Three Spacewalks Planned Over Next Eight Days

The space shuttle Discovery docked with the International Space Station Tuesday afternoon, a little bit late but still on-schedule for the start of a very busy 10-day stay at the orbital complex.

Discovery docked to the Pressurized Mating Adaptor on the front of the International Space Station's Harmony module at 5:19:53 pm EDT. That's about six minutes later than NASA had estimated, but wasn't cause for concern. Only a minor communications glitch between the station and controllers in Houston marred an otherwise flawless docking, which occurred over Lake Wells, western Australia.

Between now and next Thursday, the combined STS-119 and Expedition 18 crews will work to install the final set of solar panels needed to generate enough power to support future six-person crews.

Work that was originally slated to be completed in four spacewalks will now be done in three, reports Agence-France Presse, due to the loss of one day off the original two-week planned mission time after Discovery's launch was delayed last week by a hydrogen leak. The first 6.5-hour spacewalk is scheduled for Thursday.

The shuttle and station crews opened hatches and greeted one another at 6:09 pm, beginning more than a week of joint operations between the two crews. One of the first major tasks of the crews was to swap station crew member Sandra Magnus for Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata. The official swap occurred when a specially fitted seat liner was installed in the Soyuz crew vehicle. That swap at 9 pm signified the official designation change making Wakata an Expedition 18 flight engineer and Magnus a shuttle mission specialist.

Prime business for the crews Wednesday will be to lift the truss segment out of Discovery’s payload bay with the shuttle robot arm and hand it off to the station’s mechanical arm for an overnight stay before Thursday’s permanent installation on the station.

As Discovery approached the station prior to docking, STS-119 pilot Lee Archambault flipped the orbiter end-over-end to perform the now-customary "backflip" maneuver, allowing ISS personnel to record images of the shuttle's vulnerable heat shield. Those images will be sent to mission control for review by engineers on the ground, to confirm Discovery's underbelly didn't suffer from any launch damage.

So far, the only glitch reported onboard Discovery is a broken ergometer, used by the crew to exercise in zero-gravity. Fortunately, astronauts were able to jury-rig some "rubber bungee-type equipment" to make the machine usable.

In less NASA also disclosed a small bat seen clinging to Discovery's external fuel tank Sunday during the countdown to launch remained with the spacecraft as it cleared the tower. Based on images and video, a wildlife expert who provides support to the center said the small creature was a free tail bat that likely had a broken left wing and some problem with its right shoulder or wrist.

The animal (shown below) likely perished quickly during Discovery's climb into orbit, NASA said.

Because the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge coexists inside Kennedy Space Center, the launch pads have a number of measures available, including warning sirens, to deter birds and other creatures from getting too close. The launch team also uses radar to watch for birds before a shuttle liftoff.

It was not the first bat to land on a shuttle during a countdown. Previously, one of the winged creatures landed on the tank during the countdown to launch shuttle Columbia on its STS-90 mission in 1998. That animal flew away as the engines ignited.

FMI: www.nasa.gov/station