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The seven crewmembers aboard the space shuttle Endeavour were awakened at 7:19 a.m. CST today to begin their first full day in space. The crew, Commander Dom Gorie, Pilot Mark Kelly, Mission Specialists Linda Godwin and Dan Tani, Expedition Four Commander Yury Onufrienko, Flight Engineer Carl Walz and Flight Engineer Dan Bursch, was awakened by the song “Soul Spirit” and “Put a Little Love in Your Life,” sung by Bursch’s daughter and her second-grade classmates. The crew will spend the day preparing shuttle systems for docking with the International Space Station, which is scheduled for about 2 p.m. CST Friday. Preparations include powering up the shuttle’s robotic arm and checking out the airlock and the space suits that will be used on Monday’s planned four-hour spacewalk by Godwin and Tani to place thermal blankets on the motors that rotate the solar arrays atop the P6 truss. In addition to performing the spacewalk, other activities during the mission include a crew exchange on board the space station Saturday and the transfer of more than three tons of cargo. The cargo, housed in the Raffaello logistics module that will be attached to the Unity module, includes food, supplies and equipment that the Expedition Four Crew will use during its stay on the station. The Expedition Three crew, Commander Frank Culbertson, Pilot Vladimir Dezhurov and Flight Engineer Mikhail Tyurin have been living aboard the space station since mid-August and will return home on Endeavour. Also on board Endeavour is a host of scientific investigations, including experiments from other space agencies, schools and universities across the United States, Europe and South America. Two experiments located in the Multiple Application Customized Hitchhiker-1 (MACH-1) in the shuttle payload bay had already completed 15% and 10% of their mission objectives by the time the crew went to sleep last night. Those experiments are the Capillary Pumped Loop Experiment (CAPL) and the Prototype Synchrotron Radiation Detector (PSRD) respectively. The CAPL demonstrates a multiple evaporator capillary pumped loop system and the PSRD measures cosmic ray background data. The next STS-108 mission status report will be issued at about 6 p.m. today. ### NASA Johnson Space Center Mission Status Reports and other information are available automatically by sending an Internet electronic mail message to majordomo@listserver.jsc.nasa.gov. In the body of the message (not the subject line) users should type "subscribe hsfnews" (no quotes). This will add the e-mail address that sent the subscribe message to the news release distribution list. The system will reply with a confirmation via e-mail of each subscription. Once you have subscribed you will receive future news releases via e-mail. |
