NASA STS-124 Report #08 - 6 a.m. CDT Wednesday, June 4, 2008

Mission Control Center, Houston, Texas

HOUSTON The crew of STS-124 and Expedition 17 will focus on continuing the setup and initialization of the Kibo laboratory today.

At 3:52 p.m. today, the astronauts are due to open the hatch to Kibo and enter the new laboratory for the first time.

The shuttle crew awoke this morning to "Have You Ever," performed by Brandi Carlile. The song was played for Mission Specialist Karen Nyberg.

In addition to the continuing work on Kibo, the crew will work to remove and replace one of the beds on the carbon dioxide removal assembly (CDRA). The CDRA is part of the International Space Station's environmental controls. It works to remove carbon dioxide from the air on board the spacecraft.

The crew will also check out the sensors on the end of the orbiter boom sensor system (OBSS). The OBSS was retrieved from the outside of the station during yesterday's spacewalk, and it will remain attached to the shuttle's robotic arm until it is used to conduct the late inspection of the shuttle's heat shield on flight day 12. It will then be stowed in Discovery's payload bay for the return trip back to Earth.

Discovery crew members are Commander Mark Kelly, Pilot Ken Ham, and mission specialists Nyberg, Ron Garan, Mike Fossum, Aki Hoshide and Garrett Reisman. The Expedition 17 crew is Commander Sergei Volkov and flight engineers Oleg Kononenko and Greg Chamitoff.

The next status report will be issued at the end of the crew's day, or earlier if events warrant.

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