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Crew set for heat shield inspection, rendezvous burns BY WILLIAM HARWOOD STORY WRITTEN FOR CBS NEWS "SPACE PLACE" & USED WITH PERMISSION Posted: November 15, 2008 The Endeavour astronauts were awakened at 10:55 a.m. Saturday with a recording of "Shelter" by Xavier Rudd beamed up from mission control to kick off their first full day in space. "Good morning, Endeavour, and a special good morning to you today, Fergie," astronaut Shannon Lucid called from Houston. "Hey, good morning, Houston," shuttle commander Chris Ferguson replied. "It's always a great day to be in space. I'd like to thank my brother for that song." Working through a routine-but-busy day in orbit, the astronauts plan to inspect the shuttle's nose cap and wing leading edge panels to make sure no impact damage occurred during launch Friday. They also will check out the spacesuits that will be used later to carry out maintenance on the international space station and set up rendezvous tools for use during final approach to the space station Sunday afternoon. Two rendezvous rocket firings are planned to fine-tune Endeavour's approach to the lab complex, part of a carefully choreographed sequence of "burns" setting up a docking at 5:04 p.m. Sunday. "Flight day two, we wake up and we immediately go into a rendezvous burn and at the end of the day, we also have another rendezvous burn and that'll set up docking on flight day three," flight director Mike Sarafin said before launch. "We also check out the docking system and some of the rendezvous tools that are necessary for docking and then we get into the grapple of the (heat shield inspection) boom and perform the flight-day-two inspection on the wing leading edge surfaces and nose cap." Using Endeavour's 50-foot-long robot arm, pilot Eric Boe and Robert "Shane" Kimbrough will lock onto the 50-foot orbiter boom sensor system, or OBSS, and work through a complex sequences of movements to inspect the right wing leading edge panels, the nose cap and then the left wing using a laser scanner and camera system. The inspection is scheduled to begin shortly after 2 p.m. The reinforced carbon carbon leading edge panels and nose cap experience the most extreme heating during re-entry and data collected today will help engineers assess the health of the critical systems. During launch Friday, flight controllers told the crew that two debris events were noticed, but there were no obvious signs of trouble. Here is an updated timeline of today's activity (in EST and mission elapsed time; includes the initial release of the NASA television schedule): EST........DD...HH...MM...EVENT 11/15/08 10:55 AM...00...15...00...Crew wakeup (begin flight day 2) 12:50 PM...00...16...55...NC-2 rendezvous rocket firing 01:00 PM...00...17...05...Shuttle robot arm (SRMS) unberths OBSS 01:45 PM...00...17...50...Ergometer setup 02:15 PM...00...18...20...Spacesuit checkout preps 02:15 PM...00...18...20...OBSS starboard wing survey 02:45 PM...00...18...50...Spacesuit checkout 04:00 PM...00...20...05...Crew meals begin 05:00 PM...00...21...05...OBSS nose cap survey 05:00 PM...00...21...05...Post-MMT briefing on NASA TV 05:50 PM...00...21...55...OBSS port wing survey 06:50 PM...00...22...55...Spacesuit prepped for transfer to station 07:15 PM...00...23...20...Spacesuit prepped for transfer to station 08:00 PM...00...00...05...Mission status briefing on NASA TV 08:05 PM...01...00...10...SRMS berths OBSS 08:45 PM...01...00...50...OMS rocket pod survey 08:50 PM...01...00...55...Laser inspection data downlink 09:05 PM...01...01...10...Centerline camera setup 09:35 PM...01...01...40...Orbiter docking system ring extension 09:44 PM...01...01...49...NC-3 rendezvous rocket firing 10:05 PM...01...02...10...Rendezvous tools checkout 11/16/08 01:25 AM...01...05...30...Crew sleep begins 02:00 AM...01...06...05...Daily video highlights reel on NASA TV 09:25 AM...01...13...30...Crew wakeup
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VIDEO:
FLIGHT DIRECTOR'S SUMMARY OF FLIGHT DAY 2 