Live In Orbit: Unusual Spacewalk On Tap At Station
NASA aims to pick up a three-day shuttle launch countdown early Wednesday and spacewalkers at the International Space Station will ready the outpost for the arrival of a new dual-purpose Russian docking compartment.
With the station circling 220 miles above the planet, Russian cosmonaut Gennady Padalka and American astronaut Michael Barratt plan an unusual, 37-minute spacewalk inside the orbiting outpost.
Wearing protective Russian Orlan spacesuits, Padalka and Barratt will enter an unpressurized vestibule at the forward end of the Russian Zvezda Service Module and move a docking cone from one hatch to another.
A Russian Mini Research Module then will moor itself to that hatch when it arrives at the station in mid-November.
You can watch the spacewalk live here in The Flame Trench. Simply click the NASA TV box at the righthand side of the page to launch our NASA TV viewer and live coverage of the excursion. Be sure to refresh this page, too, for periodic updates.
Click here for a copy of the Russian Spacewalk Timeline.
The Russian Mini Research Module is scheduled to launch Nov. 10 aboard a Russian Soyuz-U rocket and then dock at the zenith port at the Russian Zvezda Service Module.
Weighing in at about 8,800-pounds, the spacecraft is nearly identical to the Russian Pirs docking compartment, which doubles as an airlock. Like Pirs, the new module will serve as a docking port for Soyuz crew transport ships and robotic Progress cargo carriers.
The Pirs module was launched to the station in September 2001. Russian cosmonaut Yuri Usachev and American astronaut Jim Voss did a similar spacewalk inside the Service Module vestibule to position a docking cone in advance of its arrival.
The spacewalk will be the second in the past week for Padalka and Barratt. Last Friday, they ventured outside the outpost to set up two docking antennas that will guide the Russian Mini Research Module to an automatic docking at the station.
At Kennedy Space Center, meanwhile, NASA and contractor engineers and managers will respond to an 8:30 a.m. "Call-To-Stations" in Firing Room 4 of the Launch Control Center. Countdown clocks at the nation's shuttle homeport then will begin ticking backward at 9 a.m.
Endeavour and seven astronauts are scheduled to blast off at 7:17 a.m. Saturday on a mission to deliver the third and final segment of the Japanese Kibo science research facility to the International Space Station.
Click here to see all the details in this Official NASA Press Kit.
Click here for a NASA Mission Summary.
NASA will hold a countdown status briefing at 10 a.m. with NASA Test Director Steve Payne, NASA Payload Manager Scott Higginbotham and Kathy Winters, shuttle weather officer at the Air Force 45th Space Wing Weather Squadron.
You can watch that live here in The Flame Trench, too. Click to NASA TV box on the righthand side of the page to launch our NASA TV viewer.
A forecast issued by the squadron today calls for an 80 percent chance that conditions will be acceptable for launch. The only concerns are the possibility of cumulus clouds or showers within 20 nautical miles of the Shuttle landing Facility.
NASA launch rules call for conditions to be relatively clear at NASA's three-mile runway in case a failure early in flight prompts an unprecedented emergency landing attempt.
Click here to see all the details: STS-127 Weather Forecast. The forecast was provided by meteorologists at the Air Force 45 Space Wing Weather Squadron.