Spacers

Endeavour docks, Dextre powerless.

Endeavour docked to the ISS Wednesday night right in the middle of that stripper guy getting the boot from American Idol, so perhaps it may not have been a world shatteringly important event!



No sooner had the hatches opened and the crews greeted each other, than the work began in earnest. The ISS robotic arm Canadarm 2 grabbed the palete containing Dextre from the Shuttle's payload bay and plugged him in to a temporary grapple point on the mobile plaform, where he would await assmbly by spacewalking astronauts. Ground controllers immediately tried to power him up, but to no avail. Dextre remained powerless.



The next day, spacewalking astronauts Rick Linnehan and Garrett Reisman set to work building Dextre as the power problem was worked on the ground. In a busy day of activities, the first section of the Japanese Kibo was removed from Endeavour's payload bay by the Shuttle's robot arm and installed on the top of the Harmony node.



Today the crews will ingress Kibo and begin activation and outfitting of the Japanese module.

Don't forget you can keep up with the progress of the mission on NASA TV. I've created a handy link in the Cool Space pane at the right of this blog.

Happy Spacing Spacers!

SpaceHead