This
story was updated at 5:07 p.m. EDT.
Space
shuttle Discovery is closing in on the International Space Station for a late
Sunday rendezvous in orbit around Earth.
Discovery
and a crew of seven
astronauts are due to dock at the space station tonight at 9:04 p.m. EDT
(0104 Aug. 31 GMT) and boost the outpost's population to a record-tying 13
people. The shuttle is packed with nearly 8 tons of supplies and new science
gear.
"I'm
looking forward to seeing the station," Discovery commander Rick Sturckow, who
is making his fourth trip to the orbital outpost, told SPACE.com before
launching late Friday. "Every time we've been there, it's gotten a little
bigger."
The International
Space Station is currently home to six astronauts and has a wingspan that
could cover an American football field. Astronauts have compared its nine main
rooms of living space as comparable in size to the cabin of a jumbo jet.
Sturckow
will have a more challenging approach for tonight's docking because of a small thruster failure in a system used for fine attitude control adjustments.
Discovery will rely on its larger, primary reaction control thrusters, which
have more of a kick and consume more fuel, mission managers said.
"I would
characterize it as slightly more challenging," said deputy shuttle program
manager LeRoy Cain, adding that when the bigger thrusters fire, astronauts
can't miss it. "It's a noticeable, maybe even impressive, event."
Orbital
rendezvous
Before
Discovery docks at the space station, Sturckow will fly the ship through an
orbital back flip to expose the thousands of heat-resistant tiles on its
underbelly to astronauts inside the orbital laboratory. The station crew will
take high-resolution photographs of the heat shield and send them to analysts
on Earth for review.
The photo
survey is part of a routine shuttle health check to make sure Discovery's heat
shield is in good shape after launch. NASA has kept a close eye on heat shield
integrity since a hole in the wing of shuttle Columbia led to the
loss its seven-astronaut crew in 2003.
Discovery's
astronauts inspected the shuttle's wing edges and nose cap overnight Saturday
as part of their standard shuttle health survey.
"Nothing
stood out that I saw," lead shuttle flight director Tony Ceccacci said early
Sunday.
Cain said later on Sunday that analysts are still reviewing data from the inspection, as well as video and imagery from Discovery's launch. They are also awaiting the photographs of Discovery's underbelly from tonight's docking, he said.
Next
stop: space station
Discovery's
six-man, one-woman crew will deliver a new crewmember and tons
of science equipment and supplies for the six astronauts currently living
aboard the space station during their mission. Astronaut Nicole Stott is riding
Discovery to the station to begin a three-month mission to the station. She
will replace NASA spaceflyer Tim Kopra, who has lived on the station for more
than a month.
The
astronauts are also delivering a new space treadmill named after television
comedian Stephen Colbert.
Colbert won
an online poll to name a new space station room after him, but NASA named it
Tranquility instead. As a consolation prize, NASA dubbed the treadmill the
Combined Operational Load Bearing External Resistance Treadmill, or COLBERT.
The
treadmill launched in pieces packed away in a refrigerator-sized rack inside a cargo
module in Discovery's payload bay. Stott and her station crewmates won't set up
the COLBERT treadmill after an unmanned Japanese cargo ship, Japan's first H-2
Transfer Vehicle, arrives at the station in mid-September.
Discovery
will arrive at the space station on the 25th anniversary of its maiden launch
on Aug. 30, 1984. That mission deployed three satellites and tested solar array
technology for future space stations.
SPACE.com
is providing complete coverage of Discovery's STS-128 mission to the
International Space Station with Managing Editor Tariq Malik in New York. Click here for shuttle mission
updates and a link to NASA TV. Live docking coverage begins at 6:30 pm ET.
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