[sarex] STS-118 Ends Stay at Space Station

[Arthur Rowe]

SUBMITTED BY ARTHUR N1ORC - AMSAT A/C #31468

*STS-118 Ends Stay at Space Station*

International Space StationImage above: A camera aboard Space Shuttle 
Endeavour captured this view of the International Space Station shortly 
after undocking. Image credit: NASA TVTO 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 concluded joint operations with the STS-118 crew 
Saturday afternoon. STS-118’s stay at the station began Aug. 10 and 
featured four spacewalks to continue the on-orbit construction of the 
station.

The STS-118 crew exited the station before hatches closed at 5:10 p.m. 
EDT Saturday in preparation for Sunday's undocking, which occurred at 
7:56 a.m.

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 Aug. 13 
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 Aug. 14, 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. 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 Aug. 15. 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 
took place Saturday in which an antenna was installed and two materials 
science experiments were retrieved for return to Earth.

In other activities, the two crews transferred cargo between Endeavour 
and 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>