STS-123 MCC Status Report #10  

Two members of the space shuttle Endeavour crew are stepping into space to give the International Space Station’s newest robot a pair of arms.

The crew got its wake up call at 2:28 p.m., Saturday, in the form of “We’re Going to be Friends” by the White Stripes. The song was played for Mission Specialist Robert L. Behnken.

The main task of the day will be the spacewalk by Mission Specialists Rick Linnehan and Mike Foreman. The two will be installing two 11-feet-long robotic arms on the Canadian Space Agency’s Special Purpose Dexterous Manipulator – or Dextre, as it was dubbed by a Canada-wide naming contest.

Dextre is the third in a trio of robotic elements Canada has provided for the space station. Along with the 57-foot Canadarm2 and a mobile base system that allows the Canadarm2 to move along the station’s truss, Dextre will form the station’s mobile servicing system. Dextre will be able to attach to Canadarm2 or travel by itself on the mobile base system and install or remove small payloads and scientific experiments.

Saturday’s spacewalk – which is the second of three involving Dextre assembly – was scheduled to begin at 7:23 p.m. and last for seven hours and five minutes. The bulk of Dextre assembly is planned to take place Saturday.

While Foreman and Linnehan are outside the station, Mission Specialist Takao Doi will be working inside the station’s newest module, the Japanese Experiment Logistics Module, Pressurized Section, or JLP. The JLP is the first section of the Japanese Space Agency’s module, Kibo. Doi, a Japanese Space Agency astronaut, will resume JLP outfitting at about 5:30 p.m.

FMI: www.nasa.gov