Tuesday, November 18, 2008

Endeavour's TPS in great condition

I've returned from Houston and I have to say that Endeavour had very little debris hits and was very 'clean'. We didn't notice anything major that would effect a nominal re-entry of the vehicle.

On Flight Day 3 is when we receive the imagery taken by the crew on the ISS. The imagery is taken right before the Orbiter docks with the ISS. We then review the entire outer surface of the Orbiter for any debris hit, protruding gap fillers, or blanket anomalies with the thermal protection system. We have specified criteria for certain zones of the Orbiter that we use to evaluate and assess the damages.

Yesterday, the “Leonardo” Multi-Purpose Logistics Module (MPLM) was transferred from Endeavour’s payload bay to Node 2 of the ISS for the exchange of cargo/supplies. While today's EVA was going on to service the starboard solar array rotary joint, the rest of the crew inside the ISS worked on moving the two water recycling racks and the new galley from the MPLM into the ISS.

Endeavour is scheduled to return to KSC on November 29, 2008 at 2:10 EST.

1 comment:

heroineworshipper said...

What a strange program, where you have to travel from Florida to Houston to look at photos that were downloaded from a tracking station in New Mexico.