[sarex] Busy Week of Robotics Aboard Station

[Arthur Rowe]

SUBMITTED BY ARTHUR N1ORC- AMSAT A/C #31468

*Busy Week of Robotics Aboard Station*

Expedition 15 crew with yellow hard hats Image above: From left, 
Commander Fyodor Yurchikhin and Flight Engineers Oleg Kotov and Clay 
Anderson don hard hats in a light-hearted moment during Thursday's 
relocation of Pressurized Mating Adapter-3. Image credit: NASA TV
TO VIEW IMAGE GO 
TO:http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/main/index.html

The Expedition 15 crew wrapped up a busy week of robotics and set the 
stage for future growth of the International Space Station with the 
relocation of Pressurized Mating Adapter-3 (PMA-3).

Thursday, Flight Engineer Clay Anderson used the station's robotic arm 
to move PMA-3 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.

During the move, Commander Fyodor Yurchikhin worked with the docking 
systems. Flight Engineer Oleg Kotov backed up both men.

Intensive preparations for the move began Monday. Throughout the week 
the crew trained with computer-based simulations, relocated the robotic 
arm through a series of moves to the Power Data and Grapple Fixture on 
the Destiny Lab and set up the Centerline Berthing Camera System (CBCS).

The crew wrapped up their busy week on Friday with routine hearing tests 
and clean-up activities associated with the PMA-3 move.

+ Read more about the PMA-3 relocation 
<http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/expeditions/expedition15/pma3move.html> 


+ 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>