Shuttle, Station Crews Embark On Joint Operations

The joined crews of shuttle Endeavour and the International Space Station are entering their first full day together in space, and they have two distinctly different jobs to do.

The Endeavour astronauts are making preparations for the first of three spacewalks planned during their station at the station, and the resident crew of the outpost is carrying out important life support system repairs.

Station commander Jeffrey Williams is installing a new distillation assembly into a water reclamation unit that converts urine, perspiration and hygiene water into potable water. The high-tech system has encountered a number of start-up problems since its delivery to the station, and the Endeavour astronauts hauled up the new distillation unit for installation.

The Endeavour astronauts will be preparing a spare spacesuit for mission specialist Bob Behnken. Parts of his suit failed to come electrically to life when put on battery power during routine spacewalk preparations. So Benhken, mission specialist Nicholas Patrick and Japanese station flight engineer Soichi Noguchi will be busy readying the spare suit.

Take a look at the shuttle crew's detailed timeline in this Flight Day 4 Execute Package.

A more concise summary of mission operations can be found in this latest revision -- Rev D -- of the STS-130 NASA TV Schedule.

You can watch mission operations live here in The Flame Trench. Click the NASA TV box on the right side of the page to launch our NASA TV viewer and live round-the-clock coverage of Endeavour's mission to the space station. Refresh this page, too, for periodic updates.