STS-87 Day 5 Highlights

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On Sunday, November 23, 1997, 7:00 a.m. CST, STS-87 MCC Status Report # 08 reports:

Plans are coming together nicely for tomorrow night's spacewalk by astronauts Winston Scott and Takao Doi to manually capture the drifting Spartan after commander Kevin Kregel flies Columbia to within reaching distance of the satellite.

The leading option for the manual retrieval has the two astronauts positioned in foot restraints on each end of the Spartan's support structure. They will grab the satellite and lower it onto its fixture to be latched securely remotely from inside the orbiter. The remaining time available during the spacewalk will be used to test tools and maintenance procedures that will be used during the construction and operation of the International Space Station.

The final decision on the course of action for retrieval will be made by mid-morning following the Space Shuttle Program mission management team meeting. A press conference at 10 a.m. CST today on NASA Television will brief details of the plan..

Columbia is now about 30 nautical miles behind Spartan, which was released from the shuttle on Friday. After its release, the satellite's attitude control system failed to activate. When a recapture of the satellite was attempted, it began a slow spin that prevented any further attempts to capture it using the robotic arm

Details of the six-hour spacewalk include Doi and Scott beginning shortly after 6 p.m. Monday. Columbia will arrive in close proximity to Spartan at about 7 p.m. The Spartan retrieval will require only about two hours of the six-hour spacewalk. During the remaining time available, a majority of the originally planned International Space Station assembly spacewalk tests will still be performed.

Experiment work aboard Columbia continues with Ukrainian Payload Specialist Leonid Kadenyuk focusing on studies of plant growth in weightlessness in the Collaborative Ukrainian Experiment.

Crew wakeup is set for 11:45 this morning with sleep set for about 5 a.m. Monday.

On Sunday, November 23, 1997, 6:00 p.m. CST, STS-87 MCC Status Report # 09 reports:

Columbia's crew spent its fifth day in space making final preparations for Monday's spacewalking retrieval of the Spartan science satellite while continuing work with other experiments inside the shuttle cabin.

The crew was given the go-ahead for Astronauts Winston Scott and Takao Doi to prepare to recapture the Spartan satellite, released from Columbia on Friday, by hand during a spacewalk Monday evening. Scott and Doi will recapture the satellite using a procedure similar to one they rehearsed prior to the flight in the event the robotic arm could not be used to retrieve the satellite. Facing each other on opposite sides of the cargo bay, Doi and Scott will stand in foot restraints mounted on a support structure to which Spartan is normally latched.

As Commander Kevin Kregel flies Columbia to a point where Spartan is a few feet above the cargo bay, Doi and Scott will watch the satellite's rotation and then lean forward and grab it as it moves into the appropriate position. The satellite then will be lowered into its latches in the cargo bay. The crew spent about three hours today reviewing all of the plans for the spacewalk, and flight controllers passed along insights gained from evaluations of the plans that have been performed in a variety of facilities at the Johnson Space Center. The spacewalk is planned to begin at about 6:16 p.m. CST Monday. Columbia is predicted to reach the vicinity of Spartan about 7:01 p.m. CST. The retrieval is expected to take only about the first two hours of the six-hour spacewalk, leaving Doi and Scott ample time to complete many of the International Space Station assembly tests planned for the mission.

Later this evening, the crew will lower the air pressure in Columbia's cabin from the normal sea-level pressure of 14.7 pounds per square inch to 10.2 pounds per square inch, the pressure equivalent of about 10,000 feet altitude. The lower pressure helps prepare the spacewalkers to purge nitrogen from their bodies to prevent a condition commonly known as the bends when they go to the lower pressure, pure oxygen spacesuits tomorrow.

Columbia is about 43 statute miles from the Spartan, separating a few tenths of a mile with each orbit. A small engine firing later tonight will keep Columbia at a distance of around 46 miles from Spartan until it begins closing in tomorrow for the retrieval. The crew will go to sleep at 4:46 a.m. Monday and awaken at 12:46 p.m.

The next Mission Control status report will be issued at 6 a.m. Monday.

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