New gear helped the astronauts on the International Space Station kick off a new year as they prepared a second oxygen-generating system, upgraded soundproofing in the living quarters and unpacked supplies delivered just before Christmas by the space shuttle. Additional Details: here....

India's Space Recovery Experiment-1 India's SRE-1 first lowered to its orbit to 485 km x 643 km on January 20. A 10-minute deorbit burn began at 03:30 GMT on January 22, with re-entry beginning at 04:07 and a successful splashdown at 04:16 GMT in the Bay of Bengal near 13.3 N / 81.4E. The capsule was successfully recovered by the Indian Navy. The capsule returned two microgravity payloads as well as proving basic technologies for any eventual Indian manned space program. It was also announced that the capsule could be used to orbit further microgravity payloads at low cost to customers.

The satellite was the twelfth in the Indian Remote Sensing satellite series and was capable of providing scene-specific spot imagery. The panchromatic camera provided imagery with a spatial resolution of better than one metre and a swath of 9.6 km. Data from the satellite was to be used for detailed mapping.

The FY-1C satellite, launched on 10 May 1999, was presumably well past the end of its operational life. It was destroyed in a test of a Chinese ASAT weapon at an altitude of 850 km, 4 degrees west of Xichang. Launch vehicle was unknown, but a version of the DF-21 IRBM would be sufficient to reach that altitude. Reportedly the flight had been preceded by one to three earlier tests that were either failures or just aimed at a point in space. The program was apparently very secret, and the Chinese foreign ministry was caught by surprise by the test and the storm of international condemnation that followed. The FY-1C was blown into over 200 pieces of debris, adding immediately by 10% to the population of space junk that threatens lower-altitude satellites.

After a three-day holiday to celebrate the Russian Orthodox Christmas, astronauts on the International Space Station spent the week packing trash into the ISS Progress 22 cargo craft and unpacking items delivered by ISS Progress 23 as they prepared for the arrival of new supplies. Additional Details: here....

The platform was designed to survive such an explosion, but the flame deflector was blown off and the blast doors unhinged. The launch platform was towed back to Long Beach for repairs. The time required to repair the platform and the investigation to determine and fix the cause would certainly impact the 2007 Zenit-3SL and Zenit-2 launch schedules, probably forcing customers to be diverted to other boosters. NSS-8 was to have been placed at a 57º East orbital position to satisfy demand in the Indian Ocean region with 56 C-band and 36 Ku-band transponders. NSS-703, with an expected end-of-life in 2009, would have to continue in service until a replacement was built and launched.

Two residents of the International Space Station stepped outside their orbital home Wednesday for a 7-hour, 55-minute spacewalk to begin the connection of recently activated cooling systems from their temporary to their permanent locations and to conduct other station assembly work. Additional Details: here....

Navigation satellite. It did not reach geostationary orbit until early April following deployment problems with its solar panels and reports of US detection of a debris cloud at the time of the original expected apogee firing. As of 2010 reported to have suffered a control failure.

Following Sunday's unexpected circuit breaker trip and subsequent reset and repowering of affected equipment, the International Space Station had no further incidents. The Expedition 14 crew continued to focus on preparation for its final planned spacewalk ahead of Space Shuttle Atlantis' arrival in March. Additional Details: here....

The five simultaneously-launched Time History of Events and Macroscale Interactions during Substorms (THEMIS) satellites were the fifth medium-class mission under NASA's Explorer Program. They formed part of a combined ground- and space- based system designed to determine what physical process in near-Earth space initiate the violent eruptions of the aurora that occur during substorms in the Earth's magnetosphere.

Optical-3 Verification Satellite, an experimental satellite on a six-month mission to test payloads planned for the Optical-3 second-generation Japanese military optical surveillance satellite. The production-type Optical-3 satellite was expected to launch in 2009.

The active satellite portion of DARPA's Orbital Express satellite servicing experiment. Following operational tests while still joined or grappled together, the first 10-m distance Nextsat free flight and redocking by Astro was conducted on 5 May. On the second free-flight test on 11 May a serious computer failure left the two spacecraft 6 km apart. The problem was solved, revised software was uploaded to Astro, and it redocked with Nextsat on 19 May.

MidSTAR-1 was flown under the DoD Space Test Program and carried the Internet Communications Satellite (ICSat) Experiment (SERB 2002-39) and the Configurable Fault Tolerant Processor (CFTP) Experiment for the Naval Postgraduate School (SERB 2002-34). Planned mission duration was two years.

The Cibola Flight Experiment satellites carried eight new technologies for space flight validation, including a new power supply, inflatable antennas, deployable booms, a new type of launch-vehicle separation system, and a high-density pack of AA lithium-ion batteries. Cibola's on-board field programmable gate array supercomputer processed data onboard, then beamed only the results rather than the raw data to the ground. The Cibola also had a science mission: the study of lightning, ionospheric disturbances, and other sources of radio frequency (RF) atmospheric noise.

An oscillation appeared in the upper stage control system 90 seconds into the burn. This instability grew and after 30 seconds induced a roll torque that exceeded the control capability of the second stage roll control thrusters. The propellants were centrifuged away from the outlets, causing flame-out of the Kestrel engine. LOX slosh was believed to be the primary contributor to this instability. Second stage slosh baffles would be included in future boosters to prevent reoccurence of the problem.

Carried the Expedition 15 crew and space tourist Charles Simonyi to the International Space Station. Soyuz TMA-10 docked at the Zarya port of the International Space Station at 19:10 GMT on 9 April. It undocked from Zarya at 19:20 GMT on Sep 27 September and docked at the Zvezda port at 19:47 GMT to clear Zarya for Soyuz TMA-10.

The EO-15 crew and EP-13 space tourist Shukor (brought to the station by Soyuz TMA-11) boarded Soyuz TM-10 and undocked from the Zvezda port at 07:14 GMT on 21 October. The re-entry burn began at 09:47 and was normal. But afterwards, due to failure of an explosive bolt, the Soyuz service module remained connected to the re-entry capsule. The Soyuz tumbled, then began re-entry with the forward hatch taking the re-entry heating, until the connecting strut burned through. The Soyuz the righted itself with the heat shield taking the heating, but defaulted to an 8.6 G ballistic re-entry, landing 340 km short of the aim point at 10:36 GMT. Improved procedures after the ballistic re-entry of Soyuz TMA-1 meant a helicopter recovery crew reached the capsule only 20 minutes after thumpdown. However the true nature of the failure was concealed from the world until the same thing happened on Soyuz TMA-11.

Two Expedition 15 cosmonauts spent much of the week in handover activities with their Expedition 14 predecessors. Their new crewmate, Sunita Williams who has been aboard the International Space Station for more than three months, also is helping them learn the ropes. Additional Details: here....

Multi Application Survivable Tether experiment, built by Tethers Unlimited Inc and Stanford University. MAST consisted of the TED (Tether Deployer) satellite, with a 1 km deployable multi-strand Hoytether; RALPH, a small end mass satellite; and between them, GADGET, an inspector 1U cubesat which could move along the tether. Before deployment the MAST package fit into a 0.3 m x 0.1 m module. Failed to deploy, but radio contact made.

The PSLV-C8 launch vehicle flew for the first time in a light configuration with no strap-on motors and a Dual Launch Adapter. The Italian gamma-ray observatory satellite (Astrorivelatore Gamma ad Imagini Leggero) carried the GRID 0.3-200 MeV wide-field gamma ray camera and the Super-AGILE 15-45 keV detector hard X-ray detector.

Near Field Infrared Experiment conducted by the US Missile Defense Agency. Its Track Sensor Payload included visible and short, medium and long wave infrared sensors to observe missiles launched from the ground, and obtain basic data to distinguish between the missile and its hot rocket exhaust plume for application to anti-ballistic missile systems. Secondary payloads included Tesat, a German laser communications terminal, and its hydrazine propulsion system. This was used to maneuver the satellite from its initial 255 km x 465 km x 48.2 deg orbit to 489 km x 497 km by 18 May. The orbit was changed to 243 km x 487 km on 9 August and by 23 August was 219 km x 450 km. The satellite had a dry mass of 380 kg dry, was 2.7 m long and 1.3 m in diameter.

The first major sensor test occurred when Minotaur II rocket TLV-7, was fired at 08:30 GMT on 23 August from Vandenberg in NFIRE Mission 2a. The Minotaur II was aimed to pass within 4 and 20 km of the NFIRE satellite while its third stage motor burning, to allow NFIRE to get a close look at the rocket and its exhaust. The Missile Defense Agency reported that the experiment was successful.

NASA Small Explorer mission, for Aeronomy of Ice in the Mesosphere. AIM carried three scientific instruments to study polar mesospheric clouds: a solar occultation camera, an ultraviolet imager, and a cosmic dust experiment. Air dropped in Point Arguello WADZ.

American test pilot astronaut 1959-1969. Member of first crew to rendezvous in space, and commander of first manned Apollo mission. Remembered both for practical jokes and uncompromising attention to detail. Flew 90 combat missions in the Korean War. 3 spaceflights, 12.3 days in space. Flew to orbit on Mercury 8 (1962), Gemini 6A, Apollo 7.

Astra 1L provided direct-to-home broadcast services to Europe from its location at 19.2º East. It also strengthened the SES in-orbit backup system, extended fleet coverage from the Canary Islands eastwards up to the Russian border, and allowed Astra 2C to be moved from 19.2º East to 28.2º to fulfill high capacity demand from the U.K. and Ireland. Astra 1L was equipped with 29 Ku + 2 Ka active transponders, which would be reduced to 27 active transponders after its first five years of operation.

Space station resupply spacecraft which docked with the Zvezda port of the International Space Station at 05:10 GMT on 15 May. It undocked on 19 September was conducted plasma depletion experiments before being deorbited over the Pacific at 19:01 GMT on 25 September..

Second DFH-4 communications satellite; China's first commercial payload sale, and Nigeria's first commercial communications satellite. Positioned at 42.5 deg E. Payload consisted of 4 C-band, 14 Ku-band, 8 Ka-band, and 2 L-band transponders. The antenna subsystem consisted of seven antennas.

First test of a new Russian heavyweight, mobile, solid propellant ICBM. The multiple test warheads were said to have impacted on target 5,500 km down range in the Kura Test Range in the Kamchatka Peninsula. Although development must have been underway for some time, the launch was touted as a reply to American plans to install ABM system elements in the Czech Republic and Poland.

Recoverable capsule military optical reconnaisance satellite. Orbit was raised on 11 June to 182 km x 354 km; decayed until 19 June, when it was lowered to 175 km x 325 km. On 28 June the orbit was raised to 183 km x 348 km; on 5 July to 169 km x 375 km. Landed at 21:00 GMT on 22 August after a 76-day mission.

The shuttle delivered the S3 and S4 truss segments to the starboard side of the International Space Station. The crew made three spacewalks to install these truss segments, conduct other station reconfiguration and installation work, deploy the solar arrays and prepare them for operation. A fourth spacewalk was added to repair loose re-entry insulation on the shuttle and get-ahead installation work on the outside of the station. The shuttle delivered NASA long-term ISS crew member Clayton Anderson to the station; and returned Suni Williams to earth. At the conclusion of this mission the station finally achieved its full-power, dual-boom configuration first conceived for Space Station Freedom in the 1980's.

Classified National Reconnaissance Office mission. There appeared to be problem in the second burn of the Centaur upper stage. Amateur observors believed that two satellites were to be have been deployed in 1150 km altitude, 63 deg inclination, but that only a 776 km x 1246 km was achieved. However it was believed that the payloads could reach the final intended orbits using on-board propulsion

One third scale version of the privately-financed Nautilus inflatable human space habitat module. The spacecraft's 22 interior and exterior cameras provided images of items and pictures carried for paying participants in Bigelow's “Fly your Stuff” program.

Expedition 15 Commander Fyodor Yurchikhin and Flight Engineer Clay Anderson this week finished preparing their spacesuits for a planned July 23 spacewalk. Yurchikhin and Flight Engineer Oleg Kotov also continued evaluating the computers on the Russian segment of the International Space Station. Additional Details: here....

First launch of a pair of satellites, DirecTV 10 and 11, that will beam HDTV programs to 500 local markets from the company's primary orbital slot at 101 degrees west longitude. Acquisition and launch cost of $300 million per satellite; one ground spare also built.

The crew emerged from the Quest airlock at 10:24 GMT. A video stanchion was removed from the ESP-2 external spares cache and installed on an external truss of the station. 736 kg of redundant storage structures and equipment were removed and pushed by the astronauts away from the station, into orbits that would eventually decay and reenter the atmosphere.

International space station resupply; docked with the Pirs module at 18:40 GMT on 5 August. Undocked at 03:59 GMT on 22 December to clear port for Progress M-62 launched the next day. Deorbited over the Pacific on 22 January 2008 after a month of free flight carrying out the Plazma-Progress experiment.

Mars lander based on surplus hardware from the cancelled Mars Surveyor 2001 and the failed Mars Polar Lander (whence the Phoenix designation). The planned landing location was in the north of Mars, at Vastitas Borealis. The spacecraft consisted of a cruise stage, aeroshell for re-entry, backshell for protection of the lander, parachute system for braking the lander after re-entry, and liquid propellant rocket system for a soft touchdown on the surface. The lander was equipped with a robotic arm, soil analysis instruments, meteorology instruments, and cameras.

Space Shuttle Endeavour was launched on Aug 8 at 2236 UTC. The STS-118 stack comprised Orbiter OV-105, solid rockets RSRM-97 and external tank ET-117. The solid boosters separated 2 min after launch. At 2245 UTC the orbiter main engines cut off and ET-117 separated into an approximately 57 x 225 km x 51.6 deg orbit. The OMS-2 burn at 2313 UTC put Endeavour in a higher 229 x 317 km orbit as the ET fell back to reentry around 2346 UTC.

During ascent a large chunk of external tank foam was observed to hit the underside of the orbiter. Examination in orbit using the robotic arm showed a hole in a heat shield tile that went down to the felt mounting pad. There was considerable press discussion of the danger, but as the mission drew to a close NASA decided that no lasting damage would be incurred during reentry to the orbiter structure, and called off a potential extra spacewalk to repair the tile.

Endeavour docked at the PMA-2 adapter on the Station at 18:02 GMT on 10 August; the hatches were opened at 20:04.

The 14036 kg of cargo broke down as follows:

• Bay 1-2: Orbiter Docking System, 1800 kg
• Bay 1-2: EMU 3010, 130 kg
• Bay 1-2: EMU 3017, 130 kg
• Bay 3: Tunnel Adapter, 112 kg
• Bay 5-7: Spacehab-SM Single Module, 5480 kg: Loaded with research experimental equipment and consumables to be left at the station.
• Bay 8P: SPDU: Station Power Distribution Unit, will be left at the ISS and allow the Orbiter to draw electricity from the station while docked, allowing longer missions
• Bay 8-10: S5 Truss, 1584 kg: a short spacer truss installed at the end of the ISS S4 truss during the mission, to eliminate interference with the S6 solar panels when they would be added later
• Bay 11-12: ESP-3, 3400 kg: External Stowage Platform 3, left at the ISS, provided external storage for spare parts, and was delivered with a spare nitrogen tank for the truss cooling system, a spare truss battery charge/discharge unit (BCDU), a spare Canadarm-2 robot arm pitch roll joint, and a replacement Control Moment Gyro for the Z1 truss
• Bay 11-12: CMG-3R ORU, 540 kg
• Sill: OBSS, 450 kg
• Sill: RMS 201, 410 kg

Following successful completion of all cargo delivery and station assembly tasks, the crew returned to Endeavour on 18 August, undocking the next day at 11:56 GMT. Landing was moved up a day ahead of schedule because of concern a hurricane might force evacuation of the Houston Control Center on the originally-planned return date. Endeavour began its deorbit burn at 15:25 GMT on August 21 and lowered its orbit from 336 x 347 km to -28 x 342 km. It landed on runway 15 at Kennedy Space Center at 16:32 GMT. Landing mass was 100,878 kg.

The crew exited into free space at 14:36 GMT. The SASA antenna was relocated from the P6 to the P1 truss, and two CETA carts were moved from S1 to P1. As a precautionary measure Mastracchio retreated to the airlock when he found minor damage to his glove, but Anderson continued working outside for another hour.

Mission 2a sensor target for the NFIRE satellite. The Minotaur II, a three-stage refurbished Minuteman 2 missile with a new guidance and payload section, was aimed to pass within 4 and 20 km of the NFIRE satellite while its third stage motor was burning, to allow NFIRE's sensors to characterize the the rocket and its exhaust. The Missile Defense Agency reported that Mission 2a was successful.

Another of a series of new lunar probes to be launched in the next few years by China, India, Japan, USA, and Europe. Selene was dubbed Kaguya, a Japanese moon goddess, after launch. It included an HDTV camera. In lunar orbit two subsatellites would be released to provide continuous communications as well as better characterize the moon's gravity field. By 30 September Kaguya was in a 2243 km x 378,132 km lunar transfer orbit. On 3 October at 21:00 GMT it entered its initial 101 km x 11741 km x 95 deg lunar orbit. It then began maneuvers to enter its operational 100 km circular orbit, releasing the subsatellites on 9 and 12 October.

Recoverable spacecraft derived from the Vostok. Carried Russian and European microgravy, life sciences and technology experiments. After deploying the YES-2 tether on 25 September, Foton M-3 was deorbited at 07:23 GMT on 26 September and successfully landed at 07:58 GMT in Kazakhstan.

YES-2/Fotino space tether for re-entry experiment. The YES-2 tether was deployed from the Nauka module at the front end of Foton at 04:47 on 25 September, and releaed at 07:20 after reaching only 8.5 km of the planned 30 km tether length. The 5 kg Fotino reentry capsule separated from the MASS data support system at the end of the tether at around 07:30. The idea was to toss the Fotino against the direction of orbital motion to push it into a lower orbit and re-entry without the need for a retrorocket. Unfortunately the final outcome of the experiment remained unknown.

Third China-Brazil joint earth resources satellite. Much higher resolution optics and multispectral sensors expected to be useful for some military applications as well. The satellite raised its orbit to its operational altitude of 773 km two days after launch.

Asteroid belt unmanned probe designed to first orbit and survey the asteroid Vesta, and then fly on to the largest asteroid, Ceres. The Delta upper stage boosted the spacecraft and PAM-D solid third stage to 9.01 km/sec and a 185 km x 6835 km orbit. The PAM-D fired at 12:29 GMT and released Dawn after accelerating it to 11.50 km/sec and sending it into a 1.00 AU x 1.62 AU x 0.5 deg solar orbit. The ion engines were ignited on 6 October. Using its ion engines and a Mars flyby in February 2009, Dawn was scheduled to reach Vesta in 2011 and Ceres in 2015.

Ku-band satellite designed to deliver television, internet, communications, and data services to Australia and New Zealand. After deployment of the two satellites, the EPS third stage made a brief burn at 23:28 GMT to make the first in-flight test the Aestus engine's restart capability. This was to be used in 2008 in the first launch of the ATV ISS resupply spacecraft.

Soyuz TMA-11 delivered the EO-16 crew of Whitson and Malenchenko and EP-13 space tourist Shukor to the International Space Station. The Soyuz docked at the Zarya module at 14:50 GMT on 12 October. Whitson was EO-16 commander, with third astronaut Clay Anderson remaining aboard the station after the EO-15 crew and Shukor returned to earth on Soyuz TMA-10.

Malenchenko and Whitson, together with visiting Korean astronaut Yi, who had been delivered to the ISS by Soyuz TMA-12, undocked from the station aboard Soyuz TMA-11 at 05:06 GMT on 19 April 2008. Following the deorbit burn at 07:40 GMT the aft service module of the Soyuz failed to separate and the spacecraft began re-entry in a reversed position, with the forward hatch taking the initial re-entry heating. As was the case with Soyuz 5 in 1970, the connections with the service module finally melted away, and the freed capsule righted itself aerodynamically with the heat shield taking the brunt of the re-entry heating. However the crew experienced a rough ride, a ballistic re-entry of over 8 G's force, smoke in the cabin, a failure of the soft landing system, and a very hard landing. They landed 470 km short of the target point at 50 deg 31" N, 61 deg 7" E at 08:29 GMT. A small grass fire was started at the landing point and the injured crew had to be helped from the capsule by passers-by. Malenchenko and Whitson suffered no permanent injury, but Yi was hit by Whitson's personal effects bag on impact and required physical therapy for neck and spine injuries.

Main mission objectives were delivery of the Harmony module to the station, and external work to move the P6 truss to its final location and put the ISS into its full-power configuration for the first time. Discovery docked with the ISS at the Destiny module at 12:40 GMT on 25 October. The cargo of 17,390 kg was as follows:

• Orbiter Docking System - Bay 1-2 - 1800 kg
• Spacesuit EMU 3004 - 130 kg
• Spacesuit EMU 3003 - 130 kg
• Station Power Distribution Unit SPDU - Bay 3P - 100 kg
• Fixture for return of S-band Antenna - SASA FSE - Bay 3P - 4S - 100 kg
• Power/Data Grapple Fixture for Node-2 - PDGF - Bay 5P - 50 kg
• Main Bus Switching Unit - MBSU - Bay 6S - 238 kg
• MBSU adapter - Bay 6S - 122 kg
• Station Power Distribution Unit - SPDU - Bay 6S - 7P - 100 kg
• Node-2 Harmony module - Bays 8-12 - 14,300 kg
• OBSS 203 - Sill 450 kg
• RMS 301 - Sill 410 kg

China's first unmanned lunar/planetary probe. The initial orbit of 221 x 50,602 km x 31.0 deg was raised to a translunar trajectory by 31 October in a serious of spacecraft engine burns. The spacecraft entered a 210 km x 8600 km lunar orbit at 03:37 GMT on 5 November.

The astronauts emerged from the Quest hatch at 10:01 GMT. They moved an antenna from the Z1 truss and stowed it in the payload bay, prepared the P6 truss for separation from Z1, and assisted in installation of the Harmony module, which was unberthed from the shuttle bay by the ISS Canadarm-2 and docked to the Unity module.

The astronauts emerged from the Quest hatch at 09:32 GMT. They assisted in unberthing of the P6 truss and its placement in a parked position. They also installed handrails and a grapple fixture on Harmony and inspected the malfunctioning Solar Array Rotary Joint (SARJ) on the S3/S4 truss.

The astronauts emerged from the Quest hatch at 08:44 GMT. They assisted in the mating of the P6 to P5 trusses and deployment of a radiator from P6. Wheelock transferred a spare Main Bus Switching Unit (MBSU) from the Shuttle bay to the External Stowage Platform 3 (ESP3). P6 solar array wing 2B was successfully redeployed; but deployment of array 4B had to be halted when a tear developed in the solar panel.

The astronauts emerged from the Quest hatch and rode the ISS Canadarm II 50 m out to the snagged P6 solar array. Parazynski cut a snagged wire and installed homemade stabilizers designed to strengthen the array's structure and stability in the vicinity of the damage. Wheelock helped from the truss by keeping an eye on the distance between Parazynski and the array. Afterwards they observed as ground controllers completed successful extension of the array.

The astronauts conducted exterior work in preparation for the move of the Pressurized Mating Adapter 2 (PMA-2) from the Destiny lab and to the Harmony module. They disconnected and stowed cables, removed a light on one of the station's transport carts and took the cover off Harmony's Common Berthing Mechanism. They also removed a base-band signal processor for later refurbishment; removed a remote power controller module that was to be replaced; and transferred tools in preparation for upcoming spacewalks.

Final DSP launch. The series was to be replaced by SBIRS, which was in the middle of a troubled development program. The Delta 4H performed well after problems on its first launch. The RL10-powered upper stage made three burns before releasing the early-warning satellite in its final geosynchronous orbit. Total cost of the flight was $700 million, with the DSP worth $400 million. The DSP carried a special 25 kg supplementary payload designed to detect extremely small nuclear tests in space. The payload was required by a secret White House/National Security Council directive to detect any attempted covert nuclear tests by Iran or North Korea.

Sirius 4 carried Ku-band and Ka-band communications payloads for Nordic, Baltic and East European communications. Three upper-stage burns placed Sirius 4 into a 6916 km x 35478 km x 17.4 deg geostationary transfer orbit. A series of maneuvers by the satellite using its own Leros engine maneuvered the satellite into geosynchronous orbit, stationed at 5 deg East.

FE-1 Yuri Malenchenko started his workday with Part 1 of a software test of the Russian data telemetry system's MKO multiplex exchange channel, via BSR-TM payload data telemetry and the 4PrNP-6 data gathering application of the BITS2-12 Onboard Telemetry Measurement System. Additional Details: here....

FE-1 Yuri Malenchenko performed Part 2 of the ground-controlled test of the Russian data telemetry system's MKO multiplex exchange channel, using BSR-TM payload data telemetry (TM) and the 4PrNP-6 data gathering application of the BITS2-12 Onboard Telemetry Measurement System. Additional Details: here....

International Space Station Commander Peggy Whitson and Flight Engineer Dan Tani completed a 7-hour, 4-minute spacewalk at 11:54 a.m. EST Saturday, continuing the external outfitting of the Harmony node in its new position in front of the U.S. laboratory Destiny. Additional Details: here....

The crew completed fluid, electrical, and data line hookups between PMA-2 and Harmony. They connected the Loop B Fluid Tray to the port side of Destiny. They then moved to the truss and made photographs for ground analysis of the troubled starboard Solar Alpha Rotary Joint.

After yesterday's launch scrub for STS-122/Atlantis/Mission ISS-1E due to failure indications of two (of four) engine cut-off sensors in the LH2 tank, the Shuttle is now in a 48-hour turnaround to protect for launch no earlier than Saturday, at 3:43pm EST. Additional Details: here....

Classified National Reconnaisance Office payload; probable primary payload data relay communications. May also have carried SBIRS HEO-2 infrared missile warning sensor and a TWINS-B magnetospheric research experiment. Initial orbit 261 x 16776 km x 60.0 deg.

Follow-on to Canadian Radarsat-1 launched in 1995. Designed to provide C-band synthetic aperture radar mapping with resolution of 3 m to Canadian government users. Compared to the earlier model had greater resolution, vastly increased on-board data storage capacity, and capability to scan left or right of ground track. Planned lifetime of seven years.

African communications satellite with a hybrid Ku/C-band payload. Nominal owner RascomStarQAF of Port Louis, Mauritius, a subsidiary of the Regional African Satellite Communications Organization (RASCOM) based in Cote d'Ivoire. The mission and satellite control centers were located in Cameroun and Libya. The satellite was to provide voice, data and internet services throughout Africa. Ahelium leak in the propulsion system prevented use of the primary apogee motor. Reaction control motors were used instead to slowly move the satellite into geosynchronous orbit. The satellite was expected to reach its operating location, but with a shorter-than-planned operational lifetime.

Launched by Horizons Satellite Holdings LLC, a joint venture of Intelsat and the Japanese JSAT company. To be placed at 74 deg W to serve United States, eastern Canada, and the Caribbean with communication services using its 16-transmitter Ku-band communications payload.

Resupply spacecraft that docked with the Pirs port of the International Space Station at 08:14 GMT on 26 December. Undocked on 4 February 2008 at 10:32 GMT and then carried out Earth observations for ten days before being deorbited on 15 February at 09:44 GMT.

CDR Whitson and FE-2 Tani began the day with the daily reading of SLEEP (Sleep-Wake Actigraphy and Light Exposure during Spaceflight) experiment data accumulated during the night, for logging and filling in questionnaire entries in the experiment's session file on the HRF-1 laptop for downlink. Additional Details: here....