SUBMITTED BY ARTHUR N1ORC - AMSAT A/C #31468
*Crew Preps With Robotics Training*
S118-E-09467 : International Space StationImage above: Backdropped by Earth's horizon and the blackness of space, the International Space Station appears to be very small as it moves away from Space Shuttle Endeavour. Earlier the STS-118 and Expedition 15 crews concluded nearly nine days of cooperative work onboard the shuttle and station. Image credit: NASA
TO VIEW IMAGE GO TO:http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/main/index.html
The Expedition 15 crew will be busy working with robotics aboard the International Space Station this week in advance of the relocation of Pressurized Mating Adapter-3 (PMA-3) on Thursday.
Flight Engineers Clay Anderson and Oleg Kotov used training software Tuesday to simulate the robotic arm operations required for the PMA-3 relocation.
Later, Anderson moved the station's robotic arm, Canadarm2, into its starting configuration for Thursday's activities. Commander Fyodor Yurchikhin and Kotov reviewed Common Berthing Mechanism operations.
PMA-3 is being moved from Unity's port docking mechanism to its nadir, or earth-facing, docking mechanism to make room for the installation of the Harmony node which is set to arrive on Space Shuttle Discovery in October.
+ Read more about Expedition 15 http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/expeditions/expedition15/index.html + View crew daily timelines http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/timelines/index.html