A high-tech Canadian robot, launched disassembled on large pallet, was moved from the shuttle Endeavour to a work site on the international space station early today. An initial attempt to route power to the pallet was not successful, but power is not required for the robot's initial assembly and the astronauts were told to press ahead with preparations for a spacewalk Thursday night, the first of five planned for Endeavour's mission.

Garrett Reisman, meanwhile, officially joined the crew of the space station early today, replacing outgoing flight engineer Leopold Eyharts. Launched to the station in February aboard the shuttle Atlantis, Eyharts, representing the European Space Agency, will return to Earth in Reisman's place aboard Endeavour on March 26. The crew swap was reported at 3:50 a.m. when Garrett's custom Soyuz seat liner was transferred from Endeavour to the station's Russian lifeboat.

Reisman and Richard Linnehan are spending the night in the station's Quest airlock module at a reduced air pressure to help purge nitrogen from their bloodstreams in preparation for this evening's spacewalk, or EVA. The goals of the excursion are to prepare a Japanese logistics module for attachment to the Harmony module and to begin assembly of the Canadian special purpose dextrous manipulator, or Dextre.

The $209 million Dextre will provide a set of hands for the station's Canadian-built robot arm, making it capable of repairs that might otherwise require a spacewalk. The robot was launched disassembled on a Spacelab pallet that was mounted on the station a few hours after Endeavour's docking earlier today.

Engineers ran into a snag when an attempt to route power to the pallet failed. Power is not required for the robot's assembly, but engineers want to figure out what might be causing the problem.

"Peggy, we tried powering up the SPDM but were unable to power it up as planned," Mark Vande Hei radioed from mission control. "We're troubleshooting it still. Bottom line is, EVA-1 is as planned, but we may have some deltas (changes) in the morning."

"OK, we're all excited about that," station commander Peggy Whitson replied.

"As are we," Vande Hei laughed.

The disassembled Dextre, designed to operate in weightlessness, has been tested but never fully assembled on Earth. It cannot be assembled in the shuttle's cargo bay because of its sheer size. If an emergency developed requiring a quick separation from the station, Endeavour's cargo bay doors could not be closed due to interference with Dextre.

As a result, NASA flight planners decided to have the crew anchor the Spacelab pallet to the mobile base system and to build the robot on the station's power truss. After assembly is complete, Dextre will be mounted on the hull of the Destiny module and the pallet will be reberthed in Endeavour's cargo bay for return to Earth.

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