Posted on 03/10/2008 9:13:27 AM PDT by RobFromGa
spaceflightnow.com
“We’re really having to get medieval on Mr. Dextre,” Foreman said at one point, using the informal name for the special purpose dexterous manipulator, or SPDM.
spaceflightnow.com
Working from a robotics work station in the Destiny laboratory module, Robert Behnken and Garrett Reisman will send commands to move Dextre’s joints slightly to make sure internal brakes are working properly.
“The crew will be sending some commands to test out each of the individual joints, specifically the brakes on the joints,” Kerrick said. “We don’t want to command any significant motions with any of the joints until we make sure that those brakes work first. Everything is looking great so far.”
spaceflightnow.com
“Today is a very significant robotics day,” said Ginger Kerrick, the overnight space station flight director. “Our configuration right now, the SSRMS, or the station arm, is holding the SPDM (Dextre robot) out in an overnight park position. Big picture, we have the arm based on node 2, so we’ve got one end at node 2, one end grappled to the SPDM. They will maneuver the arm over to the lab, drop off the SPDM and it will grapple there and that will be its new home.”
spaceflightnow.com
With the shuttle Endeavour’s mission entering the home stretch, shuttle Discovery remains on track for blastoff May 25 to ferry a huge Japanese laboratory module to the international space station. But subsequent near-term flights, including a high-profile mission to service the Hubble Space Telescope, could be delayed, sources say, because of ongoing external tank production issues.
The tank used by Endeavour for its current mission was the last in the inventory of tanks built before the 2003 Columbia disaster and subsequently modified to reduce potentially dangerous losses of foam insulation. The tank slated for use with Discovery in late May, ET-128, is the first so-called “in-line” external tank built from the ground up with post-Columbia upgrades, including a new ice-frost ramp design and titanium oxygen line support brackets. Both improvements address areas of possible foam shedding.
Amazing to hear of this only now. It was on national news this morning, but the problem seems like it was known and is not one of those that can be resolved quickly.
Shuttle is undocked
spaceflightnow.com
Endeavour is targeting a landing Wednesday at Kennedy Space Center, Florida. The planned homecoming would begin with the deorbit burn braking maneuver at 5:58 p.m. EDT, leading to touchdown on Runway 15 at 7:05 p.m. EDT, a half-hour before sunset.
Station resupply ship passes first demonstration day
BY STEPHEN CLARK
SPACEFLIGHT NOW
Posted: March 29, 2008
Europe’s revolutionary Jules Verne cargo ship pulled within 2.2 miles of the international space station Saturday, proving the craft’s long-range rendezvous systems are ready for next week’s docking with the complex.
Europe’s robot freighter successfully docked on its maiden voyage Thursday with the International Space Station, the European Space Agency (ESA) announced.
The Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV), named after French science-fiction pioneer Jules Verne, hooked up with the orbiting space station on schedule at 1445 GMT.
TUESDAY, APRIL 8, 2008
A Soyuz rocket carrying South Korea’s first astronaut and two cosmonauts bound for the international space station blasted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan today and rocketed smoothly into orbit.
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