STS-100 Day 1 Highlights
Return to STS-100 Mission Summary
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- On Thursday, April 19, 2001, 3:30 p.m. CDT, STS-100 MCC Status Report # 1
reports:
- The Shuttle Endeavour lifted off from the Kennedy Space Center.this
afternoon, carrying a multi-national crew and a complex Canadian-built
robotic arm to the International Space Station (ISS).
- Commander Kent Rominger, Pilot Jeff Ashby and Mission Specialists
Chris Hadfield of the Canadian Space Agency, John Phillips, Scott
Parazynski, Umberto Guidoni of the European Space Agency and Yuri
Lonchakov of Rosaviakosmos blasted off on time from Launch Pad 39-A at
1:41 p.m. Central time as the ISS sailed over the Indian Ocean south
of India. Aboard the station, Expedition Two Commander Yury Usachev
and Flight Engineers Jim Voss and Susan Helms were told of Endeavour's
launch as it lifted off from the pad. Approximately 20 minutes later,
the three crew members took a few minutes out from routine maintenance
work and preparations for Endeavour's arrival to watch a video feed of
the launch uplinked to them by ISS flight controllers in Houston
through the station's KU-band communications system.
- Less than nine minutes after launch, Endeavour had reached its
preliminary orbit and began its pursuit of the station for a docking
Saturday morning. The seven astronauts began to configure systems for
on-orbit operations and opened the shuttle's cargo bay doors before
the start of an eight-hour sleep period tonight at 6:41 p.m. Central
time.
- Aboard the ISS, all systems continue to function normally as
Usachev, Voss and Helms ready the complex for their first visitors
since beginning their expedition one month ago. On Monday, a Russian
Progress resupply vehicle was jettisoned from the aft docking port of
the Zvezda module, enabling the station crew to undock its Soyuz
return capsule from the nadir port of the Zarya module yesterday and
fly it to a redocking with Zvezda in a 21-minute maneuver. That
cleared the Zarya docking port for the arrival of the Soyuz rotation
"taxi" crew at the ISS later this month. The taxi crew will
deliver a fresh Soyuz capsule for the Expedition crew members's use
as an emergency return vehicle. The Soyuz vehicles need to be rotated
approximately every six months.
- Hadfield and Parazynski are scheduled to venture outside Endeavour
Sunday for the first of two scheduled space walks to unfold the huge
booms of the 57-foot-long Canadarm2 and to route power to the device,
which will be mounted on the Destiny Laboratory for future station
assembly work. Canadarm2 is scheduled to "walk off" its pallet and
attach itself to a grapple fixture on Destiny Monday, where it will
receive power, data and commanding from the Expedition crew operating
at robotic workstations inside Destiny.
- Housed in Endeavour's cargo bay is the Italian Space Agency-provided
Raffaello cargo module, which is carrying several tons of equipment
for the Expedition Two crew and racks of hardware for installation in
Destiny which will be used for scientific research in the
future. Raffaello, which is the second of three such logistics
modules, will be berthed to the ISS Monday so its contents can be
transferred to the station throughout the course of docked operations.
- Endeavour is circling the Earth in excellent shape as it flies in an
orbit inclined 51.6 degrees to either side of the Equator. The next
STS-100 mission status report will be issued Friday morning following
the wakeup call to Endeavour's astronauts from Mission Control, which
is scheduled at 2:41 a.m. Central time.
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Go to STS-100 Flight Day 2 Highlights: