HOUSTON – Atlantis crew members got a well-earned half-day off Sunday, a day that began with some exciting news from Mission Specialist Randy Bresnik to Mission Control Houston.
Bresnik told the flight controllers his new daughter, Abigail Mae Bresnik, had been born at 11:04 p.m. Saturday. He said his wife Rebecca and new daughter, 6 pounds, 13 ounces and 20 inches long, were doing well. Bresnik got the news by private phone patch through mission control shortly after the crew was awakened.
Preparations for Monday’s spacewalk, the third of three scheduled for Atlantis’ mission to the station, occupied some of the crew’s time. Shuttle crew members, Charles Hobaugh, Pilot Barry Wilmore and Mission Specialists Leland Melvin, Bresnik, Mike Foreman, Robert Satcher Jr. and Nicole Stott, as well as the station’s crew, Commander Frank De Winne and Flight Engineers Jeffrey Williams, Maxim Suraev, Roman Romanenko and Robert Thirsk, joined in an hour-long spacewalk procedures review just before bedtime.
Satcher and Bresnik prepared tools for their spacewalk, with help from Foreman, Monday’s intravehicular officer, who participated in the flight’s first two spacewalks. Satcher and Bresnik will spend the night in the Quest airlock. The crew is scheduled to begin its sleep period about 5:30 p.m.
Earlier Sunday, Wilmore and Melvin, Satcher and Stott talked with reporters from WTTG-TV in Washington, D.C., Bay News 9 in Tampa, Fla., and WBBM Radio in Chicago. Wilmore, Melvin and Stott also talked with Tennessee students in a session from Tennessee Technological University in Cookeville. Wilmore is a graduate of Tennessee Tech.
The next mission status report will be issued after crew wakeup, or earlier if warranted.
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3 p.m. CST Sunday, Nov. 22, 2009
Mission Control Center, Houston, Texas