Discovery crew moves tons of cargo to space station

By Jeff Franks

HOUSTON (Reuters) – Discovery astronauts on the first
shuttle trip to the International Space Station since 2002 –
and perhaps the last one for some time — worked on Sunday to
unload tons of supplies and equipment brought from Earth for
the station’s two-man crew.

The shuttle astronauts originally had planned to give the
station 15 tons of items stowed in an Italian-made cargo unit
but were adding computers, office supplies, food, water and
other items scrounged from Discovery in case there are no more
shuttle flights for a while.

“We’re looking forward to lots of nice goodies coming
across (from the shuttle),” a space station controller at
Johnson Space Center in Houston told the station astronauts.

NASA said on Saturday that Discovery’s mission would be
extended by a day to give the astronauts time to unload the
extra cargo. Return to Earth now is set for Aug. 8.

With Wendy Lawrence in charge of the cargo operation, the
shuttle crew worked with space station astronauts Sergei
Krikalev and John Phillips to unload Raffaello, as the cargo
unit is called.

As space opened in Raffaello, they were to fill it back up
with 13 tons of space junk that has piled up on the station
since it last linked up with a shuttle in November 2002.

Resupply of the space station took on added urgency on
Wednesday when the U.S. space agency announced it would ground
the shuttle fleet after videos showed insulating foam from
Discovery’s external fuel tank breaking loose as the shuttle
launched from Florida.

Loose foam from the fuel tank was blamed for the Columbia
disaster on Feb. 1, 2003, and was not supposed to happen again
after NASA spent $1 billion and 2 1/2 years supposedly fixing
the problem.

Discovery was the first shuttle to fly since Columbia. NASA
said none of its three shuttles will go into space again until
the foam problem is solved.

Russian spacecraft have filled in for the shuttle to ferry
supplies to the $95 billion space station but they cannot
transport as much cargo or the large modules used to piece
together the still-unfinished outpost.

Discovery suffered a few nicks to its protective tile at
launch because of flying debris but deputy shuttle program
manager Wayne Hale said laser and television scans of the
orbiter showed no major problems.

NASA engineers studying the scan data had declared 90
percent of Discovery’s outer shell safe for return to Earth and
were expected to give full, final approval on Monday, he said.

A briefcase-size piece of foam collided with Columbia’s
wing at launch and broke a hole in its heat shield. The shuttle
disintegrated over Texas as it glided toward landing in Florida
because superheated gases entered the breach and destroyed its
structure. The seven astronauts on board died.

As the cargo operation was under way on Sunday, several
astronauts were to take time out for television interviews from
space.

Steve Robinson and Japan’s Soichi Noguchi, who made a
seven-hour spacewalk on Saturday to test damage-repair
techniques and perform repairs to the space station, were
making preparations for another spacewalk on Monday.