission status briefing on NASA TV
11:13 PM...08...20...45...T-RAD tile repair preps
11:58 PM...08...21...30...EVA-4: Tools configured

03/20/08
01:28 AM...08...23...00...EVA-4: Procedures review
03:43 AM...09...01...15...EVA-4: Mask pre-breathe/tool config
04:38 AM...09...02...10...EVA-1: Airlock depress to 10.2 psi
04:58 AM...09...02...30...ISS crew sleep begins
05:28 AM...09...03...00...STS crew sleep begins
06:00 AM...09...03...32...Daily video highlights reel on NASA TV
10:30 AM...09...08...32...Flight director update on NASA TV
01:28 PM...09...11...00...Crew wakeup

Spaceflight Now Plus
Additional coverage for subscribers:
VIDEO: LAUNCH VIDEO FROM COCKPIT CAMERA W/INTERCOM PLAY

VIDEO: THE FLIGHT DAY 9 HIGHLIGHTS MOVIE PLAY
VIDEO: TUESDAY NIGHT'S MISSION STATUS BRIEFING PLAY
VIDEO: LAUNCH CARRIER PALLET RETURNED TO SHUTTLE PLAY
VIDEO: DEXTRE ROBOT ATTACHED TO DESTINY LAB MODULE PLAY

VIDEO: THE FLIGHT DAY 8 HIGHLIGHTS MOVIE PLAY
VIDEO: TUESDAY MORNING'S MISSION STATUS BRIEFING PLAY
VIDEO: DEXTRE ROBOT FREED FROM LAUNCH PALLET PLAY
VIDEO: SECOND SPARE DCSU BOX PLACED ON THE STATION PLAY
VIDEO: SPACEWALKER UNABLE TO INSTALL MISSE EXPERIMENT PLAY
VIDEO: FIRST SPARE DCSU BOX PLACED ON THE STATION PLAY
VIDEO: SPARE YAW JOINT FOR STATION ARM TRANSFERRED PLAY
VIDEO: MOUNTING PLATE ATTACHED TO COLUMBUS PLAY
VIDEO: DEXTRE ROBOT FITTED WITH TOOL HOLDER PLAY
VIDEO: TOOL PLATFORM ATTACHED TO DEXTRE PLAY
VIDEO: NARRATED PREVIEW OF SPACEWALK NO. 3 PLAY

VIDEO: LEFT-HAND BOOSTER CAMERA LOOKING UPWARD PLAY
VIDEO: LEFT-HAND BOOSTER CAMERA LOOKING INBOARD PLAY
VIDEO: LEFT-HAND BOOSTER CAMERA LOOKING DOWNWARD PLAY
VIDEO: RIGHT-HAND BOOSTER CAMERA LOOKING UPWARD PLAY

VIDEO: THE FLIGHT DAY 7 HIGHLIGHTS MOVIE PLAY
VIDEO: DEXTRE MOVES ARMS FOR BRAKE TESTS PLAY
VIDEO: CREW MEDIA INTERVIEWS SUNDAY NIGHT PLAY
VIDEO: SUNDAY NIGHT'S MISSION STATUS BRIEFING PLAY

VIDEO: THE FLIGHT DAY 6 HIGHLIGHTS MOVIE PLAY
VIDEO: SUNDAY'S MISSION STATUS BRIEFING PLAY
VIDEO: SECOND ARM ATTACHED TO DEXTRE ROBOT PLAY
VIDEO: FIRST ARM ATTACHED TO THE DEXTRE ROBOT PLAY
VIDEO: SPACEWALKERS HELP DEXTRE DO A SIT-UP PLAY
VIDEO: SECOND DEXTRE ARM PULLED FROM LAUNCH CARRIER PLAY
VIDEO: FIRST ARM REMOVED FROM PALLET WITH FORCE PLAY
VIDEO: NARRATED PREVIEW OF SPACEWALK NO. 2 PLAY

VIDEO: THE FLIGHT DAY 5 HIGHLIGHTS MOVIE PLAY
VIDEO: SATURDAY MORNING MEDIA INTERVIEWS PLAY
VIDEO: STATION ARM GRAPPLES DEXTRE TO PROVIDE POWER PLAY
VIDEO: CEREMONY AT JAPANESE MODULE HATCH OPENING PLAY
VIDEO: SATURDAY'S MISSION STATUS BRIEFING PLAY
VIDEO: FRIDAY'S MISSION MANAGEMENT TEAM UPDATE PLAY

VIDEO: THURSDAY'S MISSION STATUS BRIEFING PLAY
VIDEO: THE FLIGHT DAY 4 HIGHLIGHTS MOVIE PLAY
VIDEO: NEW MODULE CONNECTED TO THE STATION PLAY
VIDEO: JAPANESE MODULE UNBERTHED FROM SHUTTLE PLAY
VIDEO: SPACEWALKER START ASSEMBLING DEXTRE ROBOT PLAY
VIDEO: JAPANESE MODULE PREPPED FOR UNBERTHING PLAY
VIDEO: HARMONY DOCKING PORT PREPPED PLAY
VIDEO: SPACEWALK NO. 1 BEGINS PLAY
VIDEO: NARRATED PREVIEW OF SPACEWALK NO. 1 PLAY
VIDEO: THURSDAY'S MISSION MANAGEMENT TEAM UPDATE PLAY

VIDEO: THE FLIGHT DAY 3 HIGHLIGHTS MOVIE PLAY
VIDEO: DEXTRE PALLET MOVED FROM SHUTTLE TO STATION PLAY
VIDEO: THURSDAY'S MISSION STATUS BRIEFING PLAY
VIDEO: SHUTTLE CREW WELCOMED ABOARD STATION PLAY
VIDEO: DOCKING REPLAY FROM OTHER TRUSS CAMERA PLAY
VIDEO: SHUTTLE ENDEAVOUR DOCKS TO SPACE STATION PLAY
VIDEO: ENDEAVOUR PERFORMS THE 360-DEGREE BACKFLIP PLAY
VIDEO: VIEWS OF THE SHUTTLE APPROACHING FROM BELOW PLAY
VIDEO: NARRATED ANIMATION OF PREVIEWING THE DOCKING PLAY
VIDEO: UPDATE FROM MISSION MANAGEMENT TEAM PLAY

VIDEO: THE FLIGHT DAY 2 HIGHLIGHTS MOVIE PLAY
VIDEO: WEDNESDAY'S MISSION STATUS BRIEFING PLAY
VIDEO: ANIMATION OF THE HEAT SHIELD INSPECTIONS PLAY
VIDEO: NARRATED TOUR OF ENDEAVOUR'S PAYLOAD BAY PLAY

VIDEO: THE FLIGHT DAY 1 HIGHLIGHTS MOVIE PLAY
VIDEO: INSIDE MISSION CONTROL DURING LAUNCH PLAY
VIDEO: THE FULL LAUNCH EXPERIENCE PLAY
VIDEO: SHUTTLE ENDEAVOUR BLASTS OFF! PLAY
VIDEO: THE POST-LAUNCH NEWS CONFERENCE PLAY
VIDEO: HIGHLIGHTS FROM ENDEAVOUR'S LAUNCH CAMPAIGN PLAY
VIDEO: HIGHLIGHTS OF THE PAYLOADS' LAUNCH CAMPAIGN PLAY

VIDEO: LAUNCH REPLAY: VAB ROOF PLAY
VIDEO: LAUNCH REPLAY: PAD FRONT PLAY
VIDEO: LAUNCH REPLAY: PRESS SITE PLAY
VIDEO: LAUNCH REPLAY: WEST TOWER PLAY
VIDEO: LAUNCH REPLAY: PAD PERIMETER PLAY
VIDEO: LAUNCH REPLAY: UCS-23 WIDESCREEN PLAY
VIDEO: LAUNCH REPLAY: CAMERA 009 PLAY
VIDEO: LAUNCH REPLAY: CAMERA 049 PLAY
VIDEO: LAUNCH REPLAY: CAMERA 050 PLAY
VIDEO: LAUNCH REPLAY: CAMERA 051 PLAY
VIDEO: LAUNCH REPLAY: CAMERA 054 PLAY
VIDEO: LAUNCH REPLAY: CAMERA 061 PLAY
VIDEO: LAUNCH REPLAY: CAMERA 063 PLAY
VIDEO: LAUNCH REPLAY: CAMERA 070 PLAY
VIDEO: LAUNCH REPLAY: CAMERA 071 PLAY
VIDEO: LAUNCH REPLAY: CAMERA CS-1 PLAY
VIDEO: LAUNCH REPLAY: CAMERA CS-2 PLAY
VIDEO: LAUNCH REPLAY: CAMERA CS-6 PLAY

VIDEO: FINAL PRE-LAUNCH POLLS GIVE "GO" FOR LIFTOFF PLAY
VIDEO: ENDEAVOUR'S CREW MODULE CLOSED FOR FLIGHT PLAY
VIDEO: ASTRONAUT DOI CLIMBS INTO HIS SEAT PLAY
VIDEO: PILOT JOHNSON CLIMBS INTO HIS SEAT PLAY
VIDEO: ASTRONAUT REISMAN CLIMBS INTO HIS SEAT PLAY
VIDEO: COMMANDER GORIE CLIMBS INTO HIS SEAT PLAY
VIDEO: ASTRONAUTS ARRIVE AT LAUNCH PAD 39A PLAY
VIDEO: CREW DEPARTS QUARTERS FOR LAUNCH PAD PLAY
VIDEO: ASTRONAUTS DON SPACESUITS FOR LAUNCH PLAY
VIDEO: TIME-LAPSE MOVIE OF SUNSET OVER PAD 39A PLAY
VIDEO: MORNING PREPARATIONS AT LAUNCH PAD 39A PLAY
VIDEO: PAD GANTRY RETRACTED FOR LAUNCH PLAY

VIDEO: OVERVIEW BRIEFING ON CANADA'S DEXTRE ROBOT PLAY
VIDEO: OVERVIEW BRIEFING ON JAPAN'S KIBO FACILITIES PLAY
VIDEO: SUNDAY'S COUNTDOWN STATUS BRIEFING PLAY
VIDEO: SATURDAY'S COUNTDOWN STATUS BRIEFING PLAY
VIDEO: CREW ARRIVES AT KENNEDY SPACE CENTER FOR LAUNCH PLAY
VIDEO: FRIDAY'S COUNTDOWN STATUS AND WEATHER BRIEFING PLAY

VIDEO: STS-123 ASTRONAUT BIOGRAPHY MOVIE PLAY
VIDEO: NARRATED SHORT FILM PREVIEW ENDEAVOUR'S FLIGHT PLAY

VIDEO: STS-123 MISSION OVERVIEW BRIEFING PLAY
VIDEO: BRIEFING ON THE SPACEWALKS PLAY
VIDEO: CREW'S PRE-FLIGHT BRIEFING PLAY
VIDEO: SHUTTLE AND ISS PROGRAM UPDATE PLAY

VIDEO: CREW INTERVIEW: COMMANDER DOM GORIE PLAY
VIDEO: CREW INTERVIEW: PILOT GREG JOHNSON PLAY
VIDEO: CREW INTERVIEW: MS1 BOB BEHNKEN PLAY
VIDEO: CREW INTERVIEW: MS2 MIKE FOREMAN PLAY
VIDEO: CREW INTERVIEW: MS3 TAKAO DOI PLAY
VIDEO: CREW INTERVIEW: MS4 RICK LINNEHAN PLAY

VIDEO: FLIGHT READINESS REVIEW NEWS BRIEFING PLAY
VIDEO: TCDT TRAINING HIGHLIGHTS PLAY
VIDEO: PRESS CHAT WITH CREW AT LAUNCH PAD PLAY
VIDEO: CREW ARRIVES AT KSC FOR PRACTICE COUNT PLAY
VIDEO: ENDEAVOUR ARRIVES AT PAD 39A PLAY | XL SIZE
VIDEO: SHUTTLE ROLLS TO THE VAB PLAY | XL SIZE
MORE: STS-123 VIDEO COVERAGE
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