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Discovery to arrive at the space station today BY WILLIAM HARWOOD STORY WRITTEN FOR CBS NEWS "SPACE PLACE" & USED WITH PERMISSION Posted: June 2, 2008 The shuttle Discovery, carrying Japan's huge Kibo laboratory module, closed in on the international space station today, on course for docking around 1:54 p.m. EDT. Commander Mark Kelly, pilot Kenneth Ham, flight engineer Ronald Garan, Karen Nyberg, Michael Fossum, Japanese astronaut Akihiko Hoshide and space station flight engineer Gregory Chamitoff were awakened at 6:32 a.m. to begin docking preparations. Trailing the station by about 9.2 miles, Kelly and Ham plan to fire Discovery's maneuvering jets at 11:16 a.m. to begin the terminal phase of the two-day rendezvous, following a carefully choreographed approach that will put the shuttle at a point 600 feet directly below the station around 12:46 p.m. At that point, Kelly will guide the shuttle through a slow back flip, allowing the station crew to photograph the orbiter's heat shield tiles in a now-standard post-Columbia inspection. After the rotational pitch maneuver is complete, Kelly will guide Discovery to a position directly in front of the lab complex and then move in for a docking at pressurized mating adapter No. 2 on the front of node 2, or the Harmony module. "It's a pretty standard profile," said lead Flight Director Matt Abbott. "We come up from behind and below. Once we get to what we call the r-bar, kind of an imaginary line from the station straight down to the center of the Earth, we'll stop there about 600 feet below and do the R-bar pitch maneuver, the RPM. That's so the station crew can photograph the thermal protection system on the orbiter and we'll downlink those pictures and use that as part of our analysis to clear the thermal protection system for entry as we always do. "Then we'll transition up to what we call the v-bar, the velocity vector, which is out in front of the space station. And then Mark Kelly will manually fly the vehicle in to docking on node 2. One of the things you'll notice, it's getting pretty crowded there around node 2 with the (Japanese) logistics module, the (European) Columbus module. Of course, Kibo will go on the port side of node 2, so there's a lot of construction that's been going on lately. So Mark will guide it in and dock with the station." Here is an updated timeline of today's activity (in EDT and mission elapsed time; includes revision A of the NASA television schedule; NOTE: rev. B is the current version of the TV schedule, but it was not available in time for this posting): EDT........DD...HH...MM...EVENT 06/02/08 06:32 AM...01...13...30...STS/ISS crew wakeup 07:57 AM...01...14...55...Group B computer powerup 08:17 AM...01...15...15...Rendezvous timeline begins 08:32 AM...01...15...30...ISS daily planning conference 08:58 AM...01...15...56...NH rendezvous rocket firing 09:44 AM...01...16...42...NC-4 rendezvous rocket firing 10:32 AM...01...17...30...Spacesuits removed from airlock 10:34 AM...01...17...32...ISS in docking orientation 10:34 AM...01...17...32...ATV solar arrays feathered 11:16 AM...01...18...14...TI burn 11:40 AM...01...18...38...U.S. solar arrays feathered 11:41 AM...01...18...39...ISS in prox ops mode 11:42 AM...01...18...40...ISS crew meal 11:52 AM...01...18...50...Sunset 12:14 PM...01...19...12...Range: 10,000 feet 12:23 PM...01...19...21...Range: 5,000 feet 12:27 PM...01...19...25...Sunrise 12:29 PM...01...19...27...Range: 3,000 feet 12:33 PM...01...19...31...MC-4 rendezvous burn 12:37 PM...01...19...35...Range: 1,500 feet 12:39 PM...01...19...37...RPM start window open 12:42 PM...01...19...40...Range: 1,000 feet 12:45 PM...01...19...43...KU antenna to low power 12:46 PM...01...19...44...+R bar arrival directly below ISS 12:51 PM...01...19...49...Range: 600 feet 12:52 PM...01...19...50...RPM photography 12:53 PM...01...19...51...Start pitch maneuver 12:55 PM...01...19...53...Noon 01:01 PM...01...19...59...End pitch maneuver 01:03 PM...01...20...01...RPM full photo window close 01:04 PM...01...20...02...Initiate pitch up maneuver (575 ft) 01:11 PM...01...20...09...RPM start window close 01:15 PM...01...20...13...+V bar arrival; range: 310 feet 01:16 PM...01...20...14...Range: 300 feet 01:20 PM...01...20...18...Range: 250 feet 01:23 PM...01...20...21...Sunset 01:24 PM...01...20...22...Range: 200 feet 01:27 PM...01...20...25...Range: 170 feet 01:28 PM...01...20...26...Range: 150 feet 01:33 PM...01...20...31...Range: 100 feet 01:36 PM...01...20...34...Range: 75 feet 01:40 PM...01...20...38...Range: 50 feet 01:43 PM...01...20...41...Range: 30 feet; start stationkeeping 01:48 PM...01...20...46...End stationkeeping; push to dock 01:52 PM...01...20...50...Range: 10 feet 01:54 PM...01...20...52...DOCKING 01:58 PM...01...20...56...Sunrise 02:12 PM...01...21...10...Leak checks 02:37 PM...01...21...35...Group B computer powerdown 02:42 PM...01...21...40...Post docking laptop reconfig 02:47 PM...01...21...45...Orbiter docking system prepped for ingress 03:07 PM...01...22...05...Hatch open 03:52 PM...01...22...50...Welcome aboard! 04:02 PM...01...23...00...Safety briefing 04:27 PM...01...23...25...Post-docking EVA transfer 04:27 PM...01...23...25...Soyuz seatliner transfer to ISS 04:30 PM...01...23...28...Mission status briefing on NASA TV 05:02 PM...02...00...00...Soyuz seatliner installation 05:07 PM...02...00...05...REBA checkout 05:37 PM...02...00...35...Airlock preps 06:27 PM...02...01...25...EVA-1: Procedures review 08:57 PM...02...03...55...EVA-1: Mask pre-breathe 09:42 PM...02...04...40...EVA-1: Airlock 10.2 psi depress 10:02 PM...02...05...00...ISS crew sleep begins 10:32 PM...02...05...30...STS crew sleep begins 11:00 PM...02...05...58...Flight day highlights on NTV
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VIDEO:
SUNDAY'S MISSION STATUS BRIEFING 