Teacher-turned-astronaut
Barbara Morgan and her six crewmates have a warm welcome ahead of them when
their shuttle Endeavour arrives at the International Space Station (ISS) later
today.
Aboard the
ISS, Expedition 15 commander Fyodor Yurchikhin and flight engineers Oleg Kotov
and Clayton Anderson - a former member of Endeavour's STS-118 crew - are ready
and waiting for their first human visitors since June.
"We're
really looking forward to docking with the International Space station tomorrow
and joining with our crewmates Clay, Oleg and Fyodor," Morgan, a former
McCall, Idaho, schoolteacher, said late Thursday.
Commanded
by veteran shuttle flyer Scott Kelly, Endeavour's STS-118 crew is due to dock
at the ISS at 1:53 p.m. EDT (1753 GMT) after a two-day orbital chase that began
with a Wednesday
launch. Tucked aboard the shuttle are about 5,000 pounds (2,267 kilograms)
of fresh cargo, a loaded spare parts platform and a new piece of the space
station's starboard-side truss.
"The
International Space Station is getting visitors from another planet," Anderson,
who launched on NASA's earlier June shuttle flight for a crew change, told reporters
last week. "I'm really looking forward to seeing them and hopefully
they're bringing some goodies for us."
Endeavour
is also equipped with a new
power transfer system designed to siphon electricity from the ISS rather than
rely on its own internal fuel cells. If successful, the system will allow
Endeavour's STS-118 astronauts to extend their planned 11-day construction
mission by three extra days, NASA has said.
"Clearly
it's a real privilege to be up here in space," Kelly said late Thursday. "Everything
is going well."
Shuttle back
flip on tap
Before
Kelly and his crew can begin their ISS
construction mission, the shuttle commander will fly Endeavour through a
bit of orbital acrobatics.
At about 12:51
p.m. EDT (1651 GMT), Kelly will guide the 100-ton orbiter into a slow back flip
to allow astronauts aboard the ISS to photograph Endeavour's belly-mounted heat
resistant tiles. Analysts will study the resulting high-resolution images,
particularly those that cover three regions where debris may have
struck Endeavour during launch, to ensure the shuttle's heat shield is fit
for the return to Earth.
Shuttle
managers hope the ISS crew's photographs will also show that doors designed to
close over Endeavour's two belly-mounted external tank connections after launch
are properly latched in place.
"We
did see some indications early on that things may have been, in terms of the
mechanism, not completely seated, but that later cleared," said Matt Abbott,
NASA's lead STS-118 shuttle flight director, adding that the heat shield
photography during docking will confirm for sure that the doors are in
position.
Endeavour's
ISS arrival will be a return of sorts for two STS-118 astronauts. Mission
specialist Rick Mastracchio helped prime the station for astronaut crews during
NASA's STS-106 mission in 2000 while shuttle pilot Charlie Hobaugh helped
deliver the orbital laboratory's U.S. Quest airlock during the STS-104 mission in
2001.
"It'll be really neat to see
how it's coming along, how we're proceeding and hopefully where we'll be able
to head and go from here," Hobaugh said.
NASA is
broadcasting Endeavour's STS-118 mission live on NASA TV. Click here for mission updates and
SPACE.com's NASA TV feed.
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