SUBMITTED BY ARTHUR N1ORC - AMSAT A/C #31468

*Station, Shuttle Crews Working Together 17 AUGUST 2007 * S118-E-07205 : Fyodor Yurchikhin, Charles Hobaugh and Oleg Kotov Image above: Expedition 15 Commander Fyodor Yurchikhin (left), Flight Engineer Oleg Kotov (right) and STS-118 Pilot Charlie Hobaugh pose for a photo in the Destiny laboratory of the International Space Station. Image credit: NASA TO VIEW IMAGE GO TO:http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/main/index.html

Expedition 15 Commander Fyodor Yurchikhin and Flight Engineers Oleg Kotov and Clay Anderson continue joint operations aboard the International Space Station with the STS-118 crew, which arrived at the International Space Station Aug. 10. STS-118’s stay has featured three spacewalks to continue the on-orbit construction of the station.

In addition to the seven STS-118 astronauts, Space Shuttle Endeavour carried the Starboard 5 (S5) truss segment to the station and STS-118 spacewalkers installed it Aug. 11. The S5 truss segment is part of the station’s Integrated Truss Structure that will eventually be the length of a football field and contain four sets of solar arrays.

The station received a new control moment gyroscope (CMG) on Monday during the second spacewalk. The station has four CMGs that are used to control its attitude in orbit. The new CMG replaced a faulty gyroscope that will return to Earth on a future shuttle mission.

On Tuesday, the International Space Station’s first component to go into space, the Zarya control module, passed the 50,000th orbit mark at 11:17 a.m. EDT(1517 UTC). Zarya, which is Russian for “Sunrise,” was funded by the United States and built by Russia. It launched atop a Proton rocket from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Nov. 20, 1998.

The third spacewalk occurred Wednesday. It featured preparations for the relocation of the Port 6 truss from atop the station to the end of the Port 5 truss when STS-120 visits later this year. A fourth spacewalk is scheduled for Saturday.

In other activities, the two crews have been transferring cargo between Endeavour and the station.

The STS-118 astronauts are scheduled to exit the station on Sunday and undock Monday. STS-118 is the 22nd shuttle mission to visit the station.

+ 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