CBS NEWS Coverage of Breaking Space News

Posted: 10:20 AM, 5/2/08

By William Harwood
CBS News Space Consultant

Editor's Note...

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Changes and additions:

04/19/08 (01:15 AM): Soyuz TMA-11 undocks from space station

04/19/08 (03:46 AM): Soyuz TMA-11 braking rockets fired

04/19/08 (05:30 AM): Soyuz TMA-11 lands off course; crew safe

04/22/08 (11:08 AM): Soyuz TMA-11 module separation problem under scrutiny

04/22/08 (04:00 PM): Gerstenmaier confident Russians will solve Soyuz entry problem; downplays threat to crew

04/22/08 (08:37 PM): NASA releases Whitson comments on Soyuz entry

05/02/08 (10:20 AM): Whitson describes Soyuz entry in CBS News interview

CBS NEWS SPACE EXPLORATION STATUS REPORTS

10:20 AM, 5/2/08, Update: Whitson describes rough Soyuz entry

Plunging back into the atmosphere April 19 after a six-month stay aboard the international space station, Expedition 16 commander Peggy Whitson and Soyuz commander Yuri Malenchenko realized something was very wrong. One of the two modules attached to the crew cabin had failed to separate prior to entry and the spacecraft, moving at some 5 miles per second, slammed into the discernible atmosphere in the wrong orientation.

With the capsule "rocking and rolling," Whitson said today, the propulsion module finally broke free and the crew capsule settled into the proper heat-shield-down attitude. At almost the same time, the vehicle transitioned to a so-called ballistic entry, making a steeper descent than usual and subjecting the crew to more than eight times the force of gravity.

In a normal descent, the orientation of the Soyuz is controlled to provide more lift, allowing the spacecraft to fly farther down range and subjecting the crew to less extreme braking forces. In a ballistic entry, lift is not adjusted, the capsule is spun up for stability and it rifles back to Earth on a steeper trajectory, subjecting the crew to more severe deceleration.

As a result, the Soyuz TMA-11 crew capsule landed well short of its target. Malenchenko crawled out on his own and local residents, who reached the capsule before Russian recovery teams, assisted Whitson and South Korean guest cosmonaut So-Yeon Yi.

In an interview today with CBS News, Whitson said she didn't have enough data to fully assess how much additional risk she and her crewmates faced, saying only "I guess the old pilot's saying of 'any landing you can walk away from was a good one' probably applies here."

This was the second Soyuz entry in a row to "go ballistic" after a module separation problem and Russian engineers have launched an investigation to figure out what went wrong and what, if anything, might be needed to prevent a repeat in October when Expedition 17 commander Sergei Volkov, Oleg Kononenko and U.S. space tourist Richard Garriott return to Earth. NASA space station Program Manager Mike Suffredini said Thursday the Russians hope to complete their initial investigation by the end of the month or shortly thereafter.

"The Soyuz vehicle is an extremely robust vehicle, it has what is referred to as a mono-stable aerodynamic design, which means that it will point itself the right way, which is the heat shield forward for entry, once the other components separate," he said. "The design is such that you can have a pyro bolt not fire and still have the system separate in time for the Soyuz to turn itself around and safely enter the atmosphere. There's many, many years of operations of the Soyuz vehicle that tells you overall, the design is robust. And so we need to let these teams finish deciding what this anomaly was and then we can assess the risk to the crew."

Here is a transcript of the CBS News interview with Whitson:

CBS News: This year marks the 25th anniversary of Sally Ride's launch as the first American woman in space. On the next shuttle flight, Karen Nyberg will become the 50th woman to fly in space versus 432 men. You are now America's most experienced astronaut, with 377 days in space and six spacewalks in your two flights. Can you put all that in perspective? Do you see yourself as a role model? Or are you like Nyberg, who told us yesterday she looks forward to the day when no one's counting?

Whitson: Well, I think Karen's got the right attitude that no one should be counting. But in the meantime, until we get to the point where we aren't counting, I am happy to be a role model. It seems odd to me to think of myself that way, but I hope that I can inspire someone to do something they maybe didn't think they could. Just like when I graduated from high school, they selected the first female astronauts and that was when I thought I should become an astronaut, because I saw someone else who could do it.

CBS News: Normally, I would ask about your station expedition but I'm really interested in your entry. It was more exciting than most, of course, and I want to walk through that in a little more detail. You guys had a normal deorbit burn and then right before entry interface, around 80 miles up or whatever, the modules were commanded to separate. Did you immediately realize the propulsion module had hung up?

Whitson: Not immediately. It took probably a few minutes, maybe a minute or so, before we understood probably something was not exactly right. Yuri noted the (maneuvering) engines were firing and they shouldn't have been at that particular point. But once we did fully separate, we almost immediately went to the ballistic re-entry mode, which is one of the nominal downmodes for the Soyuz.

CBS News: Right. But before that point when you switched to ballistic, do you have a sense of what the spacecraft's orientation was? Soyuz 5 had one like this in 1969 and he went in nose first. I didn't know if you guys were nose first or were you propulsion module down, or how was your attitude?

Whitson: I noted our attitude just before separation, because that's kind of an important point. The attitude should be kind of 90 degrees off the velocity, or the entry interface vector, so that when the two components separate from the descent module they are peeling away and don't have any chance to recontact the descent module. So we were in the correct attitude at that point in time. During that time when we were probably still attached to the propulsion module, there was a lot ofĘmovement going on in the capsule and so it was difficult to tell what our attitude was at that particular point in time. Later on, after we were already in the plasma, I noted the plasma was going from the bottom of my seat toward my head, which is the correct orientation, but I didn't note prior to that what our orientation was, and there was enough rocking and rolling going on that I didn't have a chance to actually check it out.

CBS News: I have this sense of a badminton shuttlecock kind of oscillating around. What kind of motion was it? I don't guess you were actually tumbling, but did you have some yawing going on, were you getting kind of tossed around side to side?

Whitson: It's interesting. Yuri felt like we were more yawing a little bit and I felt like I was being pitched forward and back. It could be the orientation in the capsule, we both were feeling something slightly different. Also, the neuro-sensory feelings are pretty screwy coming back in after being in zero gravity. For instance, I'd been told by several previous crew members when the seats raise (prior to landing), it will look like the control panel is falling into your lap. And so your neuro-sensory feelings at that point in time aren't always trustworthy, I don't think, because you haven't been experiencing it recently.

CBS News: I would think 8 Gs would be pretty tough on a good day, much less after six months in weightlessness. When you transitioned to ballistic after the modules finally separated, how fast did those Gs build up and how long did it last?

Whitson: The buildup started almost as soon as we transitioned to ballistic. We felt the engines fire to start our 17-degrees-per-second spin, that's to maintain the capsule's orientation and give it some stability that way. So we felt that immediately come up. As part of that process, over the next probably minute or so we built up to 8.2 Gs. It was a pretty fast buildup, and then it stayed, it seemed like at least a minute, I think the profile is only a minute. But of course after six months in zero gravity, that felt like a pretty long minute! As we were coming off the backside and the Gs were decreasing, we leveled off around four, four and a half for a little while and then tailed off after that. So four and a half felt easy after eight.

CBS News: I have this image of that guy on the rocket sled, with his cheeks pulling back. Was it like that for you?

Whitson: Yeah, I could feel my face being pulled back and it was pretty hard to breathe.

CBS News: Tell me about the landing itself. I know the parachutes come out and gave you a pretty good jerk and then the braking rockets fired just before touchdown and then bang, you hit. How did that go?

Whitson: Everyone had told me to kind of expect a car crash at the end and I thought that was a pretty accurate description of how it would feel. The ground indicates that we hit once and then bounced and then rolled after that. My sensation was that we hit the ground and rolled. Yuri felt like we had bounced, and so he ... wanted to make sure we were all the way stopped and not moving any more before he released the parachute. Because he had felt the bounce.

CBS News: We heard some reports of smoke in the cockpit. I've been unclear if that was pre or post landing.

Whitson: We had smoke in the cockpit prior to landing. Previous crew members had told me, you know, expect a smoky haze after you come through the plasma and you'll probably smell it. We had that, but then later on, after the chute opened, we also had additional smoke in the cabin and Yuri opted to shut the panel off because it looked like it was coming from underneath the cosmonaut panel.

CBS News: When we watch an entry like that and talk to various folks who aren't there, everything is second hand by definition. You had, some said, everything from a bumpy ride to 'they were almost killed.' What was it for you? Do you have any sense of what additional risk you faced on this entry versus a normal entry, or even a normal ballistic entry for that matter?

Whitson: Well, I don't think I can tell you accurately what that risk was. I think they'll have to do the technical investigation to determine, you know, how long we were out of the appropriate attitude and figure that out. I guess the old pilot's saying of 'any landing you can walk away from was a good one' probably applies here.

CBS News: It probably does. One thing that struck me, too, is you had a guest cosmonaut on board, South Korean engineer So-Yeon Yi. She obviously didn't have nearly the level of training professional astronauts have. I was wondering how she reacted to all of this? She's been quoted saying she was scared she was going to die. I guess the real question is, does this experience say anything about the wisdom of launching non professionals on rocket ships?

Whitson: Non professionals probably don't have the same understanding of the risk they're taking, probably. I think some of them do, it's hard to tell. I think it depends on their background. It is a risk that we are taking every time we launch and every time we land. As a professional, I think all of us accept that risk and understand, or choose, to take that risk. I think for people who aren't maybe as well educated or haven't been associated with the space program as long, maybe they don't fully understand the risks or understand what will be happening to them as a part of a nominal process.

CBS News: Last question, and thanks for taking all this time. Does this experience say anything at all, or raise any concern at all, about reliance on the Soyuz for America's ticket to space after the shuttle's retired in 2010? There's going to be a long period where Soyuz is the only ride in town. Does this raise any concerns at all about long-term reliability or health of that vehicle?

Whitson: In terms of reliability, I think Soyuz is a very reliable spacecraft and I'm sure that the Russians will get to the bottom of the potential causes of why we were downmoding to the ballistic mode in an unexpected manner. But I also think, personally, that we want to minimize the gap between the time when we have to rely solely on any one vehicle. I think after Columbia, it was very important for us to have the Soyuz capability, I think we always need to be prepared to have more than one option to getting into space.

CBS News: Thank you very much. Glad you're back.

Whitson: Great, thanks.

The Russian Soyuz TMA-11 spacecraft that carried two space station crew members and a South Korean guest cosmonaut back to Earth Saturday may have started its fiery re-entry with a normally discarded propulsion module still attached officials said today, putting the craft in an unusual orientation and subjecting the returning space fliers to higher than normal stresses and buffeting.

"I saw 8.2 Gs on the meter and it was ... pretty dramatic," outgoing space station commander Peggy Whitson, flying as the left-seat Soyuz engineer, told a NASA interviewer shortly after landing. "Gravity's not really my friend right now and 8 Gs was especially not my friend. But it didn't last too long. Chute deploy was nominal and impact ... wasn't quite as bad as I was expecting."

But the separation of the Soyuz modules "was a little more dramatic than I was expecting."

It was the second Soyuz entry in a row to experience apparent module separation problems, raising questions about quality control and the spacecraft's overall reliability. But Bill Gerstenmaier, NASA's director of space operations, said the Russians were treating the issue with the thoroughness it deserved and he expressed confidence in their ability to resolve the matter before the next Soyuz launch Oct. 12.

In the meantime, he said the Soyuz TMA-12 spacecraft currently docked to the space station is available for use by the lab's three-man crew if necessary.

"We don't see this as a major problem, but it's clearly something that should not have occurred, we don't like to see things repeat on two flights," he told reporters in an afternoon teleconference. Warning against speculation, he said "it appears, based on what we hear, we may have missed the most probable cause (of the earlier problem). We may have something else going on. ... The important thing is the Russians are taking this extremely serious, they've got the commission started, they're bringing in some independent folks on their side to take a look at this and they'll understand what the problem is."

Using explosive bolts, the Soyuz TMA-11 spacecraft's three modules normally separate just before atmospheric entry and the crew returns in the central descent module, which is equipped with a heat shield. During Saturday's entry, the lower propulsion module apparently failed to immediately separate from the descent module and the spacecraft entered the discernible atmosphere in an unusual orientation. The attached section finally broke away, as planned in such scenarios, allowing the descent module to settle into a normal heat-shield-down attitude.

Gerstenmaier revealed that a similar separation problem occurred during the flight before this one last October, which also ended with a so-called ballistic re-entry. Whether either flight came anywhere close to a catastrophic failure is not known. Gerstenmaier would not speculate, although he generally downplayed the additional risk.

"We're hearing there was a separation problem," he said. "We saw that on the previous Soyuz. That was confirmed by looking at the data on the previous Soyuz that the Russians provided to us. ... In the shuttle world, we get a lot of telemetry and data right away in realtime. In the Soyuz case, we don't get that much information. The attitude wasn't so off nominal that the crew detected it as being off nominal. They felt some motion, some jarring, some bumping around that was higher than they expected. They didn't really have enough data to confirm exactly how the separation occurred. ... The real answer comes when the Russians dump the computer and take a look at the data."

The presumed failure of the lower propulsion module to cleanly separate is believed to have forced the craft into a steeper than normal trajectory and the spacecraft ultimately landed some 295 miles short of its target. The final moments of the descent occurred out of sight and out of contact with Russian recovery forces and mission control near Moscow. Smoke apparently entered the capsule at one point, but it's not clear what might have caused it.

Instead of being met by flight surgeons and engineers, Soyuz commander Yuri Malenchenko, Whitson and guest flier So-Yeon Yi initially were assisted by local residents who were astonished to find the charred spacecraft resting on its side in their fields. Recovery crews eventually arrived and flew the crew back to Star City near Moscow. All three were reported to be in good health, although Malenchenko and Whitson face weeks of physical therapy to help them re-adapt to Earth's gravity after six months in weightlessness.

"It wasn't the search and rescue who got us out of the capsule," Whitson said. "It was just some guys who'd seen it and drove in. Yuri got out by himself before anyone arrived. And then by the time So-Yeon and I were trying to get out, the fellows who came out to meet us helped us out. So it worked out real well and we just waited until the search and rescue team arrived."

Russian space agency officials have not officially confirmed any problems with the separation of the Soyuz spacecraft's three modules, saying only that the spacecraft followed a ballistic, or unguided, trajectory because of an unspecified problem and that the system is designed to safely fly such trajectories without putting the crew in jeopardy.

But this was the second flight in a row to end with a ballistic descent, which can subject the crew to 10 times the normal force of Earth's gravity, and apparently the second flight in a row in which entry began in an unusual orientation, subjecting parts of the capsule to higher heating than normal.

Interviewed shortly after landing, Malenchenko, speaking through an interpreter in footage carried on NASA television, was asked about the experience.

"Well, it was interesting. Interesting is a good description," he said.

"Did it feel like a merry-go-round?" the interviewer asked.

"Well, pretty much so."

He did not say anything about a problem with the module separation system.

Because the Soyuz is a Russian spacecraft, U.S. space officials have adopted a wait-and-see attitude, saying only that Russian engineers have barely started a detailed engineering analysis. With the descent module available for study, Gerstenmaier said he is confident the Russians will eventually figure out what went wrong and do whatever is required to fix it.

"The data recorder on board will provide critical information," he said. "A detailed inspection of the capsule also needs to be done. The Russians are handling this extremely well. This is our second ballistic entry in a row. The Russians immediately set up a commission ... they're going to go out and investigate this, they'll get the capsule back, they'll understand the data and they'll see if there's any impact to future Soyuzes or future missions.

"I have complete confidence in what the Russians are doing. They were very concerned about this when it occurred, they treated it with the same diligence that we would in the United States, they worked this issue extremely hard. They did a lot of work on the previous Soyuz to understand what occurred on it, they fully investigated it. They recognized that at first appearances, it looks like some of the same events occurred on this Soyuz vehicle and because of that potential similarity, they've kind of kicked the gain up on the investigation to make sure they get answers as soon as they can."

But several U.S. observers privately expressed concern. With U.S. astronaut Michael Fincke scheduled to blast off aboard the next Soyuz in October as commander of space station Expedition 18, NASA managers will be particularly interested in the progress of the Russian probe.

"They've got a good track record with the Soyuz," said one official. But he said this was a "serious" issue that will require conclusive results to restore confidence in the system.

"This has been a remarkably robust system for lots of years," said John Logsdon, a space policy analyst at George Washington University and a member of the Columbia Accident Investigation Board. "What's a little worrisome is apparently there were some similarities with the one before this one. They had a ballistic entry. You don't want that happening on every mission, especially with people coming back from long-duration stays. They're feeling bad enough anyway without going through this.

"Could you compare it to what the CAIB said about the need for laser focus on quality for every mission, every time? Have the people doing Soyuz over and over again lost some of that? I think it's a legitimate concern."

It is a potentially critical issue for both Russia and the United States. NASA plans to retire the space shuttle in 2010 and rely on the Soyuz to ferry U.S. astronauts to and from the space station until a replacement spacecraft debuts in the 2015 timeframe.

After the ballistic entry on the previous flight last year, Gerstenmaier said Russian engineers identified two apparent problems: A suspect cable that might have forced the craft into an automated ballistic entry and a module separation issue involving the circuitry and explosive bolts used to sever structural supports. The cable issue was discussed prior to the TMA-12 launch April 8, but the earlier module separation problem with the Soyuz TMA-10 spacecraft was a surprise to space reporters.

Malenchenko and Whitson were completing a 192-day mission as members of space station Expedition 16 while Yi, who rode into orbit with Expedition 17 commander Sergei Volkov and Oleg Kononenko on April 8, was wrapping up an 11-day voyage.

Volkov, Kononenko and Yi were launched aboard the Soyuz TMA-12 spacecraft, which remains docked at the international space station. It is scheduled to carry Volkov, Kononenko and U.S. space tourist Richard Garriott, son of former Skylab and shuttle astronaut Owen Garriott, back to Earth this fall.

Malenchenko and Whitson rode into orbit last October aboard the same Soyuz TMA-11 spacecraft they returned in Saturday. Undocking from the space station went normally and the Soyuz's braking rockets fired as planned to drop the ship out of orbit for a landing near Arkalyk in Kazakhstan.

The Soyuz TMA spacecraft is made up of a lower propulsion, or service, module equipped with two solar panels, fuel tanks, rocket engines and other systems; a central crew module with the spacecraft's control systems; and an upper orbital module that includes rendezvous equipment and a docking system. Astronauts and cosmonauts ride to and from space strapped into cushioned seats in the central module, the only one of the three equipped with a heat shield. The cramped descent module weighs about 6,400 pounds and has a habitable volume of just 141 cubic feet.

Just before reaching the discernible atmosphere during re-entry, at an altitude of some 400,000 feet, commands are sent to fire explosive bolts to separate the connections holding the spacecraft's three modules together. Only the central descent module is built to withstand the rigors of re-entry. The other two modules burn up in the atmosphere.

In a normal, guided re-entry, the descent module is oriented to modify its lift slightly, permitting a shallower, less severe trajectory. In a ballistic entry, the capsule spins for stability and the descent is steeper, subjecting the crew to more extreme deceleration.

What happened Saturday is not yet clear. Sources say the propulsion module apparently did not immediately separate from the descent module just prior to entry, possibly because an explosive bolt failed to fire. As a result, the crew cabin apparently did not enter the atmosphere in the proper orientation. The attached module broke free at some point, allowing the crew cabin to right itself and continue the descent in the proper orientation.

"What the crew members reported was that they felt some anomalous motion in the spacecraft, they felt a kind of bumping around, movement forward in the seats, movement aft in the seats and movement to the right and movement to the left," Gerstenmaier said. "So they felt a general kind of jostling in their seats that they had not felt before and that was prior to the initiation of the ballistic mode on the spacecraft and after the separation. During that period of time they physically felt some off-nominal motion in the spacecraft."

Descriptions of the Soyuz TMA-11 re-entry brought to mind an early Soyuz entry problem that almost ended in disaster. On Jan. 18, 1969, six months before the Apollo 11 landing on the moon, cosmonaut Boris Volynov faced a particularly dire situation.

"The service module of the Soyuz failed to separate after retrofire," according to Encyclopedia Astronautica, a respected European web site that tracks international space activity. "Once the Soyuz started reaching the tendrils of the atmosphere, the combined spacecraft sought the most aerodynamically stable position - nose forward, with the heavy descent module with its light metal entry hatch at the front, the less dense service module with its flared base to the back. Luckily the struts between the descent and service modules broke off or burned through before the hatch melted through and the descent module righted itself, with the heat shield to the rear, before being consumed. Due to a failure of the soft-landing rockets the landing was harder than usual and Volynov broke his teeth."

Details about the Soyuz entry were not revealed until many years later.

During a news conference in Star City, Russia, Monday, The Associated Press reported that Yi said "during descent I saw some kind of fire outside as we were going through the atmosphere. At first, I was really scared because it looked really, really hot and I thought we could burn."

But she quickly realized the fire was outside the spacecraft. "I looked at the others and I pretended to be OK," she said.

Malenchenko said only that the Soyuz switched to a ballistic trajectory and that "there was no action of the crew that led to this. Time will tell what went wrong."

Expedition 16 commander Peggy Whitson, Soyuz commander Yuri Malenchenko and South Korean guest cosmonaut So-Yeon Yi undocked from the international space station and returned to Earth around 4:30 a.m. EDT to close out a successful 192-day mission. Because of an unexplained problem of some sort, the Soyuz capsule came down well short of its intended touchdown site just north of Arkalyk, Kazakhstan, unseen and out of immediate contact with recovery forces. But within the hour, recovery teams were on the scene and the crew was reported to be in good condition.

"Recovery forces, at least two helicopters, are in route," reported NASA commentator John Ira Petty, monitoring the descent from mission control at the Johnson Space Center in Houston. "There are indications the spacecraft could have landed well short of that targeted site. One possibility that has been raised is that of a ballistic entry. That could have occasioned such a shortfall. Again, no indication that anything amiss with the spacecraft."

A few moments later, Petty reported acquisition of the Soyuz capsule's landing beacon and Russian flight controllers told the space station's crew Whitson and company had landed 295 miles west of the intended landing site.

"Station, Moscow, on SG-1 for landing," a flight controller called from Moscow.

"Go ahead. I'm all ears," said station commander Sergei Volkov.

"Sergei, the latest information from the search and rescue, Yuri contacted them using the satellite phone and you can hear applause in the control room. They are feeling fine. They are short of the landing zone by 475 kilometers."

"Why so much?" Volkov asked.

"Well, they'll figure it out," mission control replied. "It looks like a ballistic descent."

NASA spokesman Rob Navias, with Russian recovery forces in Arkalyk, said the crew was in "good shape." Chief astronaut Steve Lindsey said the descent was reminiscent of the Expedition 6 landing in May 2003 and a similar shortfall during the most recent previous landing.

"We didn't hear from them for a while so we were concerned," Lindsey said. "But eventually we did get word that they located them so that's real good news. ... They were well ready for this and in fact, Yuri did call in on the sat phone after they landed just to let the rescue forces who didn't see them come down, to let them know the crew is OK."

At a Russian news conference, Russian officials said the crew was in good health after a "controlled, ballistic decent. The crew feels great, all of them. ... The reasons for the ballistic descent will be investigated after the descent module will be delivered to the Energia Corporation."

Whitson now holds the U.S. endurance record with a cumulative 377 days in space during two station expeditions. She broke the previous U.S. mark of 374 days on Wednesday, eclipsing a record set by astronaut Mike Foale. Whitson now ranks 20th in the world for space endurance and 16th on the list of most experienced spacewalkers. She carried out one spacewalk during her first flight in 2002 and five during Expedition 16 for a total of 39 hours and 46 minutes.

Malenchenko, completing his fourth space flight, moves up to ninth on the space endurance list with 515 days aloft.

"I'd love to fly again, especially if we were going somewhere like the moon or Mars," Whitson told CBS Radio in an interview Wednesday. "I would actually be happy to come here and fly on the station again. It's a very long training flow and that's, I think, the hardest thing to overcome, getting my arms around the idea of going through another training flow. Because additional international partners means it's a lot of travel and it's a very long flow, usually three to five years."

But Whitson said she had no regrets, and enjoyed her first six-month flight in 2002 as much as her second.

"I had a phenomenal time the first time around," Whitson said. "There is only one first time, there's a lot more discovery that happened on the first trip, being up here, and I think time felt like it flew by, literally. I mean, it felt like I was here on my first trip about two months when I was here six. And on this trip, I would say six months seemed about like six months and so, it's a little more expeditionary this time around. But if you're not having a good time, I guess you're just not doing the right thing because we have a blast up here."

Whitson, Malenchenko and Yi undocked from the downward-facing port of the Russian Zarya module at 1:06:30 a.m., leaving Expedition 17 commander Sergei Volkov, flight engineer Oleg Kononenko and NASA astronaut Garrett Reisman behind aboard the international lab complex. Volkov, Kononenko and Yi, South Korea's first space flier, were launched April 8 aboard the Soyuz TMA-12 spacecraft that remains docked to the station's Pirs airlock module. Reisman, ferried to the station aboard the shuttle Endeavour in March, plans to return to Earth aboard shuttle Discovery in early June.

With Malenchenko at the controls, assisted by Whitson in the left seat, the Soyuz TMA-11 spacecraft fired its braking rockets at 3:40 a.m. for about four-and-a-half minutes, slowing the craft enough to plunge back into the atmosphere. Three minutes before atmospheric entry around 4:06 a.m., the descent module carrying the crew separated from the craft's orbit and propulsion modules.

Seven minutes later, the returning station fliers experienced maximum deceleration followed by the command to open the craft's parachutes beginning around 4:15 a.m.

During Expedition 16, Whitson, Malenchenko and rotating crew members Clay Anderson, Dan Tani, European Space Agency astronaut Leopold Eyharts and Reisman oversaw a major growth spurt in station construction with the addition of the Harmony connecting module, the European Columbus research lab, a Japanese logistics module and the relocation of a huge set of solar arrays.

When the arrays were re-extended, torn blankets and seams caused a major concern. But the problem was resolved when a spacewalking shuttle astronaut successfully stitched the torn blankets together.

"Some of my proudest moments of this mission have been how we've handled the problems that have come up," Whitson said. "Fixing the solar arrays, the team on the ground really, really pushed hard to come up with a solution to fix that solar array and I was very worried about it, because I knew that we wouldn't be able to add additional modules without that power capability. I was really, really proud of our teams on the ground, proud of the team up here that made it happen."

Asked what she was looking forward to the most back on Earth, besides reunions with friends and family, Whitson said "I'm excited about having a little bit more selection in food and being able to actually cook something instead of eating something out of a bag. And I'm also looking forward, I really like working in my garden and planting flowers. It's the right time of year in Houston to be doing that, so I'm looking forward to doing that, get a little extra rehab in that way."

Whitson's first trip to and from the station was aboard a space shuttle. This time around, she rode the Soyuz TMA-11 spacecraft into orbit and will make the trip back to Earth flying in the left seat, assisting Malenchenko.

"I'm the left-seat flight engineer and it's very involved, it's more involved than I ever would have been, for instance, on a shuttle mission," she told CBS News last year. "I was pretty impressed with the training program, that they're able to teach a biochemist in Russian how to be a left-seat engineer. So it was very challenging for me, but I think it's going to be very satisfying because of the challenge."

Before her launch last October, Whitson said she did not view herself as a role model. But she said she hoped her story might encourage other women to pursue careers in science and engineering.

"I want to encourage any child to do their best at anything," she said. "Coming from a background, rural Iowa, raised with more hogs than people, I don't know that I knew all the choices out there. But something struck me about exploration of the moon, and I hope that even if I don't inspire somebody to be an astronaut that I inspire them to be an engineer or to do something more than they thought they could. That would be very important to me."

During a brief change-of-command ceremony Thursday, Whitson formally handed over the station to Volkov.

"I'm officially handing over the international space station to Sergei Volkov," she said. "I'm very happy to do so. Expedition 16 has consisted of a lot of crew members, some who are here, some who are not - Clay Anderson, Dan Tani, Leo Eyharts, Yuri and Garrett and myself - and we've had the really great privilege and honor to be here on the station when so much has changed. We feel like we have handed over a very beautiful station to you guys and look forward to your work. I know that you're going to be a great commander, Sergei."

"Thank you very much," replied Volkov, son of a Russian cosmonaut. "Expedition 17 takes the station under our control and thank you very much for such a precious station, a beautiful station, and we wish you have a safe trip back home and good luck."

Whitson then jokingly offered Volkov and Kononenko two parting gifts, the first one being Reisman.

"He's going to be a great addition to your crew," Whitson laughed. "And the second gift, which is almost as important as Garrett, is the left over (hot) sauce!"

"Thank you! Thank you ver much!" Volkov said.

"You're in control now," Whitson said. "You have the sauce."

Commander Sergei Volkov, son of a famed Russian cosmonaut, deftly guided the Soyuz TMA-12 spacecraft to a successful docking with the international space station today to complete a two-day chase that started with blastoff Tuesday from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. The docking mechanisms of the Soyuz and the station's Pir's airlock module engaged at 8:57 a.m. as the two spacecraft sailed high above northern Kazakhstan.

Two-and-a-half hours later, after leak checks confirmed the two spacecraft were firmly locked together, hatches were opened at 11:40 a.m. and Expedition 16 commander Peggy Whitson, flight engineer Yuri Malenchenko and Garrett Reisman welcomed Volkov and his crewmates, Oleg Kononenko and So-Yeon Yi, the first South Korean to fly in space, aboard the international lab complex.

The three arriving crew members, all making their first space flight, appeared relaxed and in good spirits as they floated into the Pirs module, with Yi grinning broadly and sharing hugs and handshakes before moving into the Zvezda command module for a safety briefing and a quick teleconference with Russian and South Korean dignitaries in mission control, Moscow.

"I feel great, really great," Yi said. "I'm so fine."

"You are now the dream of Korea," an unidentified South Korean official radioed. "Please take good care of yourself and do your best for the success of all science experiments."

"Thank you so much, I understand and I will try to do my best," Yi replied. "I will spend all my energy for Korea. Thank you so much."

Expedition 17 commander Volkov and Kononenko will replace Whitson and Malenchenko, who plan to return to Earth aboard their Soyuz TMA-11 spacecraft April 19. Yi, flying under a commercial contract between South Korea and the Russian space agency, will depart with Whitson and Malenchenko.

Reisman, launched to the station aboard the shuttle Endeavour in March, will remain aboard the outpost with Volkov and Kononenko as a member of the Expedition 17 crew until he is replaced in early June by astronaut Gregory Chamitoff, scheduled for launch aboard the shuttle Discovery May 31.

Over the next week or so, Whitson and Malenchenko, launched to the station last October, will brief their replacements on the intricacies of space station operations, showing them where critical items are stowed and familiarizing them with the behavior of critical systems. Yi will conduct a series of South Korean experiments.

"On behalf of the state commission, I would like to congratulate you with your arrival on board the international space station," radioed Victor Grin, head of the commission. "I wish you all success in your work aboard the station and hopefully, you will be able to fulfill all of the tasks planned for your mission.

"And for Peggy and Garrett and Yuri, we thank you very much for your excellent work, and we're hopeful you will be able to pass along the vast experience that you've accumulated over the last months on board the station to the newly arrived crew. Thank you."

Volkov also was congratulated by his father, 59-year-old cosmonaut Alexander Volkov, who logged 391 days in space during one flight to the Salyut-7 space station and two flights to Mir in 1985, 1988 and 1991 respectively.

Volkov, Kononenko and Reisman will have about six weeks to prepare for the arrival of the shuttle Discovery and the new Japanese Kibo research laboratory, a huge module that will be attached to the left side of the forward Harmony connecting module.

Along with helping activate the new lab, the Expedition 17 crew will oversee the arrival of three Progress supply ships and the departure of the European Space Agency's Jules Verne automated transfer vehicle later this summer. Volkov and Kononenko also plan at least one spacewalk, in July.

A Soyuz rocket carrying South Korea's first astronaut and two cosmonauts bound for the international space station blasted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan today and rocketed smoothly into orbit.

With incoming Expedition 17 commander Sergei Volkov and flight engineer Oleg Kononenko at the controls of the three-seat Soyuz TMA-12 spacecraft, the rocket roared to life at 7:16:39 a.m. EDT and swiftly climbed away from the same pad used by cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, the first man in space, on April 12, 1961.

NIne minutes later, boosted to a velocity of five miles per second, the Soyuz capsule separated from the rocket's third stage as planned. Antennas and solar arrays deployed a few moments later.

"Congratulations to the entire crew. Sergei, all the best to you and congratulations," radioed Anatoly Perminov, head of the Russian space agency, Roskosmos.

"Thank you very much, Anatoly," Volkov replied."

"Have a good flight."

Launch was timed for the moment Earth's rotation carried the pad into the plane of the space station's orbit. It will take Volkov and company two days to catch up with the station for a docking at the Pirs airlock module around 9:02 a.m. Thursday.

Joining Volkov and Kononenko inside the cramped capsule was So-Yeon Yi, a 29-year-old South Korean engineer flying under a commercial agreement between the Russian space agency and South Korea's ministry of science and technology. She initially was selected as a backup to San Ko, a robotics engineer, but Ko was removed from the prime crew after reportedly violating Russian training procedures.

In video downlinked from the capsule today during the climb to space, Yi, seated to Volkov's right, could be seen enthusiastically waving a thumbs up at the camera and smiling broadly.

"We are fine on board and feeling fine," Volkov reported.

Yi will spend nine days aboard the space station and return to Earth on April 19 with outgoing Expedition 16 commander Peggy Whitson and flight engineer Yuri Malenchenko, who will command the Soyuz TMA-11 spacecraft that carried the two into orbit Oct. 10.

The third member of the Expedition 16 crew, NASA astronaut Garrett Reisman, will remain aboard the lab complex with Volkov and Kononenko and become a member of Expedition 17. Launched to the station aboard the shuttle Endeavour in March, Reisman will be replaced in early June by astronaut Gregory Chamitoff, scheduled for launch May 31 aboard the shuttle Discovery.

Volkov, 35, is the son of cosmonaut Alexander Volkov and is the first second-generation cosmonaut or astronaut to fly in space.

"I never thought about it, really, that I am going to be the second generation," he said in a NASA interview. "I just want to do my job as best as is possible and thatŐs it, honestly. I think itŐs a logical sequence of events because we (have been) continuously flying almost 50 years. I think itŐs time to expect that the kids whose father or mother were cosmonauts, want to be as their parents. And itŐs normal.

"Usually in our countries we have kids who decided to be an actor because their parents were actors, or they want to a politician because their parents were a politician. I think itŐs like a normal sequence of events that we might have more and more kids from the parents who been involved in space program."

Volkov grew up in the Russian space program and his decision to pursue a career as a cosmonaut was a natural transition. For Kononenko, 43, "it seems to me that I was born thinking that I must become a cosmonaut."

"I donŐt remember anything specific in terms of a event, a one-time event, that would inspire me," he said. "I was born after the first Sputnik flight, after GagarinŐs flight. But as far back as I remember myself I always wanted to become a cosmonaut. After I graduated from high school I made a conscious decision to go to the aviation institute and I wanted to become a cosmonaut. Maybe for a human itŐs not so very good to have just one goal in life, but so it is with me."

Whitson and Malenchenko will brief their replacements on the intricacies of space station operations before departing April 19 with Yi.

"As a rule, every crew that arrives to the station kind of adapts the station throughout those six months that theyŐre living there, so they locate whatever items that theyŐre using in such a way that is most convenient to them and they, of course, report that to the ground," Kononenko said in a NASA interview.

"However, it is not really possible to model an entire volume of the stack of the Russian or U.S. side, so we have this handover operation. The crew thatŐs about to leave tells us about the current status of the station and they tell us how they are doing all the routine operations that we are going to continue with. This is done to make our life easier during our first days and weeks of our stay on the station. They show us the locations and configurations of the hardware that we are about to use and this time is somewhat more complicated because of the fact that we are going to have a Space Flight Participant from South Korea and we are going to help (with her) experiments."

Perminov, speaking on a Russian television feed a few minutes after launch, said the crew was relatively inexperienced going into a complex mission.

"It's their first flight," he said through an interpreter. "They're young in age and young in experience and they don't have the wealth of experience, unfortunately, that other, more experienced crew members have. But after they have gone through the flight, once they have spent six months on board the station, this is going to be a different crew and they're going to be more experienced."

Volkov, Kononenko and Reisman will have about six weeks to prepare for the arrival of the shuttle Discovery and the new Japanese Kibo research laboratory, a huge module that will be attached to the left side of the forward Harmony connecting module. Along with helping activate the new lab, the Expedition 17 crew will oversee the arrival of three Progress supply ships and the departure of the European Space Agency's Jules Verne automated transfer vehicle later this summer. Volkov and Kononenko also plan at least one spacewalk, in July,

Here is a rendezvous timeline (in EDT and mission elapsed time; dV means change in velocity):

DATE/EDT...DD...HH...MM...EVENT

04/08/08
10:53 AM...00...03...36...DV1 rocket firing (dV: 59.4 mph)
11:38 AM...00...04...21...DV2 rocket firing (dV: 29.9 mph)

04/09/08
08:29 AM...01...01...12...DV3 rocket firing (dV: 4.5 mph)

04/10/08
05:25 AM...01...22...08...US-to-Russian motion control system handover
06:41 AM...01...23...24...AR&D automated rendezvous start
06:56 AM...01...23...39...Station maneuvers to docking attitude
07:04 AM...01...23...47...AR&D DV4 impulse 1 (dV: 20.9 mph)
07:24 AM...02...00...07...AR&D impulse 2 (dV: 2.2 mph)
07:27 AM...02...00...10...Soyuz/KURS-A activation
07:29 AM...02...00...12...Zvezda/KURS-P activation
07:47 AM...02...00...30...AR&D DV5 impulse 3 (dV: 27.1 mph)
07:52 AM...02...00...35...Good KURS-P data at 50 miles
08:10 AM...02...00...53...Sunrise
08:13 AM...02...00...56...KURS short test at 9.3 miles
08:19 AM...02...01...02...Range: 5.6 miles
08:20 AM...02...01...03...Range: 5 miles; Soyuz TV activation
08:29 AM...02...01...12...AR&D impulse 4 (dV: 16 mph)
08:31 AM...02...01...14...AR&D ballistic targeting point
08:34 AM...02...01...17...AR&D impulse 5 (dV: 6.7 mph)
08:36 AM...02...01...19...AR&D impulse 6 (dV: 3.7 mph)
08:38 AM...02...01...21...AR&D fly around mode start
08:47 AM...02...01...30...AR&D stationkeeping start
08:50 AM...02...01...33...Russian ground station AOS
08:53 AM...02...01...36...AR&D final approach start
09:02 AM...02...01...45...ISS Docking
09:05 AM...02...01...48...Sunset
09:06 AM...02...01...49...Russian ground station loss of signal
09:22 AM...02...02...05...Soyuz hooks closed; ISS returns to normal orientation
10:05 AM...02...02...48...US motion control system resumes attitude control

The European Space Agency's "Jules Verne," the first of a new breed of unmanned, state-of-the-art cargo ships built to deliver supplies and equipment to the international space station, successfully maneuvered to a precision docking today after a "textbook" final approach.

With station flight engineer Yuri Malenchenko standing by in the station's Zvezda command module to transmit abort commands if any last-minute problems developed, the bus-size automated transfer vehicle (ATV) Jules Verne docked at 10:45 a.m. as the two spacecraft sailed 215 miles above the Atlantic Ocean east of South America.

"The range is five meters, the parameters are nominal, the systems are nominal," a Russian translator relayed as the ATV closed in. "Now about two meters... no (abort) commands, the parameters are nominal. Waiting for the contact... We have contact. Nominal systems."

As hooks and latches engaged to firmly lock the ATV to Zvezda's aft docking port, NASA mission control commentator Rob Navias described the final stages of the rendezvous as "a textbook docking on it's maiden flight"

"Docking confirmed at 9:45 a.m. Central time just south of the equator over the Atlantic Ocean," Navias reported. "Around the world in 26 days, the European Space Agency's Jules Verne automated transfer vehicle has pulled into port at the international space station."

If all goes well, Malenchenko, station commander Peggy Whitson and flight engineer Garrett Reisman will open the ATV early Friday and set up an air scrubber to thoroughly filter and mix the air inside the cargo ship with the station's atmosphere. The scrubber must run for a full eight hours and the crew is not expected to fully enter the ATV and begin its initial setup until Saturday. Cargo transfers are scheduled to begin Monday.

"I am incredibly proud of and pleased for our European partners with this demonstration of a successful automated docking of the ATV cargo vehicle with the ISS," NASA Administrator Mike Griffin said in a statement. "Only Russia has previously achieved a successful automated docking in space. This accomplishment showcases yet again the progress which has been made by the international partnership in bringing this incredible program to fruition. Together with the arrival of the Columbus Module at the ISS earlier this year, the success of the ATV marks the arrival of Europe as a full-fledged space power. I applaud their achievement."

NASA ATV Flight Director Brian Smith described today's docking as "historic" and said it went so smoothly "because we spent years, literally years, preparing the operations."

"What was unique about this mission was what we dubbed the trilateral nature of it," he said. "For the first time, we were conducting realtime operations from three control centers around the world - ATV control center, located in Toulouse, France; and of course, MCC-Moscow and here, MCC-H, Houston. Orchestrating realtime operations, critical realtime operations for rendezvous and docking, is extremely complicated and we spent a lot of time preparing for a nominal approach, which is what we had today, as well as many failures we were prepared to deal with."

Along with carrying supplies and equipment, the ATV also carries water and rocket fuel. It is capable of re-orienting the entire space station and boosting the craft to a higher orbit. An attitude control test is planned for Saturday and if all goes well, a reboost maneuver will be attempted in a few weeks, after the arrival of a Soyuz ferry craft carrying the station's next full-time crew.

The Jules Verne is the first of at least five ATVs being built by the European Space Agency as part of a $7 billion investment in the international space station project. That figure includes the cost of the ATV, ESA's Columbus research module, attached to the station in February, and the ground infrastructure required to operate them.

The first ATV was launched March 9 by an Ariane 5 rocket and placed in a parking orbit while NASA carried out shuttle mission STS-123. The shuttle Endeavour returned to Earth on March 26 and after two practice approaches to make sure the ATV's flight software, navigation and propulsion systems were working properly, U.S., Russian and ESA flight controllers cleared the craft for its long-awaited automated docking today.

"The ATV is the heaviest and most complex vehicle ever developed at ESA," ESA Director General Jean-Jacques Dordain said after launch. "The heaviest, because at liftoff it weighs over 20 tons and is carrying nine tons of cargo. The most complex, because at one and the same time, it's a launcher stage, a satellite when it's in free flight and a part of the manned infrastructure when it is docked. It is a unique vehicle allowing for automatic rendezvous with the ISS which, since the arrival of the Columbus, ESA is now a joint owner."

The ATV, about the size of a British double-decker bus, has about three times the capacity of a Russian Progress supply ship. That's a major factor in NASA's planning as the U.S. space agency prepares to retire the shuttle in 2010.

"The ATV as a logistics vehicle carries almost three times the hardware and fuel and water and oxygen that a Progress can carry for us," said Mike Suffredini, space station program manager for NASA. "So it is a major contribution to the program. Probably more significantly will be post 2010 when the shuttle is no longer available for us to do much of the logistics work it does. To me, that's a key part of what the automated transfer vehicle brings to the program."

12:05 PM, 3/9/08, Update: ESA troubleshoots ATV issue (UPDATED at 2:15 p.m. with ESA explanation; UPDATED at 3:30 p.m. with quotes from ESA post-launch news conference)

European Space Agency engineers are troubleshooting a problem with the Jules Verne automated transfer vehicle launched late Saturday from Kourou, French Guiana. One of four propulsion drive electronics circuits, or chains, which controls seven of the spacecraft's 28 maneuvering jets and one of four main engines, was taken off line after launch when a slight pressure differential between fuel and oxidizer supplies was detected. The other three chains apparently are healthy and it is not clear what caused the problem or what, if any, impact it might have on subsequent operations.

"Obviously, this is something we're looking at in a lot of detail now," John Ellwod, the ATV project manager, said at a post-launch news briefing. "I think the very good news is all the failure detection and recovery action all went perfectly. It measured a small anomaly, immediately went onto the other chain, which is working perfectly. But obviously, we're now going to look back ... and maybe be a bit careful on when we do the next maneuvers until we really undestand that. We're in a perfectly stable orbit ... we have power, we have communications, the solar array drives are moving, we've got attitude control, star trackers.

"As I said, the one thing we want to look at is this propulsion anomaly. When that happens, the electronic box that drives that has to be reconfigured and we're now looking over the next few days how we're going to reconfigure that. ... So our idea is to reintegrate the electronics that switched from one channel to the other sometime in the next few days. At that time, we should be able to see what is the problem with the first propulsion chain that we switched from."

Engineers at the ATV control center in Toulouse, France, and at the prime contractor EADS-Astrium in Les Mureaux "are evaluating and analysing the data coming from the spacecraft and are assessing the consequences, if any, in the immediate planning," according to an ESA statement.

The ATV can operate normally with three operational propulsion command chains. But if the current problem cannot be resolved, a subsequent failure could cause problems for the planned April 3 space station docking.

Because this is a maiden voyage, European flight controllers went into the mission with an elaborate series of tests to check out the ATV's control, navigation and propulsion systems before attempting a docking for real on April 3. The tests included a simulated collision avoidance maneuver March 12 followed by two relatively close approaches to the station on March 29 and 31 to make sure the craft can safely abort an approach when the docking is attempted for real.

"This thing has been through quite a vibration," Ellwood said. "So there's a lot of these mechanical valves and things and we often sometimes also find they've slightly moved and you've got to wait a few days when you shake them about a bit. ... These are the sort of things that tend to happen after a launch."

A powerful Ariane 5 rocket roared to life and streaked away from its jungle launch pad on the northern coast of South American late today, boosting the European Space Agency's state-of-the-art "Jules Verne" automated space station supply craft into orbit on a long-awaited maiden voyage.

With its hydrogen-fueled main engine firing at full throttle, a pair of solid-fuel boosters ignited with a rush of fire at 11:03:04 p.m. EST Saturday, lighting up the French Guiana sky for miles around as the huge rocket climbed away through a light drizzle.

The Ariane 5 quickly disappeared from view but telemetry indicated the rocket performed as expected, lofting the 42,672-pound ATV - the heaviest payload ever launched by an Ariane rocket - into its planned initial orbit. After a long orbital coast and a second upper stage rocket firing, the spacecraft was released on its own at 12:10 a.m., prompting a round of applause in mission control. A half hour later, four solar arrays and a navigation antenna unfolded as expected and telemetry from the craft indicated it was in good health.

The initial success of the ATV mission, coming just a few weeks after attachment of ESA's Columbus research module on the international space station, opens a new frontier in European space operations.

"With this launch of the ATV, we are embarking on an extraordinary voyage," said ESA Director General Jean-Jacques Dordain. "As of today, ESA is an essential partner of the international space station."

Said Daniel Sacotte, ESA's Director for Human Spaceflight, Microgravity and Exploration: "Last month, with the docking of Columbus, Europe got its own flat in the ISS building. With the launch of the first ATV, we now have our own delivery truck. We have become co-owners of the ISS, now we are about to become fully-fledged partners in running it. With the ATV we will be servicing the ISS by delivering cargo and providing orbital reboost."

The Jules Verne is the first of at least five ATVs being built by the European Space Agency as part of a $7 billion investment in the international space station project. That figure includes the cost of the ATV, ESA's Columbus research module and the ground infrastructure required to operate them.

"The ATV is the heaviest and most complex vehicle ever developed at ESA," said Dordain. "The heaviest, because at liftoff it weighs over 20 tons and is carrying nine tons of cargo. The most complex because at one and the same time, it's a launcher stage, a satellite when it's in free flight and a part of the manned infrastructure when it is docked. It is a unique vehicle allowing for automatic rendezvous with the ISS which, since the arrival of the Columbus, ESA is now a joint owner."

If all goes well, the ATV will deliver some 10,100 pounds of cargo to the space station, about three times the capacity of a Russian Progress supply ship. About the size of a British double-decker bus, the ATV can deliver propellant to the station or directly raise the orbit of the lab using its own thrusters.

That's a major factor in NASA's planning as the U.S. space agency prepares to retire the shuttle in 2010.

"The ATV as a logistics vehicle carries almost three times the hardware and fuel and water and oxygen that a Progress can carry for us," said Mike Suffredini, space station program manager for NASA. "So it is a major contribution to the program. Probably more significantly will be post 2010 when the shuttle is no longer available for us to do much of the logistics work it does. To me, that's a key part of what the automated transfer vehicle brings to the program."

Said NASA Administrator Michael Griffin: "I'm really looking forward to the availability of the ATV as a cargo delivery option. In fact, the more that we can utilize crew at station, the more support they're going to need from cargo. And I think with the ATV, we'll have a fine future in that role."

The Jules Verne, using laser sensors and complex flight control software, will dock with the aft port of the Russian Zvezda command module. But not right away. Because this is a maiden voyage, European flight controllers plan an elaborate series of tests to check out the ATV's control, navigation and propulsion systems before attempting a docking for real on April 3.

After a simulated collision avoidance maneuver March 12, the ATV will stage two relatively close approaches to the station on March 29 and 31 to make sure the craft can safely abort an approach when the docking is attempted for real on April 3.

With ATV safely on its way, NASA will focus on launching the shuttle Endeavour early Tuesday on a 16-day space station assembly mission featuring five spacewalks. Endeavour is scheduled to return to Earth on March 26, clearing the way for the ATV rendezvous tests and docking.

N. Wayne Hale, a veteran ascent-entry flight director who helped steer NASA through its recovery from the 2003 Columbia disaster, says the agency's decision last week to replace him as shuttle program manager caught him by surprise. But in a telephone interview today, Hale embraced the change and said his replacement, deputy program manager and Mission Management Team Chairman John Shannon, is the right man for the job.

"The senior leadership of the agency felt like they needed someone with some technical credibility and at least a modicum of speaking and writing ability to help build partnerships with other agencies, corporations, academic groups and international groups in addition to what's already going forward," Hale said. "They looked around for somebody and I guess I fit the bill.

"And the other thing is, we have got the shuttle program running fairly well, I would say, and we have a really good team of folks that are in place and can take over and run it without missing a beat. So they thought the time was right and the need was there and asked me to do this new job. Frankly, it's still a little bit undefined what it is I'm going to be doing. I'm just moving offices right now. But we'll be having some discussions next week in Washington about exactly what they want me to do. But apparently, it will involve speaking and writing and telling people about why the space program is important."

In a statement released Friday, NASA said Hale, named shuttle program manager in September 2005, had been named deputy associate administrator for strategic partnerships at the Johnson Space Center in Houston. In that capacity, the statement said, Hale will provide "strategic leadership to foster cooperative partnerships that help achieve NASA goals, build alliances across the public and private sectors, and improve U.S. competitiveness and economic growth."

Hale joined NASA in 1978 and rose through the ranks of mission control to the coveted position of flight director, a position he held for 40 shuttle flights. While he went on to loftier management positions, Hale said today being a flight director will "remain my absolute favorite job that I've ever had and the only thing that I really ever aspired to. Everything after that has just come along of its own accord."

"So yeah, I leave (the shuttle program) with a little bit of sadness," he said. "But you know, being a flight director is really a young person's job. You reach a point in your life where taking the midnight shift, you may not be as sharp as the young people and you realize, OK, you ought to turn it over to some young person who can operate under the time pressure and the odd hours and all of that."

Shannon, a former flight director known for a close-to-the-vest, no-nonsense management style, takes over at a critical time as NASA attempts to finish construction of the international space station and fly a final 12 shuttle missions before retiring the fleet in 2010.

Shannon joined NASA in 1988 and became the youngest flight director in agency history in 1993. He served as deputy director of NASA's Columbia Task Force in the wake of the 2003 shuttle accident and was named deputy shuttle program manager in November 2005.

"John is outstanding," Hale said today. "And I think the shuttle program will be better off, frankly, with him at the helm than maybe with me. So I don't have any qualms at all. He is outstanding, he's got an outstanding team (and) they will do a great job, I'm sure."

An early adopter of post-Columbia calls for changes in NASA's management culture, Hale brought a willingness to entertain minority viewpoints and dissenting opinions to the program that some managers privately criticized as overly conservative..

But Hale said today he did not believe his reassignment was punishment for any real or perceived transgressions.

"I don't get that sense at all," he said. "As a matter of fact, I get quite the opposite sense that everyone up the chain is extraordinarily happy with the way we're doing things and they felt they had a real need for me in this particular new assignment.

"It's not that anybody was unhappy with what I was doing. Certainly, nobody has said anything. Quite the opposite. And in fact, if that were the case, then John Shannon wouldn't be a good pick because he is cut from the same cloth and he is very open to dissenting opinions and seeking out the right information and I think he will do very well."

In the end, Hale said, "I believe people tell me what they really think and all indications are they really need me to do this new job, And that's why they asked me to do it."

John Shannon, chairman of NASA's Mission Management Team and the man responsible for the conduct of space shuttle missions, was named manager of the shuttle program today, replacing N. Wayne Hale, a veteran ascent-entry flight director who helped steer NASA's recovery from the 2003 Columbia disaster.

Shannon, a former flight director known for a careful, no-nonsense management style, takes over at a critical time for NASA as the agency attempts to finish construction of the international space station and fly a final 12 shuttle missions before retiring the winged orbiters in 2010.

"John Shannon is completely ready to take the reins in NASA's most critical program," Hale said in a NASA statement. "His leadership skills are well established, and the shuttle program will do well under his care."

Shannon joined NASA in 1988 and in four years was leading the shuttle guidance, navigation and flight control office in mission control. He became the youngest flight director in NASA history in 1993 and served as deputy director of NASA's Columbia Task Force in the wake of the 2003 shuttle accident. He was named deputy shuttle program manager in November 2005 and chairmen of the Mission Management Team.

The NASA statement did not provide any insight into what led to the management shuffle, saying only that Hale had been named deputy associate administrator for strategic partnerships at the Johnson Space Center in Houston. In that capacity, the statement said, Hale will provide "strategic leadership to foster cooperative partnerships that help achieve NASA goals, build alliances across the public and private sectors, and improve U.S. competitiveness and economic growth."

With the possible exception of NASA Administrator Mike Griffin, Hale has been the most visible face of the shuttle program since NASA's return to flight following the 2003 Columbia disaster.

With a master's degree in mechanical engineering from Purdue University, Hale joined NASA in 1978 as a propulsion officer in mission control, rising through the ranks to become a flight director, a position he held for 40 shuttle flights, including 28 missions overseeing ascent and entry.

"I guess you could call me one of the true space cadets," Hale said in an interview for the book "Comm Check: The Final Flight of Shuttle Columbia." "I've always wanted to work in the space program. I was three years old when Sputnik went up and my mom tells this funny story about how that was what I wanted to talk about every day when she came home. I have always wanted to do this and it was a dream come true when I graduated from colledge and put my application in to NASA and got to come to work down here. It was just all I ever wanted to do."

Known for his thick glasses and calm demeanor in the high-pressure world of shuttle launch and landing operations, Hale agreed to serve a one-year stint as launch integration manager at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida starting in early 2003, a critical position that would give him the ultimate authority for clearing shuttles for liftoff.

But his first official day on the job was Feb. 1, 2003, the day Columbia disintegrated on the way back to Earth. Seven astronauts were killed in NASA's second shuttle disaster and the program was grounded for more than two years.

Hale was already in Florida when Columbia took off on Jan. 16, 2003, and engineers worried about a foam strike on the underside of Columbia's left wing asked him to forward a request for imagery from classified military satellites that might show whether the shuttle had suffered any major damage.

Hale called Linda Ham, then chairman of the Mission Management Team, and passed along the concern about the foam strike. But he did not immediately mention the request for satellite imagery. Returning to work the following week, Hale pursued the request for photos, but Ham and then-shuttle Program Manager Ron Dittemore deemed that and similar requests from others as unnecessary.

In the wake of the accident, Dittemore left NASA to join private industry and was replaced by Bill Parsons, then director of NASA's Stennis Space Center. Hale returned to Houston to serve as deputy program manager. In that role, he oversaw day-to-day shuttle operations, applying his encyclopedic knowledge of shuttle systems to the difficult task of recovering from the Columbia disaster.

In September 2005, following the first successful post-Columbia mission, Parsons returned to Stennis and Hale was named shuttle program manager.

An early adopter of calls for changes in NASA's management culture, Hale brought a willingness to entertain minority viewpoints and dissenting opinions to the program that some managers privately criticized as evidence of an indecisive, overly conservative approach. But Hale insisted his only motivation was flight safety and a desire born of Columbia to learn from the past.

"A lot of us out here are working because we believe that sending people into space is important," he said in the 2003 "Comm Check" interview. "I don't know how else to say it, that sounds too simplisitic, but we think that's an important thing to do. And we were not good enough and we're going to have to live with that for the rest of our lives, that we were not good enough.

"And it fills me with two kinds of things: A great deal of remorse and anguish and wish-we-had-been-better. But it also fills me with this sense that, never again. OK? I don't know if we'll be good enough, but within my power, personally, and I think there are a lot of folks who feel this way out here, we're never going to let this happen again. It's too important what we're doing.

"The sad fact of life is, this is a very hazardous operation," he said. "And I think as a country, people thought ... it's no big deal, sending people into space. It is a HUGE deal and it is extremely risky and it always will be, until they invent some new way to get there. When Han Solo takes off, it doesn't look like a big deal. But you know, that's science fiction and we are a long way from that and it's going to be a risky business now for a long time to get the first hundred miles off the planet."

The U.S. Navy, acting on orders from the Bush administration, is finalizing plans to fire a modified tactical missile at a falling 2.5-ton spy satellite in an unprecedented attempt to break up the dead spacecraft and disperse its load of toxic hydrazine rocket fuel before it can re-enter on its own and possibly pose a threat to the public. The attempt is expected before the end of the month, but after the shuttle Atlantis returns to Earth next Wednesday.

The satellite in question, a classified spacecraft now known as USA 193, was launched in December 2006 from Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif., by a Delta 2 rocket. The spacecraft failed shortly after reaching an orbit measuring 217 by 227 statute miles tilted 58 degrees to the equator (see Heavens Above for tracking maps: http://www.heavens-above.com/).

Out of contact and out of control, the National Reconnaissance Office satellite (also known as NROL-21) will re-enter the atmosphere with virtually a full load of now-frozen hydrazine rocket fuel inside a spherical tank. While the odds are the tank will survive re-entry heating and make it to the surface, the probability of impact in a populated area is considered remote.

But if the tank did, in fact, defy the odds, "we're talking an area, say, roughly the size of two football fields that the hydrazine could be dispersed over and you would at least incur something that would make you go to the doctor," said Marine Gen. James Cartwright, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. "If you stayed inside that zone, if you got very close to it and stayed, you could get to exposures that would be deadly. So that's a sense of what we're dealing with here."

Ted Molczan, an experienced, widely respected amateur satellite observer, told CBS News today the last verifiable sighting of the spacecraft was on Feb. 11. Based on tracking data at that time, he predicted re-entry on March 18, plus or minus one week, if nothing was done to hasten the event. And that projection includes assumptions about atmospheric behavior that could change closer to re-entry.

Concerned about the potential health threat, the Bush administration approved a plan to fire a standard tactical missile from an Aegis cruiser in an attempt to hit the falling satellite around the end of February. By attempting an intercept at a relatively low altitude - about 160 statute miles - half the resulting debris could be expected to burn up within hours with the rest following suit within a few weeks.

"What to me was compelling as we reviewed the data was that if we fire at the satellite, the worst case is we miss and then we have a known situation which is where we are today," Cartwright said. "If we graze the satellite, we're still better off because likely we'll still bring it down sooner and therefore more predictably. If we hit the hydrazine tank, then we've improved our potential to mitigate that threat. So the regret factor of not acting clearly outweighed the regret factors of acting."

NASA Administrator Mike Griffin said debris from a successful intercept would not pose a significant threat to the international space station, which flies at an altitude of about 210 statute miles and is permanently staffed by rotating three-person crews. The planned intercept will not be attempted until the shuttle Atlantis returns to Earth next Wednesday.

"We have a shuttle on orbit and a space station on orbit permanently with a permanent crew," he said. "So we looked very carefully at increased risk to shuttle and station and, broadly speaking, they are negligible. They are at least a factor of 10 smaller than the risks we take just being in space anyway in the shuttle. On the space station, of course, it's a different issue. The space station is much more robust than the shuttle. But even there, the risk posture does not increase significantly. And so we are very comfortable that this is a decision made carefully and objectively and safely."

He did not mention what a low-altitude cloud of debris might mean for the planned launch of the shuttle Endeavour March 11 on the next space station assembly mission.

The Chinese government was subjected to widespread international criticism when it destroyed a defunct weather satellite in January 2007 in a dramatic test of anti-satellite technology. The Feng Yun 1C was at an altitude of some 530 miles when it was destroyed, creating some 2,400 pieces of trackable debris, Molczan said.

Asked how U.S. plans to destroy the falling NRO satellite are different from what China did,Ę Cartwright said the United States is notifying other nations in advance and "this is right at the surface of the atmosphere. Other intercepts that have occurred have occurred substantially higher than the space station, for example, and that means the debris is up there for 20 to 40 years and has to migrate down through both manned space platforms and unmanned space platforms. That will not be the case here."

Griffin agreed, saying "the Chinese ASAT test was conducted against a satellite in a circular orbit at around 850 kilometers of altitude. ... All of the debris from this encounter, as carefully designed as it is, will be down at most within weeks, and most will be down in the first couple of orbits afterward. There's an enormous difference."

Backing up that position, Molczan said only 1 percent - about 25 pieces of debris out of a population of more than 2,400 - have re-entered in the wake of the Chinese anti-satellite test. The rest is still in orbit.

He said the additional risk of debris that might get knocked out of USA 193's orbit into a more elliptical path with a high point, or apogee, above the space station's orbit is relatively small and that any pieces that did get knocked into such orbits would decay and re-enter within a few weeks.

"You're talking about intercepting this at 139 nautical miles, or 240 kilometers," he said. "Obviously, at that point the thing would be within three weeks of (a natural) decay if we're talking the end of February. That means at worse case, you engage this thing and most pieces are going to come down in the original timeframe."

While not disputing U.S. government projections of debris behavior, Molczan said "I just have a hard time being worried about a 40-inch sphere of hydrazine. I normally try not to get political in this stuff, but the thought that crossed my mind was ... is this in some measure a PR exercise to boost the concept of missile defense?"

Others have wondered if the Pentagon wants to ensure that no classified systems make it to the ground where they could possibly be recovered and subjected to analysis.

But Cartwright said the only concern was the threat posed by the satellite's load of hydrazine fuel.

"It's the hydrazine here that's the distinguishing characteristic," he said. "I read the blogs, there's some question about the classified side of this. That is really not an issue. Once you go through the atmosphere and the heating and the burning, that would not be an issue in this case. That would not justify using a missile to take it and break it up further."

Griffin said enough uncertainty exists with frozen hydrazine to warrant the extraordinary intervention.

"Solid as it is now, not all of it will melt, OK?" he said. "So you will land on the ground with a tank full of slush hydrazine that would then later evaporate. The tank will have been breached. Not probably, the tank will have been breached because the fuel lines will have been ripped out of the main spacecraft and so that hydrazine will vent.

"It's hard to find areas that have any significant population to them where you could put a toxic substance down across a couple of football fields and not have somebody at risk. And so, we didn't want to create a situation like that. So in brief, the tank will survive, it will be breached, the hydrazine will reach the ground. And that's not an outcome we want to see."

An unmanned Russian Progress supply ship, launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Tuesday, successfully docked with the international space station today at 9:30:13 a.m. EST. Launch originally was planned for today, but the flight was moved up two days to accommodate NASA's plans to launch the shuttle Atlantis on a delayed mission to deliver the European Columbus research module.

Space station commander Peggy Whitson and flight engineer Dan Tani began repressurizing the Quest airlock module at 12:06 p.m. to officially end a seven-hour 10-minute spacewalk. The astronauts successfully installed a replacement solar array positioning motor and carried out additional inspections to help engineers troubleshoot problems with a large rotary joint.

"Thanks for making it look so easy," astronaut Tom Marshburn radioed. "Thanks for the good work."

Whitson has now logged 39 hours and 46 minutes of spacewalk time during six spacewalks while Tani's six-EVA total stands at 39 hours and 11 minutes. Whitson ranks 15th on the list of most experienced spacewalkers while Tani is 16th. Total space station EVA time now stands at 631 hours and 35 minutes through 101 spacewalks since assembly began in 1998.

NASA managers, meanwhile, are holding a final flight readiness review to assess plans to make another attempt to launch the shuttle Atlantis next week on a long-awaited space station assembly mission. The goal of the flight, delayed in December because of fuel sensor problems, is to attach the European Space Agency's Columbus module. NASA hopes to follow that flight with back-to-back missions to install two Japanese modules.

Today's successful replacement of the solar array positioning motor means the station should be able to generate enough power to support the new modules. The CBS News STS-122 page will be updated following today's flight readiness review.

In a somewhat riskier than usual procedure, two spacewalking astronauts installed a replacement solar array positioning motor today aboard the international space station. Subsequent tests confirmed its ability to move the panel as required to maximize power production, clearing the way for attachment of European and Japanese research modules.

"Good news from the electrical systems officer here in mission control," NASA commentator Rob Navias reported. "A good rotation of 3 degrees of the beta gimbal assembly for the S4-1A array driven by the new motor, the new bearing motor roll ring module, that was installed a few hours ago by Peggy Whitson and Dan Tani."

The new motor was installed during a 35-minute pass through Earth's shadow that began just before 7 a.m. The old motor was removed, the new motor installed and four of five power and data cables reconnected before the station moved back into sunlight.

Waiting for the next night pass to avoid any risk of electric shock from the huge array, the astronauts reconnected the final, primary power cable, allowing electricity to flow through the new bearing motor roll ring module, or BMRRM (pronounced "broom").

"Word now received in mission control that the J1 connector is routing good power through the new BMRRM," Navias said at 9:06 a.m.

"Yee ha! Excellent," Whitson exclaimed.

"How long 'til we know if the BMRRM works?" Tani asked. "Or if the problem was cleared, I guess."

"And Dan, once (you are) clear of the worksite we'll be able o move it and know if the problem is solved," said astronaut Tom Marshburn in mission control.

"Great."

Just after 10:15 a.m., flight controllers sent commands to the motor to rotate its arrays 3 degrees. The motor worked as expected, indicating today's repair work was successful.

"The BGA, or beta gimbal assembly, that rotates to pivot the solar arrays to face the sun rotated 3 degrees," Navias reported. "They're in the process of conducting a latching test right now. That will be followed by the unlatching of the beta gimbal assembly once again and then a full 360-degree rotation. But so far so good, the BMRRM operating as advertised."

Just before 11 a.m.,. commands were sent to start the full rotation. Downlink television from the space station showed the huge solar array slowly turning as Whitson and Tani floated in the foreground.

"Peggy and Dan, just so you know, from our data down here that motion is good," Marshburn radioed. "The currents and rates are good. Also, the three (circuit breaker) switches that popped open a couple of months ago are now closed and staying closed, primary, backup and controls. So we're looking good so far."

"Excellent," the spacewalkers said in unison.

"Awesome work, you guys," Marshburn said.

The starboard side of the station's power truss is made up of a solar alpha rotary joint, or SARJ, and two solar panels making up the starboard 4 - S4 - power module. One wing of the array is known as S4-1A and the other, extending in the opposite direction, is known as S4-3A. The two panels stretch some 240 feet from tip to tip. A second set of arrays, known as S6, will be attached to the starboard power truss next fall.

To maximize power generation, the arrays must be constantly repositioned to keep them face on to the sun as the station orbits the Earth. The starboard SARJ, which features a 10-foot-wide motor-driven gear supported by 12 so-called trundle bearings, is designed to turn the outboard arrays like a giant paddle wheel, completing one 360-degree rotation per 90-minute orbit.

But the sun's position relative to the space station's orbital path changes from day to day and simply rotating the arrays end over end is not enough to maximize power production. To permit the panels to be aimed to either side of the station's long axis while the SARJ rotates them as required, each array wing is equipped with a beta gimbal joint. The beta gimbal assembly pivots the blankets from side to side about their long axis in a motion similar to changing the pitch of an airplane propeller.

The port-side of the station's power truss is finished and now features four solar array wings. The BGAs on those four wings are working normally, as is the port-side SARJ.

But only one set of arrays is in place on the right side of the truss and one of them - panel S4-1A - suffered a BGA failure Dec. 8. Engineers initially believed a cable or some other component might have been hit by space debris or a micrometeoroid. But during a spacewalk inspection by Whitson and Tani on Dec. 18, no such damage was found. Subsequent tests showed the problem involved a fault inside the BGA motor assembly itself, the BMRRM.

The loss of a single BGA would not normally be a critical issue. But NASA is on the verge of launching European and Japanese research modules and the station needs all of the power it can generate.

What made the BGA problem serious in the near term was that earlier this fall, engineers noticed high vibration levels in the starboard SARJ. Impromptu spacewalk inspections revealed unexpected damage to the surface of one bearing race surface and large amounts of metallic shavings, presumably the result of some sort of friction or grinding in the mechanism that eroded the outer layer of the bearing race in question.

Engineers still do not understand the root cause of the race ring damage. The current plan is to possibly lubricate the damaged race in the near term and then, during a shuttle visit later this fall, move the 12 bearing assemblies and two drive motors to a redundant inboard gear. But engineers do not want to consider such a drastic step until they figure out what is causing the problem with the active gear and race ring.

With the BMRRM replacement behind them, Whitson and Tani moved to the starboard SARJ and removed thermal covers to continue the ongoing troubleshooting. They reported seeing the same sort of damage noted earlier and used adhesive tape to collect additional samples of the metallic debris coating one surface of the race ring.

As the spacewalk moved through the six-hour mark, the astronauts agreed to extend the excursion to remove another cover from the SARJ before heading back to the space station's airlock.

Working smoothly through a 35-minute pass through Earth's shadow, station commander Peggy Whitson and Dan Tani removed a faulty solar array positioning motor today and replaced it with a spare unit. If the replacement motor works as expected, the array can be moved from side to side like the station's other solar panels to maximize electrical output, clearing the way for launch of the European Space Agency's Columbus module aboard the shuttle Atlantis on Feb. 7.

The original motor, known as the bearing motor roll ring module, or BRRM - pronounced "broom" - failed Dec. 8 amid iniitial attempts to launch Atlantis. The shuttle flight was derailed by problems with fuel tank hydrogen sensors and station managers ultimately decided to stage today's spacewalk ahead of the next shuttle launch attempt to boost the lab's power output.

The work was carried out during orbital darkness to minimize the threat of any potentially dangerous electrical shocks. The array attached to the motor generates a regulated 160 volts of electricity at more than 210 amps when in full sunlight. Four of five cables were connected to the new BMRRM before the astronauts had to back way as the station passed back into sunlight. The final connection will be made during the next eclipse period beginning around 8:25 a.m.

After all the cables are plugged in, flight controllers will verify the health of the new motor while Whitson and Tani turn their attention to additional inspections of the station's right-side solar alpha rotary joint, or SARJ.

The starboard SARJ is designed to rotate the outboard arrays like a giant paddle wheel to keep them face on to the sun. Last fall, engineers stopped the right-side SARJ because of concern about higher-than-expected vibration levels. Subsequent inspections revealed metallic contamination and damage to the bearing race ring at the heart of the gear-driven joint. Engineers have not yet determined what is causing the damage or what might be needed to fix it. Today's inspection is intended to collect additional data.

Given the ongoing SARJ trouble, replacing the faulty BMRRM, an unrelated problem, was critical for generating the power needed to support the addition of the European and Japanese research modules.

Working in orbital darkness to minimize the risk of electric shock, astronauts Peggy Whitson and Dan Tani began disconnecting a faulty solar array positioning motor today so it can be removed and replaced by a spare unit. The motor is needed to boost the station's electrical generation enough to support the planned launches of European and Japanese research modules in February, March and April.

The first of five cables plugged into the bearing motor roll ring module, or BMRRM - pronounced "broom" - was disconnected a few minutes before 7 a.m. just after the station sailed into Earth's shadow. The solar array connected to the BMRRM produces some 160 volts of electricity when in full sunlight at up to 210 amps. Working in shadow, the array's output no longer poses a shock hazard and the cable disconnections today went smoothly.

"No discoloration, no arcing," Tani observed as Whitson carefully pulled the faulty motor out of its housing.

Along with passing power from the array to the station, the BMRRM also provides the structural support for the solar array it turns. Whitson and Tani paid special attention to making sure two clamps were securely latched to hold the array in place during the swap out. The flight plan called for the faulty motor to be removed during the first 35-minute eclipse period and for the replacement to be installed during the following eclipse beginning around 8:25 a.m.

Flight controllers at the Johnson Space Center in Houston ran into a communications problem today that briefly prevented them from talking directly to spacewalkers Peggy Whitson and Dan Tani. Relaying instructions through station flight engineer Yuri Malenchenko, flight controllers told the astronauts to continue preparations for replacing a faulty solar array positioning motor, but said the actual swap-out would not proceed unless normal communications were restored. A few minutes later, after switching to a backup communications channel, controllers re-established normal two-way voice traffic with Whitson and Tani. Troubleshooting to figure out what was wrong with the original comm channel continues. Work to replace the faulty bearing motor roll ring module is not expected to begin until a few minutes before 7 a.m., after the station moves into Earth's shadow.

Floating in the international space station's Quest airlock module, commander Peggy Whitson and flight engineer Dan Tani switched their spacesuits to battery power at 4:56 a.m. today - 24 minutes ahead of schedule - to officially kick off a planned six-and-a-half-hour spacewalk. The primary goal of the excursion is to replace a faulty solar array positioning motor to improve electrical generation and clear the way for attachment of European and Japanese research modules.

This is the 101st spacewalk devoted to space station assembly and maintenance since construction began in 1998. For identification, Whitson, call sign EV-1, is wearing a spacesuit with solid red stripes around the legs while Tani's suit (EV-2) features broken stripes.

Today's spacewalk is a bit riskier than usual for two reasons: A mistake managing the latches that hold the motor and its housing in place could result in the solar panel's inadvertent release; and because of the shock hazard associated with unplugging and replugging power cables that route 160-volt electricity from the array into the station. To eliminate any chance of a potentially fatal shock, the work will take place when the station is in Earth's shadow and the arrays are not generating any significant power.

"The choreography for the EVA will be very complex, both on orbit and with the ground," Tani said. "Because we're dealing with a solar array that produces kilowatts of power, we have to be very conscientious of when we're going to be opening connections that will expose us to that power. So the bulk of the activities will have to be performed at night when the solar array is not producing any power, or much power, at all."

The bearing motor roll ring module, or BMRRM (pronounced "broom"), is roughly the size of a beer keg and weighs more than 200 pounds. Replacing it is complicated, Whitson said, "because it's really the guts of what's holding the solar array in place. And so Dan and I will have to coordinate when we release and grapple onto the (motor housing) canister in order not to lose the solar array. That would lose us a whole lot of style points!"

Here is a timeline of events, including when live television from the station is possible (in EST; times approximate; NOTE: the first minute of each eclipse period, and the last two minutes, are not usable because of residual power generation):

04:56 AM...Spacewalk begins
05:12 AM...ISS TV downlink window opens
05:49 AM...ISS TV downlink window closes
06:10 AM...ISS TV downlink window opens
06:22 AM...ISS TV downlink window closes
06:47 AM...ISS TV downlink window opens
06:52 AM...ISS enters eclipse
07:00 AM...Failed BMRRM removal begins in eclipse
07:27 AM...ISS enters sunlight
07:35 AM...ISS TV downlink window closes
08:24 AM...ISS TV downlink window opens
08:25 AM...ISS enters eclipse
08:30 AM...New BMRRM installation begins in eclipse
09:00 AM...ISS enters sunlight
09:10 AM...ISS TV downlink window closes
09:55 AM...ISS enters eclipse
10:00 AM...ISS TV downlink window opens
10:05 AM...Solar alpha rotary joint inspection begins
10:30 AM...ISS enters sunlight
11:20 AM...ISS TV downlink window closes
11:26 AM...Spacewalk ends (time approximate)
11:30 AM...ISS enters eclipse
11:35 AM...ISS TV downlink window opens
12:05 PM...ISS enters sunlight
12:59 PM...ISS TV downlink window closes

See the 1/29/08 CBS News space update for a detailed overview of today's spacewalk.

Space station commander Peggy Whitson and flight engineer Dan Tani are preparing for a critical, riskier-than-usual spacewalk Wednesday to replace a faulty solar array motor assembly on the right side of the lab's power truss. The motor, which malfunctioned Dec. 8, is needed to pivot a solar blanket from side to side to improve power generation. A different problem in a massive rotary joint used to turn the right-side solar panels like a giant paddle wheel will take longer to resolve. But a successful motor swap-out Wednesday should permit the station to generate the electricity needed to permit attachment of new European and Japanese research modules in February, March and April.

The spacewalk is a bit riskier than most for two reasons: A mistake managing the latches that hold the motor and its housing in place could result in the solar panel's inadvertent release; and because of the shock hazard associated with unplugging and replugging power cables that route 160-volt electricity from the array into the station. To eliminate any chance of a potentially fatal shock, the work will take place when the station is in Earth's shadow and the arrays are not generating any significant power.

"The choreography for the EVA will be very complex, both on orbit and with the ground," Tani said. "Because we're dealing with a solar array that produces kilowatts of power, we have to be very conscientious of when we're going to be opening connections that will expose us to that power. So the bulk of the activities will have to be performed at night when the solar array is not producing any power, or much power, at all."

The bearing motor roll ring module, or BMRRM (pronounced "broom"), is roughly the size of a garbage can and weighs more than 200 pounds. Replacing it is complicated, Whitson said, "because it's really the guts of what's holding the solar array in place. And so Dan and I will have to coordinate when we release and grapple onto the (motor housing) canister in order not to lose the solar array. That would lose us a whole lot of style points!"

The planned six-and-a-half-hour spacewalk, the 101st devoted to station assembly and maintenance since construction began in 1998 and the first so far this year, is scheduled to begin around 5:20 a.m. Whitson and Tani will exit the Quest airlock module and make their way to the far end of the right-side, or starboard, solar array truss segment. They will await the start of an eclipse period before beginning the repair work.

Here is a timeline of events, including when live television from the station is possible (in EST):

02:00 AM...Crew wakeup 
03:55 AM...Oxygen pre-breathe procedure 
04:00 AM...NASA TV coverage begins
04:09 AM...ISS TV downlink window opens
04:45 AM...ISS TV downlink window closes
05:12 AM...ISS TV downlink window opens
05:20 AM...Spacewalk begins
05:49 AM...ISS TV downlink window closes
06:10 AM...ISS TV downlink window opens
06:22 AM...ISS TV downlink window closes
06:47 AM...ISS TV downlink window opens
07:00 AM...Failed BMRRM removal begins in eclipse
07:35 AM...ISS TV downlink window closes
08:24 AM...ISS TV downlink window opens
08:30 AM...New BMRRM installation begins in eclipse
09:10 AM...ISS TV downlink window closes
10:00 AM...ISS TV downlink window opens
10:05 AM...Solar alpha rotary joint inspection begins
11:20 AM...ISS TV downlink window closes
11:35 AM...ISS TV downlink window opens
11:50 AM...Spacewalk ends 
12:59 PM...ISS TV downlink window closes

"We think the actual remove and replace will take around two-and-a-half hours," said Kieth Johnson, NASA's lead spacewalk planner. "The way we have this planned out, we need to do the critical tasks in an eclipse. So the crew members are going to come out of the airlock and they'll have about 90 minutes to run through all the set up procedures to get them into position. As part of that, they're going to review all the steps that they need to do during the eclipse and they'll go through and make sure all the tethering and everything is routed. We hope to have about 10 minutes of wait time until the eclipse comes up before they jump into the actual tasks of disconnecting the connectors and driving the bolts to remove the failed broom.

"We have about a 35-minute eclipse period," he said. "And we've been told from the engineering community that about the first minute and the last two minutes of that eclipse are unusable because we're waiting for the power to ramp down at the beginning and then to ramp back up again at the end. So roughly 32-and-a-half, 33 minutes of that time is useful to get the steps complete.

"We've discussed some back-out plans if we get to the end of the eclipse and we haven't gotten the new broom installed or are having problems, we can remove that broom, set it off to the side, we'll pull a cover over the beta gimbal assembly housing and the crew will have to wait until the next eclipse to start back in and finish the tasks," Johnson said. "What we're hoping to do is get the new broom installed, the center bolt latched and the vice clamp in place. If we have enough time, we're going to go through the rest of the connectors and get it all hooked up."

Astronauts Tom Marshburn and Sunita Williams practiced the repair procedure last week in a huge water tank near the Johnson Space Center.

"They'll want to be very meticulous, making sure they're making the right connections at the right time," Marshburn told reporters. "A little bit of a timeline crunch when they're performing some of the activities during the eclipse. On our run when we actually went through the timeline step by step last Friday at the Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory underwater in the suits, we found it's very doable to get all this done within the time constraints."

The starboard side of the station's power truss is made up of a solar alpha rotary joint, or SARJ, and two solar panels making up the starboard 4 - S4 - power module. One wing of the array is known as S4-1A and the other, extending in the opposite direction, is known as S4-3A. The two panels stretch some 240 feet from tip to tip. A second set of arrays, known as S6, will be attached to the starboard power truss next fall.

To maximize power generation, the arrays must be constantly repositioned to keep them face on to the sun as the station orbits the Earth. The starboard SARJ, which features a 10-foot-wide motor-driven gear supported by 12 so-called trundle bearings, is designed to turn the outboard arrays like a giant paddle wheel, completing one 360-degree rotation per 90-minute orbit.

But the sun's position relative to the space station's orbital path changes from day to day and simply rotating the arrays end over end is not enough to maximize power production. To permit the panels to be aimed to either side of the station's orbital path while the SARJ rotates them as required, each array wing is equipped with a beta gimbal joint. The beta gimbal assembly pivots the blankets from side to side about their long axis in a motion similar to changing the pitch of an airplane propeller.

The port-side of the station's power truss is finished and now features four solar array wings. The BGAs on those four wings are working normally, as is the port-side SARJ.

But only one set of arrays is in place on the right side of the truss and one of them - panel S4-1A - suffered a BGA failure Dec. 8. Engineers initially believed a cable or some other component might have been hit by space debris or a micrometeoroid. But during a spacewalk inspection by Whitson and Tani on Dec. 18, no such damage was found. Subsequent tests showed the problem involved a fault inside the BGA motor assembly itself, the BMRRM or broom.

"This kind of a garbage-can sized device not only transmits all of the power from the solar array to the truss structure where it's accumulated and given to the station, but also provides the mechanical connection," Tani said. "So to simply replace this item, we need to use latches that are already in place and make sure those are tied down so that the solar array doesn't go floating away. That's probably the biggest danger to this EVA."

The loss of a single BGA would not normally be a critical issue. But NASA is on the verge of launching European and Japanese research modules and the station needs all of the power it can generate.

What makes the BGA problem serious in the near term is that earlier this fall, engineers noticed high vibration levels in the starboard SARJ. Impromptu spacewalk inspections revealed unexpected damage to the surface of one bearing race surface and large amounts of metallic shavings, presumably the result of some sort of friction or grinding in the mechanism that eroded the outer layer of the bearing race in question.

Engineers still do not understand the root cause of the race ring damage. The current plan is to possibly lubricate the damaged race in the near term and then, during a shuttle visit later this fall, move the 12 bearing assemblies and two drive motors to a redundant inboard gear. But engineers do not want to consider such a drastic step until they figure out what is causing the problem with the active gear and race ring.

If time is available after Wednesday's BMRRM changeout, Whitson and Tani will move back to the starboard SARJ for additional inspections.

The goal is to collect additional data "to help the ground troubleshoot the problems the SARJ is experiencing," Tani said. "The ground just completed a good visual inspection of that SARJ using the camera on the station's robotic arm. Any data we will get looking under some covers we were not able to access during the last EVA (in December) will provide just additional data to help them figure out what's going on and come up with the best plan to get that SARJ back in action."

NASA's innovative Messenger spacecraft is closing in on Mercury for a high-speed, low-altitude flyby Monday to give eager scientists their first close-up glimpse of the half-frozen, half-baked planet in more than three decades. The flyby is the first of three close encounters planned over the next two years that will use Mercury's gravity to slow the craft enough to slip into orbit around the innermost planet in 2011.

"It's really an awesome mission," said Marilyn Lindstrom, Messenger program scientist at NASA Headquarters. "It's goal is to understand the surface, the interior, the magnetosphere and the atmosphere of this innermost planet. But in the process of doing that, we hope to be able to apply that to understanding how all four of the terrestrial planets, the four Earth-like planets, formed.

"To understand the excitement of the scientists, you have to think of this as the first superbowl in 30 years. We've been waiting to go back to Mercury for that long and people are just that jazzed up. ... Our spacecraft is lined up and ready to go. The team's been working on this a long time, the team is ready and really pumped. And Mercury, here comes Messenger!"

Messenger web page:
http://messenger.jhuapl.edu/

Flyby sequence:
http://messenger.jhuapl.edu/mer_flyby1.html

Halfway through its 4.9-billion-mile, 6.5-year journey, Messenger is on a precise trajectory that will carry it within 126 miles of Mercury's tortured surface at 2:04 p.m. EST Monday. Streaking past the planet at more than 16,000 mph, Messenger's suite of instruments will collect some 700 gigabytes of data, including more than 1,300 photographs.

Based on the latest tracking data, "the spacecraft will fly by the planet within (2.5 miles) of the target altitude - bull's eye!" Eric Finnegan, Messenger systems engineer with the Applied Physics Laboratory at Johns Hopkins University, said Saturday in a NASA statement.

"Operations has confirmed that the core Mercury command load sequence was on-board the spacecraft Thursday night, and all subsystems and instruments are operating nominally," he said. "On Friday night, the Gamma-Ray Spectrometer turned on its cooler in preparation for the flyby and the Mercury Laser Altimeter was powered up this morning. The spacecraft is now fully configured for the encounter. All systems are 'go' for flyby."

Designed and built by the Applied Physics Laboratory, the solar-powered Messenger was launched from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station atop a Delta 2 rocket on Aug. 3, 2004. If all goes well, the spacecraft will brake into orbit around Mercury on March 18, 2011, for a full year of scientific observations.

Messenger measures 4.7 feet tall, 6.1 feet wide and 4.2 feet deep. Its two side-mounted solar panels extend 20 feet tip to tip. The spacecraft is equipped with seven miniaturized scientific instruments, a computer system, maneuvering thrusters, a main engine, communications equipment and a large sunshade, all crammed into a half-ton dry-weight package.

Only one other spacecraft - NASA's Mariner 10 - has ever visited Mercury, flying past the heavily cratered world three times in 1974 and 1975. But Mariner 10 was strictly a flyby mission, photographing just one side of the planet while collecting valuable but limited scientific data.

Messenger will photograph Mercury's other side Monday and "we're extremely excited about that," said Faith Vilas, a Messenger scientist with the MMT Observatory at Mt. Hopkins, Ariz. "Probably the first thing most of us want to see is what the other 55 percent of Mercury's surface looks like. ... Are we going to see large volcanic structures or are we going to see volcanism that's extrusive, sort of like the moon? What surface processes have changed the planet? ... We're expecting some pretty major surprises out of this."

The solar system was born some 4.5 billion years ago when a vast cloud of rotating gas and dusty debris reached a critical density and collapsed under its own gravity to form a flattened disk. At its heart, pressures and temperatures eventually became extreme enough to ignite fusion reactions and the sun flashed to life.

Material in the outer disk, through complex, little-understood chemical and physical processes, ultimately formed the planets, asteroids and comets known today. Four dense terrestrial worlds - Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars - formed close in to the sun while four gas giants - Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune - formed much farther out. Remote Pluto is part of a vast cloud of icy debris that makes up what is known as the Kuiper belt.

With a diameter of 3,031 miles, Mercury is only slightly larger than Earth's moon and smaller than Saturn's moon, Titan. It is the densest planet in the solar system and circles the sun in a highly elliptical orbit with a high point of 43 million miles and a low point of 29 million miles. Earth orbits the sun at an average distance of 92 million miles.

The aptly named Mercury is the fastest planet in the solar system, completing an orbit around the sun every 88 Earth days and moving at an average speed of 108,000 mph. It rotates on its axis every 59 days but because of its high orbital speed and slow rotation, a solar day - sunrise to sunrise at the same point on the surface - lasts 176 Earth days.

"At certain latitudes, an observer on the surface could watch the sun rise, move directly overhead and stop, then retrograde back a bit," according to a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration web site. "After retrograding, the sun would then proceed back on its westward track.ĘIn addition, since Mercury has virtually no atmosphere to scatter light, the sky would be black, even though the sun disk itself would be over twice as large as what we observe from the Earth."

On the planet's sunlit side, temperatures can exceed 750 degrees Fahrenheit while the night side can reach 350 degrees below zero, a swing of some 1,100 degrees. And at the poles, radar data indicate possible deposits of water ice in permanently shaded craters. It is the only terrestrial planet other than Earth with a global magnetic field and it features a huge, oversized iron core.

"Mercury is, of course, one of the family of inner planets that includes our Earth," Sean Solomon, Messenger principal investigator, said last week. "But Mercury, as a family member, is a real oddball. It is so dense that more than two thirds of the planet have to be iron metal residing in a central core, a much higher fraction than any other planet."

It is possible that metals naturally concentrated close to the sun before the planets coalesced. Another theory holds that after Mercury formed, a sudden increase in the sun's energy output boiled off the planet's rocky outer layers. Yet another theory holds that a body one sixth the size of the original planet crashed into Mercury near the dawn of the solar system and blew off its outer crust.

Data collected by Messenger may resolve the question once and for all.

"Mariner 10 showed us a surface that was so heavily cratered that it looked like geological activity on Mercury ended very early in the history of the solar system," Solomon said. "And yet, Mercury is the only other inner planet which, like Earth, has a magnetic field, which we believe means it must have a very dynamic, molten iron core.

"How to reconcile this ancient surface with this modern-day internal dynamic activity is one of the mysteries we hope to solve. All the inner planets formed about the same time by common processes, and yet Mercury ended up with this extreme outcome and we really need better information to make sure that our ideas for how the Earth and sister planets formed can be generalized to account for all the outcomes that we see."

Solomon said Messenger would give scientists their first data on the "elemental composition of Mercury's surface, we're going to make the first spacecraft measurements of surface reflectivity of visible light, ultraviolet light, near infrared light, to give us important clues to the mineral make up of Mercury's surface materials.

"We're going to make the first detailed view of the hemisphere of Mercury that Mariner 10 missed," he said. "Mariner 10 only saw 45 percent of the planet, more than half the planet has never been seen. That will change on Monday. Messenger is going to make the first laser altimetric measurements of the shape and topography of Mercury and it's going to improve our understanding of the gravity field (for the first time) since Mariner 10. That information will, in turn, tell us about the internal structure of Mercury and in particular, the nature of its huge core."

While the scientific observations are important, the primary goal of the flyby is to use Mercury's gravity to change the spacecraft's trajectory. The net effect will be to reduce Messenger's velocity by about 5,000 mph and shorten its orbital period around the syn by 11 days.

At a news briefing last week, Finnegan said the flyby will set up a sort of race between Messenger and Mercury.

"Using its internal engine and future gravity assists, the spacecraft, after being lapped by Mercury many times in this race around the sun, will ultimately match the 88-day orbital period of the innermost planet," Finnegan said. "In order to facilitate this change in velocity, the spacecraft will speed over the uncharted surface of Mercury at a relative velocity of over 16,000 miles per hour and pass within (126) miles of the surface, the closest proximity any man-made object has made with this planet."

Early Sunday, Messenger began executing stored computer commands that will orchestrate the flyby observations.

"The entire instrumentation suite will be operating during the flyby, taking over 1,300 images and gathering other scientific observations, filling the on-board data recorder with over 700 gigabytes of historic measurements within the period of 55 hours," Finnegan said.

"Fifty minutes prior to closest approach, signals from the spacecraft will go quiet as Messenger passes behind Mercury, out of Earth's view. Forty minutes later, engineers and scientists on the ground will attempt to witness the gravitational pull of the planet firsthand by re-acquiring the transmitted signals from the spacecraft within minutes of the closest approach point. On Tuesday, at noon EST, 22 hours after the flyby, Messenger will take one last look at Mercury before turning back to Earth to start returning the treasure stored on board."

It will take Messenger about a week to play back the stored pictures and other data. A news conference to discuss the results of the flyby is tentatively planned for Jan. 30. If all goes well, Messenger will zoom past Mercury again in October and a third time in September 2009 before braking into orbit on March 18, 2011. The orbital phase of the mission will continue for a full Earth year.

Space station astronaut Dan Tani's 90-year-old mother, Rose, was killed today when her car was struck by a train in Lombard, Ill., a suburb of Chicago, police said.

In a statement, the Lombard Police Department said a preliminary investigation showed Rose Tani went around a school bus that was stopped at a railroad crossing, "going past the downed crossing gate at which time the westbound train struck the passenger side of the vehicle."

She was transported to Good Samaritan Hospital where she was pronounced dead. A hospital spokeswoman later said family members informed NASA and that NASA flight controllers then passed the news along to Tani aboard the space station. The spokeswoman said the agency set up a private conference call between Tani and family members. NASA had no immediate comment.

Launched to the international space station aboard the shuttle Discovery Oct. 23, Dan Tani was originally scheduled to return to Earth this week aboard the shuttle Atlantis. Liftoff originally was planned for Dec. 6, which would have resulted in a landing today. But Atlantis was grounded twice by suspect fuel sensors and the flight is now on hold until Jan. 10 at the earliest.

Tani and his two station crewmates - Expedition 16 commander Peggy Whitson and flight engineer Yuri Malenchenko - can return to Earth aboard a Russian Soyuz capsule in a life-threatening emergency, but that is not an option for the death of a friend or family member.

"This is something we consider," former astronaut Jim Voss told CBS Radio. "NASA understands there is a possibility of things like this happening while someone is on orbit. And they actually get the crew member's permission to either tell them or not tell them when something happens like this."

Most astronauts, Voss said, choose to be informed.

"It's particularly difficult to have a loss like that when you're in orbit because you're kind of helpless, you can't do anything, you can't be there to be with the family, you feel very, very isolated," Voss said. "And I think for Dan, this will be just a very, very difficult thing because of the closeness of the family member and not being able to return.

"Even in the military, when people are very isolated and far away, they make every effort possible when there's a death in the family to return the service member to be back with their family. And that probably is not a possibility in this case. You just can't do that. It's something you just have to endure."

Tani has trained with Whitson and Malenchenko for years and Voss said the closeness of the crew will be a comfort.

"And of course, NASA will offer any assistance that they can," he said. "They have flight surgeons who have worked very closely with the crew and know them extremely well and they're trained to assist in cases like this. ... It'll just be a very hard time for him for a while on orbit."

Tani's father, Henry N. Tani, is deceased, according to Dan Tani's NASA biography. Rose Tani lived in Lombard. During World War 2, Tani's parents and a brother were forced to leave their home and move to a California internment camp. They were U.S. citizens, but like 100,000 other Japanese-Americans, they had no choice.

In an interview with CBS radio station WBBM-AM before Tani's launch aboard Atlantis, Rose said she was proud of her son, adding "he was lucky to be picked as an astronaut."

Shuttle or space station astronauts likely will be asked to replace a faulty motor assembly on the right side of the lab's power truss early next year that is needed to pivot a solar blanket from side to side to improve power generation. A different problem in a massive rotary joint used to turn the right-side solar panels like a giant paddle wheel will take longer to resolve. But an exhaustive spacewalk inspection today gave engineers hope that near-term modifications may allow the joint to be operated until a permanent fix can be implemented.

"Even though we're keeping all of our options open, our thrust today is to try to see if we can put ourselves in a posture to operate with this particular race for a while so we get more time to sort through root cause," said Mike Suffredini, space station program manager at the Johnson Space Center in Houston. "The obvious problem has not come forward to us yet."

The issue is confusing because engineers are faced with two problems involving separate systems on the right side of the space station's main power truss.

The starboard side of the truss is made up of a solar alpha rotary joint, or SARJ, and two solar panels making up the starboard 4 - S4 - power module. One wing of the array is known as S4-1A and the other, extending in the opposite direction, is known as S4-3A. The two panels stretch some 240 feet from tip to tip. A second set of arrays, known as S6, will be attached to the starboard power truss next fall.

To maximize power generation, the arrays must be constantly repositioned to keep them face on to the sun as the station orbits the Earth. The starboard SARJ, which features a 10-foot-wide motor-driven gear supported by 12 so-called trundle bearings, turns the outboard arrays like a giant paddle wheel, completing one 360-degree rotation per 90-minute orbit.

But the sun's position relative to the space station's orbital path changes from day to day and simply rotating the arrays end over end is not enough to maximize power production. To permit the panels to be aimed to either side of the station's orbital path while the SARJ rotates them as required, each array wing is equipped with a beta gimbal joint. The beta gimbal assembly pivots the blankets from side to side about their long axis in a motion similar to changing the pitch of an airplane propeller.

The port-side of the station's power truss is finished and now features four solar array wings. The BGAs on those four wings are working normally, as is the port-side SARJ.

But only one set of arrays is in place on the right side of the truss and one of them - panel S4-1A - suffered a BGA failure Dec. 8. Engineers initially believed a cable or some other component might have been hit by space debris or a micrometeoroid. But during an inspection today, no such damage was found and subsequent tests showed the problem involved a fault inside the BGA motor assembly itself.

The loss of a single BGA would not normally be a critical issue. But NASA is on the verge of launching European and Japanese research modules and the station needs all of the power it can generate.

What makes the BGA problem serious in the near term is that earlier this fall, engineers noticed high vibration levels in the starboard SARJ. Impromptu spacewalk inspections revealed unexpected damage to the surface of one bearing race surface and large amounts of metallic shavings, presumably the result of some sort of friction or grinding in the mechanism that eroded the outer layer of the bearing race in question. Today's inspection was ordered to examine the entire circumference of the race ring, the two drive motors and all 12 trundle bearings.

Data from sensors mounted around the joint indicated the highest vibrations were associated with trundle bearing No. 5, one of two bearing assemblies on either side of drive motor No. 2. Space station commander Peggy Whitso