A pressurized mating adapter, or docking port, will be relocated robotically beginning at 5:30 a.m. EDT today to make room for the Harmony node, which will arrive in late October aboard shuttle Discovery.
Flight Engineers Clay Anderson and Oleg Kotov used training software Tuesday to simulate the robotic arm operations required for the PMA-3 relocation.
The nearly six-hour operation will relocate the 2,607-pound docking port to a nadir, or earth-facing position, to allow the International Space Station to expand.
"This is a pretty major milestone for us," said NASA spokeswoman Lynnette Madison. "This is just one part of the whole assembly process."
The Harmony node will anchor the European and Japanese laboratories, which have been held at Kennedy Space Center due to delays in shuttle flights.
Watch The Flame Trench for coverage of the relocation operation.
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