Attachment of the $2 billion, 15,251-pound Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer-2 (AMS) atop the Starboard 3 segment of the truss was confirmed Thursday at 4:46 a.m. CDT by Endeavour Pilot Greg Johnson and Mission Specialist Greg Chamitoff operating the station’s Canadarm2. Earlier, Mission Specialists Andrew Feustel and Roberto Vittori had used the shuttle arm to take AMS out of Endeavour’s cargo bay to hand it off to the station arm.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology Professor Samuel Ting, AMS principal investigator, congratulated crew members by radio from the station flight control room in the Mission Control Center.
Experts on the ground continue to perform analysis based on images taken from the station of Endeavour’s thermal protection system during the backflip maneuver while the shuttle approached the station. The teams are making plans to be able to do a focused inspection of Endeavour’s heat shield on Saturday. A final decision on whether the inspection is required or not is expected tomorrow.
Feustel and Chamitoff are scheduled to begin the first of the mission’s four spacewalks about 2:15 a.m. on Friday. The spacewalkers and Mike Fincke, their intravehicular officer who will help coach them through their activities, spent about an hour Thursday morning preparing tools for the spacewalk.
Tasks include retrieval of long-duration materials exposure experiments and installation of another, installation of a light on one of the station’s rail line handcarts, preparation for adding ammonia to a cooling loop and installation of an antenna.
NASA
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