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Astronauts to give Endeavour full post-launch inspection BY WILLIAM HARWOOD STORY WRITTEN FOR CBS NEWS "SPACE PLACE" & USED WITH PERMISSION Posted: February 8, 2010 
The Endeavour astronauts worked through a busy first day in space Monday evening after a pre-dawn climb into orbit, gearing up for a lengthy inspection of the shuttle's heat shield amid work to prepare for rendezvous and docking with the International Space Station overnight Tuesday.
As with all post-Columbia missions, an inspection of the shuttle's reinforced carbon carbon nose cap and wing leading edge panels was the highlight of the day. The nose cap and leading edge panels experience the most extreme heating during re-entry and the post-launch inspection is designed to look for any signs of damage from ascent debris impacts. Using the shuttle's robot arm and a 50-foot-long extension equipped with a laser scanner and high-resolution camera, the astronauts planned to inspect the shuttle's right wing leading edge first, then the nose cap and finally the left wing. "It's a busy day for us," commander George Zamka said in a NASA interview. "We start running right out of the gate and Kay (Hire) and Nick will take the shuttle's robotic arm and grapple to the orbiter boom sensing system which we keep on the starboard side of the orbiter. They'll pull that out and they'll begin to image several parts of the orbiter but the meat of the inspection is using the Laser Dynamic Range Imager, which paints a three-dimensional picture of the leading edges of the shuttle and the nose as well, and we transmit those images down to Houston. "It takes a good part of the day for us to do that (and) we'll be swapping crews. Kay and Nick stop and then we'll be tag teaming as we go along through this inspection and when it's done, Kay gets back on and she and Terry will stow the boom back in its housing on the right side." Later in the day, the crew will set up and check out the tools needed for the rendezvous with the International Space Station. Docking is targeted for 12:06 a.m. Wednesday. "We use a handheld laser and we also have different systems on board configuring our computers to make sure that we're all set to go to monitor our rendezvous," Hire said. "We also monitor the actual location of the International Space Station and we start tracking that and start tracking how we're closing that distance between us. Then on flight day three, we will go ahead and rendezvous and dock with the International Space Station ... and start getting set up for the rest of the mission." Here is an updated timeline of today's activity (in EST and mission elapsed time; includes revision C of the NASA television schedule): EST............DD...HH...MM...EVENT 02/08 Mon 06:14 PM...00...14...00...Crew wakeup Mon 07:44 PM...00...15...30...OMS rocket pod survey Mon 08:39 PM...00...16...25...FRED setup Mon 08:49 PM...00...16...35...Group B powerup Mon 09:04 PM...00...16...50...Ergometer setup Mon 09:14 PM...00...17...00...Laptop computer network setup (part 2) Mon 09:33 PM...00...17...18...NC-2 rendezvous rocket firing Mon 09:34 PM...00...17...20...Shuttle robot arm (SRMS) unberths OBSS Mon 09:49 PM...00...17...35...Group B powerdown Mon 11:04 PM...00...18...50...OBSS starboard wing survey Mon 11:59 PM...00...19...45...Crew meals begin 02/09 Tue 01:09 AM...00...20...55...OBSS nose cap survey Tue 01:59 AM...00...21...45...Spacesuit checkout preps Tue 02:24 AM...00...22...10...OBSS port wing survey Tue 02:29 AM...00...22...15...Spacesuit checkout Tue 03:59 AM...00...23...45...Spacesuit prepped for transfer to station Tue 04:00 AM...00...23...46...Mission status briefing on NTV Tue 04:14 AM...01...00...00...SRMS berths OBSS Tue 05:14 AM...01...01...00...FCMS ops Tue 05:44 AM...01...01...30...Centerline camera setup Tue 05:44 AM...01...01...30...Rendezvous tools checkout Tue 06:04 AM...01...01...50...Orbiter docking system ring extension Tue 06:42 AM...01...02...28...NC-3 rendezvous rocket firing Tue 07:14 AM...01...03...00...Laser data downlink Tue 09:14 AM...01...05...00...Crew sleep begins Tue 10:00 AM...01...05...46...Daily highlights reel Tue 12:00 PM...01...07...46...Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) webcast Tue 01:00 PM...01...08...46...SDO pre-launch news conference on NTV Tue 04:30 PM...01...12...16...Post-MMT briefing Tue 05:14 PM...01...13...00...Crew wakeup
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MISSION INDEX |
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VIDEO:
FLIGHT DAY 1 HIGHLIGHTS MOVIE 