NASA - National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Shuttle and Station Crews Tackle Robotics, Spacewalk Preparations

Image Above: A moon rock brought to Earth by Apollo 11, humans' first landing on the moon in July 1969, floats aboard the International Space Station. Credit: NASA

The Expedition 20 and STS-127 crews continued their joint operations Thursday.

International Space Station and space shuttle Endeavour crew members took turns operating the Japanese robotic arm to move equipment from a payload carrier to the Japanese Exposed Facility outside Kibo.

All three experiments – the Monitor of All-sky X-ray Image, Inter-orbit Communication System and Space Environment Data Acquisition Equipment-Attached Payload – were installed on the Kibo exposed facility.

The crew also prepared spacesuits and tools, and reviewed the updated procedures for Friday's spacewalk. Mission specialists Chris Cassidy and Tom Marshburn will swap all four of the remaining P6 Truss batteries on the fourth of five spacewalks, which is budgeted to last seven and a half hours.

STS-127 is the 29th shuttle mission to visit the station.

› Read the latest STS-127 news

› Read more about Expedition 20
› View crew timelines

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2009 International Space Station Calendar

As part of NASA's celebration of the 10th anniversary of the International Space Station, the agency is offering a special 2009 calendar to teachers, as well as the general public.

The calendar contains photographs taken from the space station and highlights historic NASA milestones and fun facts about the international construction project of unprecedented complexity that began in 1998.

› Download calendar (5.3 Mb PDF)