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International Space Station – October 25, 2007 – The STS-120 crew entered the International Space Station for the first time after the hatches between the station and Space Shuttle Discovery opened at 10:39 a.m. EDT today.
Space Shuttle Discovery and the STS-120 crew arrived at the International Space Station at 8:40 a.m., delivering a new module and crew member to the orbital outpost.
One of the first major tasks was the station crew rotation. STS-120 Mission Specialist Dan Tani switched places with Expedition 16 Flight Engineer Clay Anderson, who wrapped up a four-month tour of duty as an Expedition crew member. Tani is scheduled to stay on the station until he returns to Earth with STS-122 later this year.
Tani officially became a member of Expedition 16 when his custom-made seat liner was swapped out with Anderson’s in the Soyuz spacecraft docked to the station.
Commander Pam Melroy and her shuttle crewmates begin rendezvous operations shortly before 3:00 a.m. At 5:32 a.m., at a range of 600 feet below the station, Melroy commanded Discovery to perform a back flip so Anderson and Flight Engineer Yuri Malenchenko could photograph the thermal tiles on the shuttle’s belly. Those digital images were sent to Mission Control so specialists can look for evidence of any damage.
After docking at 8:33 a.m. and hatch opening two hours later, the crew members start moving spacewalking equipment into the Quest airlock to prepare for the first excursion on Friday. Mission Specialists Scott Parazynski and Doug Wheelock will go outside to prepare the Harmony module to be grappled by the station’s robotic arm, lifted from Discovery’s payload bay, and installed on the port side of Unity.
Harmony, which will be permanently installed on the front of the Destiny laboratory after the shuttle departs, provides docking ports for laboratory modules from the European Space Agency and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency. Those components are due on orbit late this year and early next year.
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Shuttle Discovery approaches the International Space Station before docking early this morning. Before docking Station crew members took photos of the underside of the shuttle to look for any damage to the heat tiles.
Expedition 16 Commander Peggy Whitson (left) greets Shuttle Commander Pam Melroy inside the International Space Station. This marks the first time in history both the Station and Shuttle were under female command at the same time.
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