This
story was updated at 10:07 a.m. EDT.
NASA's
shuttle Discovery is closing in on the International Space Station and due to
arrive later today, its crew of seven astronauts eager to deliver new solar
wings for the orbiting lab's power grid.
Shuttle
commander Lee Archambault is slated to dock his 100-ton spacecraft at the
station at 5:13 p.m. EDT (2113 GMT) today after a
two-day orbital chase. After months of isolation 220 miles (354 km) above
Earth, the space station's three-person crew is more than ready to see some new
faces.
"The crew
is 100 million percent ready," station commander Michael Fincke radioed down to
Mission Control late Monday. "Tomorrow is game day."
Discovery
launched toward the space station late Sunday on
a 13-day mission to deliver new solar arrays and swap out one member of the
station's Expedition 18 crew. Three spacewalks, cut down from four due to
launch delays, are planned for the mission.
In addition
to the new $298 million solar wings, which will complete the station's
U.S.-built power grid once installed, Discovery is ferrying Japanese astronaut
Koichi Wakata to the station to replace NASA astronaut Sandra Magnus as an
Expedition 18 flight engineer. Magnus will return home aboard Discovery next
week, while Wakata - Japan's
first long-duration astronaut - is due to return home this summer on a
later shuttle flight.
Mission Control roused
Discovery's crew this morning with the traditional Japanese song "Radio
Exercise" by the Tokyo Broadcast Children's Choir, a tune selected especially
for Wakata.
"It's
another wonderful morning in orbit," Wakata said. "I'm looking forward to going
into our new base in space later today."
Discovery
is also toting a middeck crammed with extra supplies for the space station,
including a spare part for the outpost's broken recycling system that filters
astronaut urine back into drinking water. The part, a distillation assembly,
will be installed while Discovery is docked at the station and its broken
counterpart will be returned to Earth for analysis, mission managers said.
"I'm looking
forward to a very nominal rendezvous," shuttle flight director Paul Dye said
late Monday. Today's planned docking is unaffected by a piece of space debris
that passed by the station early this morning, he added.
NASA
engineers initially thought they might have to fire the station's thrusters to
avoid the debris, a bit of trash from a defunct Soviet navigation satellite -
but later found that the
object posed no threat and would fly well clear of the orbital outpost. No
engine burn or other precautions were required, Dye said.
Somersaulting
shuttle
Before
Discovery's crew can get to work at the space station, Archambault will guide
the spacecraft through a slow back flip below the orbiting lab so astronauts
inside can take photographs of the shuttle's tile-covered belly.
"We'll
basically flip the space shuttle Discovery," said in pilot Dominic "Tony"
Antonelli in a NASA interview.
Called the
Rendezvous Pitch Maneuver, Discovery's orbital flip is part of the now-standard
heat shield inspection plan NASA has used since the 2003 loss of shuttle
Columbia and its seven-astronaut crew during re-enter due to wing damage.
During the
shuttle somersault, Archambault will fly the spacecraft to a point about 600
feet (183 meters) directly below the space station. While Discovery turns in a
controlled end-over-end spin, station astronauts will take about 300
high-resolution photographs of the thousands of heat-resistant tiles lining the
spacecraft's belly.
Engineers
on Earth will study the images to search for any dinged or damage tiles that
might need repair.
The survey adds
to a Monday inspection of the heat shield panels along Discovery's wing
edges and nose cap by the shuttle astronauts. After combining the data and
images from both surveys, engineers will decide whether Discovery's crew will
have to perform an extra focused inspection of any specific areas of the heat
shield later in the mission.
LeRoy Cain,
head of Discovery's mission management team, said late Monday that shuttle
managers hope to decide whether the extra inspection will be required by late
Wednesday.
SPACE.com
is providing continuous coverage of STS-119 with reporter Clara Moskowitz and
senior editor Tariq Malik in New York. Click here for mission
updates and SPACE.com's live NASA TV video feed.
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