The space shuttle Discovery may be installing a massive16-ton solar power plant at the International Space Station today, but itsastronaut crew also packed something a little sweeter for the orbiting lab?sveteran commander.
Discovery skipper Lee Archambault made sure his crew packedaway a small chocolate cake in the spacecraft?s cupboards for NASA astronautMichael Fincke, who celebratedhis 42nd birthday last Saturday - a day before the shuttle launched.
?We had a stowaway, very chocolate-y cake,? shuttleastronaut John Phillips radioed Mission Control late Wednesday while beamingdown some video. ?The crew does have some chocolate fans, so they were glad tosee some fresh chocolate.?
Chocolate isa luxury on the space station, chocolate cake even more so. NASA astronautSandra Magnus, who has lived on the station since November, told SPACE.com that she made a specialrequest for extra chocolate when a Russian cargo ship launched to theoutpost last month.
Archambault said he and his crew sang a belated ?HappyBirthday? to Fincke after they arrived at the station on Tuesday while thestation commander somersaulted in weightlessness. Fincke has lived aboard thestation since last October and will return to Earth next month.
?Eventually, the song ended and we got that cake open,? saidArchambault, who also handed out matching crew shirts to Fincke, Magnus andtheir third crewmate, Russian cosmonaut Yury Lonchakov.
Phillips said Fincke?s birthday cake was baked by fellow NASAastronaut Marsha Ivins. It was rich and tasty, fairly crumbly in zero gravityuntil the astronauts started taking bigger, more put-together pieces, he said.
With their makeshift party over, the 10 astronauts aboardDiscovery and the International Space Station will perform thefirst of three spacewalks planned for their mission later today.
Discovery astronauts are replacing a member of the station?sthree-person crew and delivering a $298 million set of solar wings, the lastmajor American-built piece of the orbital laboratory, during their 13-daymission.
SPACE.com is providing continuous coverage of STS-119with reporter Clara Moskowitz and senior editor Tariq Malik in New York. Click here for missionupdates and SPACE.com's live NASA TV video feed.
