After Docking, Discovery Crew's Mission Going Well

STS-121 mission specialists Lisa Nowak (foreground) and Stephanie Wilson (center) use the spce station's robotic arm to grapple Discovery's orbital boom during their first day at the ISS. Expedition 13 flight engineer Jeffrey Williams (right) is also visible in this July 6, 2006 image. CREDIT: NASA.

HOUSTON - With nine astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS), NASA's space shuttle Discovery has already met one of the major goals of its STS-121 spaceflight, a mission flight director said Thursday.

Tony Ceccacci, lead shuttle flight director for Discovery's STS-121 mission, said the orbiter's docking at the ISS today marks the start of a spaceflight marathon for the shuttle's seven-astronaut crew.

"They're all pumped up and ready to go," Ceccacci said of Discovery's crew during a mission update here at Johnson Space Center (JSC). "I think they're probably going to be on an adrenaline rush until we get the main shuttle nose gear touchdown on entry day."

Veteran spaceflyer Steven Lindsey, commander of Discovery's STS-121 mission, eased the 100-ton space plane into a berth at the end of the space station's U.S.-built Destiny lab at 10:52 a.m. EDT (1452 GMT) today. Less than two hours later, Lindsey and his six STS-121 crewmates were exchanging handshakes and hugs with ISS Expedition 13 commander Pavel Vinogradov and flight engineer Jeffrey Williams.

"I'm very happy how things are going," Ceccacci said.

Among the highlights of today's orbital rendezvous was Discovery's orbital back flip, which Lindsey conducted while flying just 600 feet (182 meters) below the ISS. During that time, Vinogradov and Williams snapped hundreds of still images that were later relayed down to Earth. But the event was also broadcast live via cameras attached to the space station's exterior.

"A picture is worth 1,000 words, how beautiful that looked," Ceccacci said of the shuttle back flip, known as a rendezvous pitch maneuver. "We're all interested in the digital photography that the station crew took."  

Going by the numbers, Vinogradov and Williams took 350 pictures of Discovery between them while Lindsey put the orbiter through its orbital back flip. About 125 of those images have been downloaded by mission controllers on Earth for waiting analysts. The rest are expected to be received by late this afternoon for study to determine the health of Discovery's heat shield, Ceccacci said.

Meanwhile, the space station hit a major milestone this afternoon, when STS-121 mission specialist Thomas Reiter moved his Soyuz seat liner into a Russian-built spacecraft already docked at the station. Coupled with a safety check of Reiter's Russian-built Sokol flight suit, the seat liner installation almost assures Reiter's position as the third ISS crewmember.

Space station crews have been limited to two astronauts since the 2003 Columbia accident, due the drop in supplies that followed the grounding of NASA's shuttle fleet.

Reiter is the first German citizen to visit the ISS and the first European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut marked for an extended tour aboard the orbital outpost.

Ceccacci said that while Reiter has returned the ISS to its three-person capacity on paper, space station flight controllers are holding their judgment until all of his supplies, personal items and other equipment are stowed aboard the orbital laboratory.

"Of course, the majority of those are on the MPLM side," Ceccacci said, adding that the supplies are still packed inside the Italian-built Leonardo cargo container - known as a Multi-Purpose Logistics Module (MPLM).

In a mission summary uplinked to the STS-121 crew this morning, flight controllers reported that the sensors behind each of Discovery's wings recorded three impacts each, which appear similar to those seen during Discovery's STS-114 flight.

"There may be some correlation between the two missions," the crew summary reported.

Ceccacci said mission managers will likely discuss those issues during an STS-121 Mission Management Team meeting later today.

An in-flight fix to a finicky thruster heater - in which Discovery's crew simply oriented the small left aft thruster towards the Sun to keep it warm - also worked as expected during today's ISS docking, and allowed Lindsey to make fine adjustments with the engine, rather than rely on the shuttle's larger reaction control jets, Ceccacci added.

Aside from those issues, Discovery's STS-121 mission - and its crew - are sailing quietly along.

"You know, it's boring to us that it's quiet, but that's a good thing," Ceccacci said. "That means everything is going well."

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