HOUSTON – The combined 12-member crew of Atlantis and the International Space Station will move the last of this mission’s spare hardware during the third and final spacewalk today.
Mission Specialists Randy Bresnik and Robert Satcher Jr. are scheduled to begin their six-hour spacewalk at 6:18 a.m. Final preparations for the spacewalk will begin at 3:13 a.m.
The crew’s wakeup call came today at 1:28 a.m. The wakeup song, “Space Rise” by Larry Whitehair, was played for Mission Specialist Mike Foreman.
Bresnik and Satcher will transfer an oxygen filled High Pressure Gas Tank (HPGT) from the EXPRESS Logistics Carrier 2, or ELC2, located on the starboard truss, to a spot on the outside of the Quest airlock. The tank will be used to replenish atmosphere lost when spacewalkers enter and exit the station.
While Satcher is relocating the HPGT, Bresnik will install the seventh Materials International Space Station Experiment, or MISSE 7. This is the most advanced of the MISSE payloads to date and will be the first to receive power directly from the station and use the station’s communication system to send commands and downlink real-time data.
Mission Specialist Mike Foreman will be the intravehicular officer. Mission Specialist Leland Melvin and Pilot Barry Wilmore will drive the robotic arm.
This spacewalk has been re-planned to include several tasks that were scheduled for future missions, including removing some debris shields from the Quest airlock.
The next shuttle status report will be issued at the end of the crew’s workday or earlier if events warrant. The crew is due to go to sleep just before 5 p.m.
– end –
text-only version of this release
NASA press releases and other information are available automatically by sending a blank e-mail message to hqnews-subscribe@mediaservices.nasa.gov. To unsubscribe from this mailing list, send a blank e-mail message to hqnews-unsubscribe@mediaservices.nasa.gov.
Back to NASA Newsroom | Back to NASA Homepage
2 a.m. CST Monday, Nov. 23, 2009
Mission Control Center, Houston, Texas