Astronauts inspect heat shield; Kelly talks to Tucson media
By WILLIAM HARWOOD
CBS News
KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FL--The Endeavour astronauts carried out a final inspection of the shuttle's heat shield early Thursday, fielded questions from reporters and geared up for a fourth and final spacewalk Friday, an excursion that will push EVA assembly time past the 1,000-hour mark.
Endeavour commander Mark Kelly told reporters in Tucson that his wife, Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, is recovering from surgery to replace part of her skull and "she sounds really good, very upbeat."
"It's been difficult being away as she's going through this recovery, but I do talk to her every day now before I go to sleep, it's her morning, my evening, and she sounds really great," he told another interviewer. "The procedure went as good as the doctor had hoped."
Giffords was shot in the head Jan. 8 during an assassination attempt that left six dead and more than a dozen wounded. A federal judge ruled Wednesday that Jared Loughner, the accused gunman, is not mentally competent to stand trial, ordering treatment and additional assessments at a federal psychiatric facility.
Asked about his perspective on the tragedy from the vantage point of space, Kelly said "it is an incredibly striking and beautiful planet and it's hard to understand how these things happen, I mean how violent a place it can also be. The pope touched on that a little bit when he spoke to us about a week ago."
Kelly said he was looking forward to a two-way video conference with his wife, a chance to share the view from 220 miles up.
"I plan to do it from the (multi-window) cupola, give her a chance to look outside, look at the space shuttle docked at the space station," Kelly told an interviewer. "That's an incredible view, to see Endeavour sitting there with the planet just below its tail. I'm looking forward to talking to her. I've been speaking to her every night before I go to bed , but it'll be nice to do it via video, to be able to see how she's doing and for her to join us on board the space station for a little bit."
Talking with his wife on the space station's internet protocol telephone, "I can see how she's progressing and she's doing really, really well. She's looking forward to me getting back and I'm looking forward to getting back to Houston and seeing her."
In a departure from normal practice, the shuttle crew carried out a final heat shield inspection overnight, using the shuttle's robot arm and an instrumented boom to look for any signs of damage to the ship's nose cap and wing leading edge panels that might have occurred since launch May 16.
The so-called "late inspection" normally is carried out just after undocking from the space station. But Endeavour's heat shield inspection boom is going to be left behind on the lab complex to give the station's robot arm additional "reach" for maintenance and inspections. The boom will be mounted on the station's solar power truss during a fourth and final spacewalk Friday, prompting the shuttle astronauts to carry out a not-so-late inspection Thursday.
After a joint crew news conference, the astronauts planned to review the procedures and plans for Friday's spacewalk, the final EVA by a visiting shuttle crew.
After the crew's third spacewalk Wednesday, space station EVA construction time stood at 995 hours and 13 minutes. Michael Fincke and Gregory Chamitoff plan to spend six-and-a-half hours outside the lab complex Friday, pushing cumulative spacewalk time to more than 1,000 hours since assembly began in 1998.
"A thousand hours, that's pretty impressive," Fincke said. "We've really come a long way with spacewalking, we've learned a lot from our Russian partners and they've learned a lot for us."
Fincke and Chamitoff plan to spend the night in the space station's Quest airlock at a reduced pressure of 10.2 pounds per square inch to help purge nitrogen from their bloodstreams and prevent the bends when working in NASA's low-pressure spacesuits. The crew successfully tested a new protocol for Wednesday's spacewalk that does not require the overnight campout, but because of an earlier problem with a carbon dioxide sensor in Chamitoff's suit, mission planners opted to use the older procedure for the mission's final EVA.
Engineers spent a bit of time Wednesday assessing what, if anything, to do about an apparent piece of debris, or perhaps a loose wire, that is causing an issue with a robot arm attachment fitting that was secured to the side of the Russian Zarya module during the crew's third spacewalk.
The power and data grapple fixture, or PDGF, will enable the station's robot arm to attach itself to the Russian segment of the station for repair work and inspections of areas that might otherwise be difficult to see.
"The only minor delta that may come up is on EVA 3, when we installed the power and data grapple fixture on the (Zarya module), we noted there's a piece of some sort of debris or maybe grounding wire that's caught in that," space station Flight Director DIna Contella said Wednesday afternoon. "And so right now, the engineering and ops teams are off assessing whether we want to do anything with that on EVA-4, maybe go take a better look, do we remove the FOD (foreign object debris), is it the kind of thing where we need to bring it in to repair it. So they're off talking about that right now, so we'll see what comes out of those meetings."
Here is an updated timeline of the crew's planned activities for flight day 11 (in EDT and mission elapsed time; includes revision I of the NASA television schedule; best viewed with fixed-width font):
CBS News
KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FL--The Endeavour astronauts carried out a final inspection of the shuttle's heat shield early Thursday, fielded questions from reporters and geared up for a fourth and final spacewalk Friday, an excursion that will push EVA assembly time past the 1,000-hour mark.
Endeavour commander Mark Kelly told reporters in Tucson that his wife, Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, is recovering from surgery to replace part of her skull and "she sounds really good, very upbeat."
 |
| The combined crews of the shuttle Endeavour and the International Space Station held a joint news conference Thursday to discuss the progress of the mission. Back row, left to right: Michael Fincke, Andrew Feustel, Gregory Chamitoff and Roberto Vittori. Middle row: shuttle pilot Gregory Johnson and commander Mark Kelly. Front row: Alexander Samokutyaev, space station commander Andrey Borisenko and station flight engineer Ronald Garan. (Credit: NASA TV) |
Giffords was shot in the head Jan. 8 during an assassination attempt that left six dead and more than a dozen wounded. A federal judge ruled Wednesday that Jared Loughner, the accused gunman, is not mentally competent to stand trial, ordering treatment and additional assessments at a federal psychiatric facility.
Asked about his perspective on the tragedy from the vantage point of space, Kelly said "it is an incredibly striking and beautiful planet and it's hard to understand how these things happen, I mean how violent a place it can also be. The pope touched on that a little bit when he spoke to us about a week ago."
Kelly said he was looking forward to a two-way video conference with his wife, a chance to share the view from 220 miles up.
"I plan to do it from the (multi-window) cupola, give her a chance to look outside, look at the space shuttle docked at the space station," Kelly told an interviewer. "That's an incredible view, to see Endeavour sitting there with the planet just below its tail. I'm looking forward to talking to her. I've been speaking to her every night before I go to bed , but it'll be nice to do it via video, to be able to see how she's doing and for her to join us on board the space station for a little bit."
Talking with his wife on the space station's internet protocol telephone, "I can see how she's progressing and she's doing really, really well. She's looking forward to me getting back and I'm looking forward to getting back to Houston and seeing her."
In a departure from normal practice, the shuttle crew carried out a final heat shield inspection overnight, using the shuttle's robot arm and an instrumented boom to look for any signs of damage to the ship's nose cap and wing leading edge panels that might have occurred since launch May 16.
 |
| Looking across the shuttle Endeavour's open payload bay, the International Space Station's left-side solar arrays gleam in orbital sunlight. The Japanese Kibo laboratory module is visible on the right. (Credit: NASA TV) |
After a joint crew news conference, the astronauts planned to review the procedures and plans for Friday's spacewalk, the final EVA by a visiting shuttle crew.
After the crew's third spacewalk Wednesday, space station EVA construction time stood at 995 hours and 13 minutes. Michael Fincke and Gregory Chamitoff plan to spend six-and-a-half hours outside the lab complex Friday, pushing cumulative spacewalk time to more than 1,000 hours since assembly began in 1998.
"A thousand hours, that's pretty impressive," Fincke said. "We've really come a long way with spacewalking, we've learned a lot from our Russian partners and they've learned a lot for us."
Fincke and Chamitoff plan to spend the night in the space station's Quest airlock at a reduced pressure of 10.2 pounds per square inch to help purge nitrogen from their bloodstreams and prevent the bends when working in NASA's low-pressure spacesuits. The crew successfully tested a new protocol for Wednesday's spacewalk that does not require the overnight campout, but because of an earlier problem with a carbon dioxide sensor in Chamitoff's suit, mission planners opted to use the older procedure for the mission's final EVA.
Engineers spent a bit of time Wednesday assessing what, if anything, to do about an apparent piece of debris, or perhaps a loose wire, that is causing an issue with a robot arm attachment fitting that was secured to the side of the Russian Zarya module during the crew's third spacewalk.
The power and data grapple fixture, or PDGF, will enable the station's robot arm to attach itself to the Russian segment of the station for repair work and inspections of areas that might otherwise be difficult to see.
"The only minor delta that may come up is on EVA 3, when we installed the power and data grapple fixture on the (Zarya module), we noted there's a piece of some sort of debris or maybe grounding wire that's caught in that," space station Flight Director DIna Contella said Wednesday afternoon. "And so right now, the engineering and ops teams are off assessing whether we want to do anything with that on EVA-4, maybe go take a better look, do we remove the FOD (foreign object debris), is it the kind of thing where we need to bring it in to repair it. So they're off talking about that right now, so we'll see what comes out of those meetings."
Here is an updated timeline of the crew's planned activities for flight day 11 (in EDT and mission elapsed time; includes revision I of the NASA television schedule; best viewed with fixed-width font):
DATE/EDT...DD...HH...MM...SS...EVENT
05/25
07:56 PM...09...11...00...00...STS/ISS crew wakeup
09:26 PM...09...12...30...00...ISS daily planning conference
10:56 PM...09...14...00...00...Starboard wing survey
02:01 PM...09...14...06...00...Mark KellyTucson media interviews
05/26
01:41 AM...09...16...45...00...Nose cap survey
02:41 AM...09...17...45...00...Spacesuit swap
02:41 AM...09...17...45...00...Port wing survey
03:41 AM...09...18...45...00...EVA-4: Equipment lock preps
04:26 AM...09...19...30...00...Crew meals begin
05:41 AM...09...20...45...00...Crew news conference
06:21 AM...09...21...25...00...EVA-4: Tools configured
07:06 AM...09...22...10...00...Laser scan downlink
07:51 AM...09...22...55...00...EVA-4: Procedures review
09:11 AM...10...00...15...00...ISS daily planning conference
09:30 AM...10...00...34...00...Mission status briefing on NASA TV
10:21 AM...10...01...25...00...EVA-4: Mask/pre-breathe
10:30 AM...10...01...34...00...Replay of crew news conference on NASA TV
11:11 AM...10...02...15...00...EVA-4: Airlock depress to 10.2 psi
11:26 AM...10...02...30...00...ISS crew sleep begins
11:56 AM...10...03...00...00...STS crew sleep begins
01:00 PM...10...04...04...00...Daily video highlights reel on NASA TV
05:45 PM...10...08...49...00...Flight director update on NASA TV
06:45 PM...10...09...49...00...Flight director update replay on NASA TV
07:56 PM...10...11...00...00...STS crew wakeup