[sarex] STS-121 MCC Status Report #15

[Arthur Rowe <azrowe80@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

SUBMITTED BY ARTHUR N1ORC - AMSAT A/C #31468

5 p.m. CDT, Tuesday, July 11, 2006
Mission Control Center, Houston, Texas

07.11.06
STATUS REPORT: STS-121-15

STS-121 MCC Status Report #15

In between spacewalks, the joint crews aboard Space Shuttle Discovery 
and the International Space Station today turned their attention to 
packing the Leonardo logistics module in preparation for its return to 
Earth. Additional time was set aside today for procedural review for the 
third spacewalk planned to begin at 6:13 a.m. CDT Wednesday.

Expedition 13 Commander Pavel Vinogradov along with Flight Engineers 
Jeff Williams and Thomas Reiter spent most of the day loading items no 
longer needed on the station into the Multipurpose Logistics Module 
docked to the station’s Unity module. Before being returned to 
Discovery’s payload bay on Friday, the Italian-built Leonardo will be 
filled with almost 4,400 pounds of experiment samples, unneeded hardware 
and trash.

Included in the more than 7,400 pounds of supplies delivered to the 
station was a new window and window seals for the Micro gravity Science 
Glove box, a European Space Agency-developed enclosed workspace for 
science experiments involving fluids, flames, particles or fumes. 
Reiter, the ESA astronaut who joined the station crew last week, 
installed the new window and window seals today. Additional work will be 
needed after the shuttle departs before the MSG can resume operation.

Discovery Mission Specialists Piers Sellers and Mike Fossum, who already 
have spent 14 hours and 18 minutes outside the Discovery/ISS complex on 
two spacewalks, devoted much of the day to preparing their spacesuits 
and tools for the mission’s third Extravehicular Activity. The planned 
6-½ hour spacewalk is devoted to testing a non-oxide adhesive as a 
repair material for the reinforced carbon carbon panels that line a 
shuttle’s leading edge, and the use of an infrared camera to detect 
unseen damage to RCC.

At 7:18 this morning the space walkers joined Pilot Mark Kelly and 
Mission Specialists Lisa Nowak and Stephanie Wilson to talk about the 
progress of their flight in interviews with the Associated Press and USA 
Today.

The next STS-121 mission status report will be issued Wednesday morning, 
or earlier if events warrant.

- end -
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