Mission Control Center, Houston, Texas
A new spaceflight endurance record was set this morning as 10 astronauts and cosmonauts slept on the docked space shuttle Atlantis and the International Space Station.
At 12:47 a.m. CDT, Astronaut Suni Williams' time in space since her launch last Dec. 9 reached 188 days and 4 hours, matching the mark for the longest single spaceflight ever by a woman space traveler. That mark was set by Astronaut Shannon Lucid on her flight to the Mir space station in 1996.
The wakeup call featuring the University of Texas at El Paso Fight Song, performed by the UTEP Pep Band, was played for Mission Specialist (and UTEP alumnus) John "Danny" Olivas at 7:38 a.m. CDT.
Today the four spacewalkers will spend time configuring the spacesuits and EVA tools used on Friday's 7-hour, 58-minute EVA by Olivas and Mission Specialist Jim Reilly, and then preparing the Quest airlock for Sunday's spacewalk by Mission Specialists Patrick Forrester and Steven Swanson.
The plan for EVA 4 includes verification of Drive Lock Assembly 2, one of a pair of mechanisms which will drive rotation of the S3/S4 Truss Solar Alpha Rotary Joint, and removal of the final launch restraints on the SARJ to enable its rotation so the solar arrays on S4 can track the sun. The spacewalkers will also remove a keel pin and drag link from S3, complete bolting down a piece of debris shielding on the Destiny laboratory, install a computer network cable on Unity, and remove a Global Positioning System antenna.
Crewmembers will spend time today transferring supplies between ISS and Atlantis, and at 5:18 p.m. will review the timeline for Sunday's spacewalk. At 6:43 p.m. all 10 astronauts and cosmonauts get together in the Destiny laboratory for the Joint Crew News Conference.
Mission Control Moscow restarted the Russian computers that provide backup attitude control and orbital attitude adjustment for the station's control moment gyroscopes Friday afternoon and confirmed that they were stable. This morning the Russian flight controllers began sending commands to restart some systems in the Russian segment of ISS.
The Russian central computer is now communicating with the U.S. command and control computer, and the Russian terminal computer is again talking to the U.S. navigation computers. Additional commanding and systems restarts are anticipated today as Russian specialists pore over operations data from the two computers.
The next STS-117 status report will be issued Saturday evening or earlier if events warrant.
