HOUSTON --
Astronauts aboard NASA's shuttle Endeavour and the International Space Station
(ISS) will haul cargo between their two spacecraft Friday and gear up for a
weekend spacewalk outside the orbital laboratory.
Led by teacher-turned-spaceflyer
Barbara Morgan and astronaut Alvin Drew, Jr., the 10 astronauts aboard ISS
and Endeavour are stepping up work to transfer about four tons worth of cargo
between their two spacecraft. The day's activities come after NASA mission
managers decided that a small gouge in the heat-resistant tiles of Endeavour's
heat shield did not
require a spacewalk repair.
"The
word that we are getting is that this is more an issue for the orbiter's reuse
and not our personal safety," Morgan, who served as NASA's backup Teacher
in Space for Christa McAuliffe before the 1986 Challenger accident, told
reporters Thursday. "Spaceflight is risky, but we all have confident that
we're going to be able to do the right thing."
After a
week of analysis and testing, NASA mission managers concluded that the 3
1/2-inch by 2-inch (9-centimeter by 5-centimeter) divot on Endeavour's
underbelly did not pose a risk to the safe descent and landing of its astronaut
crew. The decision allowed the STS-118 astronauts to continue their planned
mission activities Friday instead of jumping into new tasks.
In addition
to moving supplies between their two spacecraft, the joint crews of the ISS and
shuttle Endeavour are due to speak to reporters in the U.S. and Canada via a
space-to-ground video link at about 1:34 p.m. EDT (1734 GMT).
The
astronauts will also begin going over plans for a Saturday spacewalk, the
fourth of NASA's STS-118 mission aboard Endeavour, to continue assembly tasks
outside the ISS. Endeavour mission specialist Dave Williams and ISS Expedition
15 flight engineer Clayton Anderson are expected to perform
the spacewalk.
Cargo
carrier
Endeavour's
STS-118 has already delivered a new 4,010-pound (1,818-kilogram) girder to the
station's starboard and outfitted
the orbital laboratory with a 7,000-pound (3,175-kilogram) platform loaded
with spare parts.
"We
also have about 150 bags worth of stuff, of equipment and everything that the
ground ... that our station crew needs," Morgan told students at McCall-Donnelly
Elementary School, her former teaching post in McCall, Idaho, Thursday. "And
we've been transferring that back and forth, and that's what we've been really
busy with lately."
Most of that
cargo, about 5,000 pounds (2,267 kilograms) of it, sat tucked away in the
SPACEHAB module inside Endeavour's payload bay for later delivery. The
pressurized cargo pod is making its last trip into space with Endeavour's
STS-118 mission and will haul about 3,000 pounds (1,360 kilograms) of science
experiment results, unneeded equipment and other items back to Earth aboard
Endeavour. While two of the modules will remain primed for future flights
through NASA's September 2010 retirement date, upcoming ISS shipments aboard
U.S. orbiters are expected to ride up in the agency's Italian-built
Multi-Purpose Logistics Modules, mission managers have said.
"We're
all sad that this is the last module mission," Don Moore, director of
ground operations for SPACEHAB at the firm's Cape Canaveral, Florida, has said.
"It's kind of hard to see that go away."
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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