McArthur Credit - www.spacefacts.de

Personal: Male, Married, Two children. Born in Laurinburg, North Carolina, USA. US Army US Army

Astronaut Career

Astronaut Group: NASA Group 13 - 1990. Active Entered space service: 17 January 1990. Number of Flights: 4.00. Total Time: 224.93 days. Number of EVAs: 4.00. Total EVA Time: 1.01 days.

NAME: William Surles "Bill" McArthur, Jr., (Colonel, USA)

NASA Astronaut

PERSONAL DATA:

Born July 26, 1951, in Laurinburg, North Carolina. His hometown is Wakulla, North Carolina. Married to the former Cynthia Kathryn Lovin of Red Springs, North Carolina. They have two daughters. He enjoys basketball, running, and working with personal computers. Bill's stepfather, Mr. Weldon C. Avant, resides in Red Springs. His parents, Brigadier General William S. McArthur and Mrs. Edith P. Avant, are deceased. Cynthia's mother, Mrs. A.K. Lovin, resides in Red Springs, North Carolina.

EDUCATION:

Graduated from Red Springs High School, Red Springs, North Carolina, in 1969; received a bachelor of science degree in applied science and engineering from the United States Military Academy, West Point, New York, in 1973, and a master of science degree in aerospace engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology in 1983.

ORGANIZATIONS:

Member of the American Institute of Aeronautics & Astronautics (AIAA), the Army Aviation Association of America, the Association of the United States Army, the United States Military Academy Association of Graduates , the West Point Society of Greater Houston, MENSA, Phi Kappa Phi, the Association of Space Explorers, and the American Radio Relay League.

SPECIAL HONORS:

Recipient of the Defense Superior Service Medal, the Defense Meritorious Service Medal, the Meritorious Service Medal (First Oak Leaf Cluster), the Army Commendation Medal, the NASA Space Flight Medal, and the NASA Exceptional Service Medal. Distinguished Graduate of the U.S. Army Aviation School. Honorary Doctor of Science degree from the University of North Carolina at Pembroke. Recipient of the Order of the Long Leaf Pine, North Carolina's highest civilian award. Member of the Georgia Tech Academy of Distinguished Engineering Alumni. 1996 American Astronautical Society Flight Achievement Award.

EXPERIENCE:

McArthur graduated from West Point in June 1973 and was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in the U.S. Army. Following a tour with the 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, he entered the U.S. Army Aviation School in 1975. He was the top graduate of his flight class and was designated an Army aviator in June 1976. He subsequently served as an aeroscout team leader and brigade aviation section commander with the 2nd Infantry Division in the Republic of Korea. In 1978 he was assigned to the 24th Combat Aviation Battalion in Savannah, Georgia, where he served as a company commander, platoon leader, and operations officer. After completing studies at Georgia Tech, he was assigned to the Department of Mechanics at West Point as an assistant professor. In June 1987, he graduated from the U.S. Naval Test Pilot School and was designated an experimental test pilot. Other military schools completed include the Army Parachutist Course, the Jumpmaster Course, and the Command and General Staff Officers' Course.

A Master Army Aviator, he has logged over 4000 flight hours in 37 different aircraft.

NASA EXPERIENCE:

McArthur was assigned to NASA at the Johnson Space Center in August 1987 as a Space Shuttle vehicle integration test engineer. Duties involved engineering liaison for launch and landing operations of the Space Shuttle. He was actively involved in the integrated test of the flight control system for each Orbiter for its return to flight and was a member of the Emergency Escape and Rescue Working Group.

Selected by NASA in January 1990, McArthur became an astronaut in July 1991. Since then, McArthur has held various assignments within the Astronaut Office including: working issues relating to the solid rocket booster, redesigned solid rocket motor, and the advanced solid rocket motor. A veteran of two space flights, McArthur has logged 354 orbits of the Earth, traveled 9.2 million miles in 22 days, 4 hours, 44 minutes and 45 seconds.

McArthur served as a mission specialist on STS-58 on the seven-person life science research mission aboard the Space Shuttle Columbia, launching from the Kennedy Space Center on October 18, 1993, and landing at Edwards Air Force Base on November 1, 1993. The crew performed neurovestibular, cardiovascular, cardiopulmonary, metabolic, and musculoskeletal medical experiments on themselves and 48 rats, expanding our knowledge of human and animal physiology both on earth and in space flight. In addition, the crew performed 16 engineering tests aboard the Orbiter Columbia and 20 Extended Duration Orbiter Medical Project experiments. Additionally, the crew made extensive contacts with school children and amateur radio operators around the world through the Shuttle Amateur Radio experiment. The mission was accomplished in 225 orbits of the Earth in 336 hours, 13 minutes, 01 second.

Most recently, McArthur served as a mission specialist on STS-74, NASA's second Space Shuttle mission to rendezvous and dock with the Russian Space Station Mir. STS-74 launched on November 12, 1995, and landed at Kennedy Space Center on November 20, 1995. During the 8-day flight the crew aboard Atlantis successfully attached a permanent docking module to Mir, conducted experiments on a number of secondary payloads, and transferred one and a half tons of supplies between Atlantis and Mir. The STS-74 mission was accomplished in 129 orbits of the Earth, traveling 3.4 million miles in 196 hours, 30 minutes, 44 seconds.Currently, McArthur is assigned as the Chief of the Astronaut Office Flight Support Branch, supervising astronaut support of the Mission Control Center, prelaunch Space Shuttle processing, and launch and landing operations.

• 18 October 1993 Flight: STS-58. Flight Up: STS-58. Flight Back: STS-58. Flight Time: 14.01 days.

• 12 November 1995 Flight: STS-74. Flight Up: STS-74. Flight Back: STS-74. Flight Time: 8.19 days.

• 11 October 2000 Flight: STS-92. Flight Up: STS-92. Flight Back: STS-92. Flight Time: 12.90 days.

• 1 October 2005 Flight: ISS EO-12. Flight Up: Soyuz TMA-7. Flight Back: Soyuz TMA-7. Flight Time: 189.83 days.

17 January 1990 - NASA Astronaut Training Group 13 selected.. The group was selected to provide pilot, engineer, and scientist astronauts for space shuttle flights.. Qualifications: Pilots: Bachelor's degree in engineering, biological science, physical science or mathematics. Advanced degree desirable. At least 1,000 flight-hours of pilot-in-command time. Flight test experience desirable. Excellent health. Vision minimum 20/50 uncorrected, correctable to 20/20 vision; maximum sitting blood pressure 140/90. Height between 163 and 193 cm.

Mission Specialists: Bachelor's degree in engineering, biological science, physical science or mathematics and minimum three years of related experience or an advanced degree. Vision minimum 20/150 uncorrected, correctable to 20/20. Maximum sitting blood pressure of 140/90. Height between 150 and 193 cm.. Reported to the Johnson Space Center in late July 1990 to begin their year long training. Chosen from 1945 qualified applicants, then 106 finalists screened between September and November 1989.

The RSRM-76 solid rocket boosters separated at 23:19 GMT and main engine cut-off (MECO) came at 23:25 GMT. External tank ET-104 separated into a 74 x 323 km x 51.6 deg orbit. At apogee at 00:01 GMT on Oct 12, Discovery's OMS engines fired to raise perigee to a 158 x 322 km x 51.6 deg orbit; ET-104 re-entered over the Pacific around 00:30 GMT. At Oct 12 on 03:01 GMT the NC1 burn raised the orbit to 180 x 349 km; NC3 on Oct 12 to 311 x 375 km; and the TI burn at 14:09 GMT on Oct 13 to 375 x 381 km x 51.6 deg. Discovery's rendezvous with the International Space Station came at 15:39 GMT on Oct 13, with docking at 17:45 GMT. The spaceship docked with PMA-2, the docking port on the +Y port of the Space Station's Unity module. Hatch was open to PMA-2 at 20:30 GMT the same day.

STS-92 Cargo Manifest

• Bay 1-2: Orbiter Docking System + 3 EMU spacesuits
• Bay 5 Port: Adapter Beam with DDCU-HP control unit
• Bay 5 Starboard: Adapter Beam with DDCU-HP control unit
• Bay 7-8: Spacelab Pallet MD003 with PMA-3
• Bay 10-12: ISS Z1 first segment of the space station truss
• Bay 13 Adapter Beam with IMAX Cargo Bay Camera
• Sill: Canadarm RMS 301

Total payload bay cargo: ca. 14,800 kg

The Z1 first segment of the space station truss was built by Boeing/Canoga Park and was 3.5 x 4.5 meters in size. It was attached to the +Z port on Unity. Z1 carried the control moment gyros, the S-band antenna, and the Ku-band antenna.

PMA-3, built by Boeing/Huntington Beach, was docked to the -Z port opposite Z1. PMA-3 was installed on a Spacelab pallet for launch.

On October 14 at 16:15 GMT the Z1 segment was unberthed from the payload bay and at around 18:20 GMT it was docked to the zenith port on the Unity module.

On October 15 at 14:20 GMT the ODS airlock was depressurised, beginning a spacewalk by Bill McArthur and Leroy Chiao. Official NASA EVA duration (battery power to repress) was 6 hours 28 minutes.

The second spacewalk was on October 16, with Jeff Wisoff and Mike Lopez-Alegria. The suits went to battery power at 14:15 GMT and Wisoff left the airlock at 14:21 GMT. Repressurisation began at 21:22 GMT for a duration of 7 hours 07minutes.

Leroy Chiao and Bill McArthur began the third STS-92 EVA at 15:30 GMT on October 17, completing their work at 22:18 GMT for a total time of 6 hours 48 minutes.

After the spacewalk, Discovery completed the second of the three station reboosts scheduled for STS-92. They fired reaction control system jets in a series of pulses of 1.4 seconds each, over a 30-minute period, gently raising the station's orbit by about 3.1 km.

The last of four successful spacewalks began on 18 October at 16:00 GMT and ended at 22:56 GMT, lasting 6 hours and 56 minutes. Jeff Wisoff and Mike Lopez-Alegria each jetted slowly through space above Discovery's cargo bay.

After the space walk, Discovery completed the third and final reboost of the space station.

On 19 October the astronauts worked within the ISS. They completed connections for the newly installed Z1 external framework structure and transferred equipment and supplies for the Expedition One first resident crew of the Station. The crew also tested the four 290-kg gyroscopes in the truss, called Control Moment Gyros, which will be used to orient the ISS as it orbits the Earth. They will ultimately assume attitude control of the ISS following the arrival of the U.S. Laboratory Destiny. The tests and the transfer of supplies into the Russian Zarya Module took longer than expected. As a result, the crew's final departure from the Station's Unity module was delayed. Melroy and Wisoff took samples from surfaces in Zarya to study the module's environment. They then unclogged the solid waste disposal system in the Shuttle's toilet, which was restored to full operation after a brief interruption in service.

Discovery undocked from the ISS at 16:08 GMT on 20 October. The final separation burn was executed about 45 minutes after undocking. The crew had added 9 tonnes to the station's mass, bringing it to about 72 tonnes. The return to earth, planned for 22 October, was delayed repeatedly due to high winds at the Kennedy landing site. The landing was finally made at Edwards Air Force Base, California, on October 24, at 22:00 GMT.

Commander Brian Duffy, Pilot Pam Melroy and Mission Specialists Leroy Chiao, Bill McArthur, Jeff Wisoff, Mike Lopez-Alegria and Koichi Wakata rocketed away from Launch Pad 39-A at 6:17 p.m. Central time, lighting up the central Florida skies as they began their pursuit of the international complex. At the time of launch, the ISS was orbiting at an altitude of about 230 statute miles over the Indian Ocean, east of India.

Less than nine minutes after liftoff, Discovery's astronauts went to work to prepare the Shuttle's systems for their planned 11-day mission. The first major task on the flight plan was to open Discovery's cargo bay doors prior to receiving a "go" for orbital operations from Ascent Flight Director Wayne Hale. The astronauts are expected to set up computers and flight deck gear before beginning an eight-hour sleep period at 11:17 p.m. Central time. The crew will be awakened at 7:17 a.m. Thursday morning to begin its first full day in space.

With this evening's successful launch behind them, Discovery's astronauts will turn their attention to their chase of the International Space Station, performing several firings of the ship's jet thrusters over the next two days to set up a docking with the outpost on Friday at 12:43 p.m. Central time. Over the ensuing week, the crew will install the so-called Z1 truss structure and a third Pressurized Mating Adapter to the Unity module and will perform four space walks to electrically connect the new components.

The Station itself continues to orbit the Earth every 90 minutes in good shape with the exception of two sets of batteries in the Zvezda Service Module which have been disconnected from the module's electrical system because of suspected problems with voltage converters. Battery component spares are expected to be launched on the next unmanned Progress resupply ship to the ISS in November for installation by the first resident crew. Meanwhile, Zvezda is operating normally on six healthy batteries with more than enough electrical power for ISS systems.

After an engine firing to circularize its orbit, Discovery will be flying at an altitude of about 190 statute miles in pursuit of the international station and its linkup Friday afternoon.

The STS-92 crew was awakened at 7:17 a.m. Central time with the song, "Incense And Peppermint" by the group, "Strawberry Alarm Clock". The tune is part of the "Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery" movie soundtrack and was played for the crew members, who are fans of the film.

Commander Brian Duffy and Pilot Pam Melroy will fire Discovery's thrusters in a continuing series of burns today to refine the Shuttle's approach to the International Space Station, and will check out some of the tools their crewmates will use to provide them with navigation information during the final phases of the Shuttle's approach to the Station for docking. Discovery's linkup to the ISS is planned for 12:43 p.m. Central time Friday afternoon.

It will be a day of preparations for Discovery's astronauts as Mission Specialists Leroy Chiao, Bill McArthur, Jeff Wisoff and Mike Lopez-Alegria check out the space suits they will wear during four consecutive days of orbital construction space walks. Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata will power up Discovery's 50-foot long robot arm to ensure it is operating properly and will use it to conduct a photographic survey of the payload bay and the new Space Station components housed inside. In the International Space Station control room in Mission Control, flight controllers continue to prepare the station for the arrival of Discovery's crew by warming up the Unity module and its attached docking port to maintain comfortable working conditions for the astronauts. Discovery's crew will enter the Unity module on Saturday to transfer logistical supplies and hardware associated with the installation of the first external truss structure for the complex.

Over the course of the next week, through the space walks and the use of the Shuttle's robot arm, the crew will install both the Z1 truss assembly and Pressurized Mating Adapter-3 to the Unity module of the Station. That adapter is a new docking port for the ISS. The Z1 truss provides a structural backbone for the Station, with four Control Moment Gyroscopes that will be used to maintain the Station's attitude or orientation in space. The truss also houses key communications gear. The truss assembly will support the large solar arrays that will be delivered during the next Shuttle mission, STS-97.

Discovery is orbiting at an altitude of about 200 statute miles with all of its systems operating in perfect shape.

The crew found everything in good shape aboard the Shuttle, although a failure in one of Discovery's communications systems may prevent Mission Control from visually following many of the crew's activities through live television. At about 9 a.m. Central today, flight controllers noted a failure in Discovery's Ku-Band communications system, a system used for high-rate communications - including television -- that includes a dish-shaped antenna in the Shuttle's cargo bay. The failure, still being analyzed by engineers, prevents the system from transmitting or receiving any usable communications. The Ku-Band system initially worked well when activated yesterday, only a few hours after launch. The Shuttle has other communications systems that are operating well. The loss of the Ku-Band system will not impact the crew's ability to successfully complete all of the flight's objectives. However, the failure of the Ku-Band system may drastically reduce the potential for live television to be transmitted to the ground for the remainder of the mission.

Discovery is trailing the International Space Station by about 1,680 statute miles, continuing to close in on the orbiting complex at a rate of 201 statute miles with each orbit. Commander Brian Duffy and Pilot Pam Melroy fired the Shuttle's engines twice today to adjust the rate at which Discovery is closing on the station. The continuing series of rendezvous engine firings is planned to culminate in Duffy manually guiding Discovery to a docking with the outpost at 12:45 p.m. CDT Friday. The final phase of the rendezvous is planned to begin with a Terminal Intercept engine firing planned at 9:09 a.m. CDT Friday, when Discovery reaches a point about nine statute miles behind the station.

Also today, Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata powered up Discovery's robotic arm, checking out its operation in a survey of the cargo bay and finding everything in order. While that activity was under way on the Shuttle's upper deck, astronauts Leroy Chiao, Jeff Wisoff and Mike Lopez-Alegria worked in the lower deck, or middeck, to check out the spacesuits that will be worn during four planned spacewalks. All of the suits and equipment are in excellent shape. Astronaut Bill McArthur will join Chiao, Wisoff and Lopez-Alegria in conducting those spacewalks, planned to begin on Sunday, that will complete connections of the new station components.

The crew will begin a sleep period at 9:17 p.m. CDT and awaken at 4:17 a.m. CDT Friday for day three of the mission. Discovery is in an orbit with a high point of 235 statute miles and a low point of 188 statute miles.

Commander Brian Duffy, Pilot Pam Melroy and Mission Specialists Leroy Chiao, Bill McArthur, Jeff Wisoff, Mike Lopez-Alegria and Koichi Wakata began their day shortly after 5 a.m. Central time, preparing shuttle systems for their linkup to the new station at about 12:46 p.m. Central time.

As of about 6:45 this morning, the shuttle trailed the station by about 650 statute miles and was closing in by about 300 miles with each orbit of the Earth. The rate of closure will slow dramatically, however, as Duffy and Melroy conduct a series of jet firings to place the shuttle directly below the station late this morning for the final phase of its approach for docking. The final major maneuver, called the Terminal Initiation burn, will occur when Discovery reaches a point about eight nautical miles directly behind the station.

As Discovery moves within about a half-mile of the station, Duffy will take over manual control of the shuttle's approach, flying the shuttle from controls in the aft cockpit. Discovery will arrive at a point about 600 feet directly below the station about 10:38 a.m. Central, and then will begin a half-circle of the orbiting outpost. Discovery will pass about 350 feet in front of the station and then move to a point about 250 feet directly above it about 11:05 a.m. Central.

Duffy will then begin to descend toward the station and, about 11:15 a.m. Central, hold position at a point about 170 feet away. Duffy will maintain that distance for almost one hour to allow the station to move within range of Russian ground communications stations to monitor the shuttle's approach and docking. At 12:34 p.m., Duffy will hold position again briefly at a point about 30 feet from the station to verify the shuttle and station docking mechanisms are precisely aligned. Docking is expected about 12 minutes later with the shuttle contacting the station at a slow rate of about a tenth of a foot per second. At the time of docking, the ISS and Discovery will be flying over the Ukraine.

The shuttle's KU band communications system remains inoperative as engineers continue to review data regarding its sudden loss yesterday. Although there is no conventional television available from Discovery, the loss of the KU system has no impact to mission objectives.

Discovery is currently orbiting at an altitude of about 190 statute miles, circling the Earth every 90 minutes.

Discovery latched onto the station at 12:45 p.m. CDT, completing a perfect rendezvous that had been under way since Discovery's launch on Wednesday. Later, Astronaut Mike Lopez-Alegria opened the outermost hatch to the station at about 3:30 p.m. CDT. Soon thereafter, at about 4:15 p.m., Lopez-Alegria opened the hatch into the station's Unity module, and Duffy entered the orbiting outpost, followed closely by Lopez-Alegria and fellow crew members Leroy Chiao and Pilot Pam Melroy. The crew then began transferring equipment and supplies from Discovery to the station, continuing to set up the complex for the arrival of the first resident crew, a mission called Expedition 1 that is planned to launch at the end of the month.

Meanwhile, at the aft controls in Discovery's cockpit, Astronaut Bill McArthur and Japanese Astronaut Koichi Wakata again powered up the Shuttle's mechanical arm. Wakata and McArthur, the backup arm operator for the mission, maneuvered the robotic arm for a camera survey of the station and the Shuttle's payload bay. Tomorrow, Wakata will use the arm to attach the first of two major components Discovery has brought to the complex - an exterior framework that houses gyroscopes and communications equipment called the Z-1 truss.

Flight controllers have decided to attempt no further troubleshooting of Discovery's Ku-Band communications system which failed yesterday. The failure will reduce the amount of television that can be transmitted to the ground during the mission, however the crew did send television of the docking and entry into the station to the ground today through alternate communications systems. A few such opportunities for television will be available each day during the remainder of the flight, although they will usually be only a few minutes in length. Flight controllers also use a sequential still video system, a still image updated every few seconds, to follow activities aboard the Shuttle.

The crew will begin a sleep period at 9:17 p.m. CDT and awaken at 5:17 a.m. CDT Saturday for day four of the mission.

Earlier this morning, space station flight controllers in Houston successfully activated and checked out controllers and power sources for Unity's common berthing mechanism, preparing it for the Z1 installation. Discovery's robot arm will be powered up at 7:37 a.m. by NASDA astronaut Koichi Wakata and Mission Specialist Mike Lopez-Alegria. Wakata will maneuver the arm to the Z1 truss in Discovery's payload bay, grappling the box-like frame about 8:20 a.m.

A series of capture latches that secures the truss in place will be commanded open and Wakata will gently raise the Z1 out of the payload bay. With the truss firmly in its grip, the arm will be maneuvered to a position called low hover and will remain during a final inspection to ensure that all seals and petals on the common berthing mechanism are properly aligned for the final installation. Commander Brian Duffy will maneuver Discovery into the proper orientation for installation as the Z1 is moved to its capture position. A series of four "ready to latch" indicators are the signal for Discovery's crew to issue the final capture command, and the Z1 truss should be attached to the Space Station shortly after 10 a.m. today.

Using a laptop computer, Pilot Pam Melroy will command 16 bolts to tighten in a four-stage process to secure the Z1 truss to the Unity module, as Wakata releases the Shuttle's robot arm and moves it back to its cradled position alongside the payload bay. Final connections and outfitting work for the Z1 truss will be accomplished by space-walking astronauts Bill McArthur, Leroy Chiao, Jeff Wisoff and Mike Lopez-Alegria. Sunday, during the first of four scheduled spacewalks for this flight, McArthur and Chiao will connect a series of power cables, an S-band communications assembly, install a Space to Ground Antenna and boom assembly and install an EVA tool stowage box on the port side of the structure.

With the Z1 installation complete, the astronauts will enter the Zarya module to transfer equipment and supplies for the first resident crew expected to arrive later this month. McArthur and Chiao will configure Discovery's middeck in preparation for Sunday's spacewalk, staging some of the tools, tether and hardware they will use during their planned 6½-hour EVA.

Japanese Astronaut Koichi Wakata, at controls in the shuttle cockpit, deftly maneuvered Discovery's robotic arm to lift the framework, called the Z1 truss, out of the shuttle's payload bay and berth it to a port on the station's Unity connecting module. The berthing was the first time the U.S.-developed attachment system has been used in orbit, and the equipment worked flawlessly. Over the course of the station's future assembly, similar attachment systems will be used over 100 times. Astronaut Mike Lopez-Alegria, looking out of the berthing port's hatch window in Unity, provided Wakata with visual cues as to the framework's alignment.

The berthing occurred about two hours behind schedule due to a short-circuit aboard the shuttle early in the crew's day that cut off power to some equipment Wakata would need. The short cut power to three pieces of equipment: an Orbiter Interface Unit that provides data and commanding from the shuttle to station systems; an Orbiter Space Vision System that provides a computerized alignment aid for operating the robotic arm; and a television camera located at the bottom, or keel, of the payload bay that faces upward to provide a supplementary visual cue for maneuvering the truss structure. Flight controllers and the crew quickly developed a plan to use backup equipment and alternate power to regain all functions except the keel camera, and Wakata began lifting the truss from the shuttle bay about 2 hours and 15 minutes later than originally planned.

The backup arrangement worked perfectly. The electrical bus that experienced the short will remain powered off and will have no impact on the rest of the mission's activities. Wakata latched the truss to the station at 1:20 p.m. as the complex flew 240 statute miles above southern Russia.

Because activities were behind schedule following the morning workaround, flight controllers opted to defer the transfer of some gear from the station's Unity module to the Zarya module until the crew next enters the station, planned for day nine of the mission. In Unity, Pilot Pam Melroy and crewmate Jeff Wisoff opened the hatch where the new truss was attached and, inside a pressurized dome, installed grounding connections between the framework and the station. Afterward, the crew exited the station, and, at 5:57 p.m. CDT, Lopez-Alegria and Commander Brian Duffy sealed the station's outermost hatch.

Duffy and Melroy then lowered Discovery's cabin pressure in preparation for a space walk by astronauts Leroy Chiao and Bill McArthur planned to begin at 9:32 a.m. Sunday. Reducing the cabin pressure from a sea-level pressure of 14.7 pounds per square inch (psi) to a pressure of about 10.2 psi is part of a protocol that purges nitrogen from the space walker's body to prevent decompression sickness. Chiao and McArthur spent the last couple of hours of their day preparing equipment in the shuttle's lower deck and airlock for tomorrow's venture outside the cabin. During the space walking construction work, the first of four space walks planned during Discovery's mission, the two will connect electrical and computer data cables between the newly attached truss and Unity and deploy two communications antennas from the truss.

The crew begins a sleep period at 9:17 p.m. today and will awaken at 5:17 a.m. Sunday to begin preparations for the six and a half-hour space walk.

In a 6-hour, 28-minute space walk, McArthur and Chiao connected 10 electrical umbilicals to provide power to heaters and conduits located on the Z1 truss, relocated and deployed two communication antenna assemblies and installed a toolbox for use during future on-orbit construction. The EVA began at 9:27 a.m. CDT and ended at 3:55 p.m. This was the seventh Space Station assembly space walk, the 51st EVA in the Space Shuttle program and the 90th by Americans in the history of the U.S. space program.

Astronaut Koichi Wakata was again at the controls of the Shuttle's robotic arm, using it to move the two astronauts around Discovery's payload bay and the Space Station. McArthur spent most of the time on the end of the mechanical arm working through the long list of cable connections and other tasks. Chiao worked from the end of the arm late in the space walk as he manually unfolded the large ISS Ku-band antenna to its deployed position. That system will be activated next February.

Both astronauts spent the first hour of the EVA deploying tools and EVA aids including foot restraints and tethers. Following the setup, the astronauts worked to connect the first six umbilical cables between Unity and the truss structure. With the first set of cables attached, McArthur and Chiao removed the S-band Antenna Subassembly (SASA) from its launch position on the Z1 truss and placed it in a temporary location where it will remain until it is moved and activated during the STS-97 mission in late November. The SASA was launched in the position where two power converter units will be installed during the third space walk on Tuesday. A second set of four cables was connected before McArthur and Chiao installed the Space to Ground Antenna (SGANT), deploying its antenna dish. The antenna dish was removed from its launch location on the Z1 truss with Chiao standing on the robotic arm as McArthur unbolted the dish assembly. The two space walkers also relocated a tool stowage box, located on the support structure for PMA-3 in Discovery's payload bay, for use during future on-orbit construction.

In tomorrow's EVA, the second team of space walkers on this flight, Jeff Wisoff and Mike Lopez-Alegria, will perform chores in helping to install the Pressurized Mating Adapter 3 (PMA3) to which Space Shuttle Endeavour will dock in early December. The two also will release latches at the top of the Z1 Truss which will be used to hold the large solar arrays that will be brought up on that flight.

The astronauts are due to start their sleep period at 9:17 p.m. CDT and be awakened at 5:17 a.m. Monday.

Mission Specialists Bill McArthur and Leroy Chiao will connect two sets of cables to provide power to heaters and conduits located on the Z1 truss, relocate two communication antenna assemblies and install a toolbox for use during future on-orbit construction. The space walk is scheduled to begin about 9:45 this morning. Japanese Astronaut Koichi Wakata will once again be at the controls of the shuttle's robotic arm, using it to move the two astronauts around Discovery's payload bay and the space station.

Chiao, designated EV1 and recognizable by the red bands on the legs of his spacesuit, and McArthur, designated EV2 in a solid white suit, will devote the first hour of their space walk to set-up activities in Discovery's payload bay, deploying tools and EVA aids including foot restraints and tethers. With that complete, the first task will be to connect the first six umbilical cables between Unity and the truss structure. To ensure that the connectors the astronauts will be working with are not "hot," International Space Station controllers in Houston and Moscow will alternately power down two Russian-to-American Conversion Units, called RACUs. They provide power to some of the systems in the Unity module including the early communication system and some cabin fans. RACU 5 will be powered down to support the first cable installation and reactivated before the power down of RACU 6, ensuring that the Unity module will not be without power during the space walk activities.

A second set of four umbilical power cables will be connected later in the space walk once RACU 5 has been repowered, and RACU 6 deactivated.

Following the first cable installation task, McArthur and Chiao will remove the S-band Antenna Subassembly (SASA) from its launch position on the Z1 truss and place it in a temporary location until it is moved and activated during the STS-97 mission in late November. The SASA is launched in the position where two power conditioning systems - called DDCU-HPs - will be installed during their space walk on Tuesday. McArthur and Chiao will then turn their attention to installing the Space to Ground Antenna (SGANT) deploying its antenna dish. The antenna dish will be removed from its launch location on the Z1 truss with Chiao standing on the robotic arm as McArthur unbolts the dish assembly. Because of thermal limitations, the antenna dish needs to be attached to the boom assembly within an hour after being removed from its launch location.

McArthur and Chiao also will relocate a tool stowage box, located on the support structure for PMA-3 in Discovery's payload bay, for use during future on-orbit construction activities before concluding their space walk and climbing back into Discovery's airlock.

Throughout the EVA, the second team of space walkers on this flight, Jeff Wisoff and Mike Lopez-Alegria, will act as in-cabin choreographers providing guidance and assistance to McArthur and Chiao and back-up support to robot arm operator Wakata.

Following the conclusion of the space walk, McArthur, Chiao, Wisoff and Lopez-Alegria will resize the spacesuits, recharging batteries and preparing them for the second of four consecutive days of EVAs to expand the International Space Station.

Today's space walk, scheduled to begin just before 9:30 a.m.CDT, paves the way for installation of the station's large solar arrays later this year as Chiao and McArthur install two current converter units to process power that will be generated by the arrays, and prepare the worksite where the arrays will be attached. The converter units - called DDCUs - are 129-pound power processing systems that will provide precisely regulated power output from the massive solar arrays. With assistance from robot arm operator Koichi Wakata, who will ferry the spacewalkers around the growing station, Chiao and McArthur will unfasten the DDCUs from their locations in Discovery's payload bay and install them on the Z1 Truss in a process that will take about two hours to complete.

They will then turn their attention to final power cable connections on both the Z1 Truss and newly installed docking port, PMA-3, connecting and reconfiguring cables to route power from PMA-2 to PMA-3 for the arrival of Endeavour and the STS-97 crew next month. Finally, McArthur and Chiao will attach a second tool storage box on the Z1 Truss, providing a place to hold the tools and space walking aids that will be used during upcoming assembly flights. McArthur will retrieve a bag of tools and hardware attached to the exterior of the Unity module and place it in the storage boxes. The tools were temporarily stowed on Unity during a May 1999 space walk conducted by Astronauts Tammy Jernigan and Dan Barry during STS-96, the first shuttle docking with the International Space Station.

Overnight, space station flight controllers in Houston completed commanding a series of 16 bolts to their closed position, securing PMA-3 to its new location on the Unity module, following a planned 12-hour thermal conditioning period. The docking port, installed during yesterday's space walk, will be used by the STS-97 crew when Endeavour docks with the International Space Station.

Today's spacewalk began at 9:30 a.m. and ended at 4:18 p.m., almost exactly as planned. Total time of Tuesday's EVA was 6 hours, 48 minutes. That brings to 20 hours, 23 minutes the total time of the three spacewalks performed thus far in Discovery's mission, and the total time of space station construction spacewalks to 62 hours, 38 minutes. A fourth spacewalk is scheduled for Wednesday. It too will prepare the Z1 Truss for attachment of the solar arrays.

Chaio and McArthur were helped by the robot arm in moving around the station. Koichi Wakata and Mike Lopez-Alegria split the arm-operation duties on Tuesday, with Lopez-Alegria taking the first half.

The spacewalkers also completed power cable connections on both the Z1 truss and newly installed docking port, PMA-3. They connected and reconfigured cables to route power from Pressurized Mating Adapter-2 to PMA-3 for the arrival of Endeavour and the STS-97 crew next month. They also attached a second tool storage box on the Z1 truss, providing a place to hold the tools and spacewalking aids for future assembly flights. McArthur stocked the boxes with tools and hardware that had been attached to the Unity module. STS-96 Astronauts Tammy Jernigan and Dan Barry had left the tools on the outside of Unity during a May 1999 spacewalk.

After today's spacewalk, Discovery Commander Brian Duffy and Pilot Pam Melroy completed the second of the three station reboosts scheduled for STS-92. They fired reaction control system jets in a series of pulses of 1.4 seconds each, over a 30-minute period, gently raising the station's orbit by about 1.7 statute miles.

On Wednesday astronauts Jeff Wisoff and Lopez-Alegria are scheduled to perform the fourth and final spacewalk of the STS-92 flight. Among activities will be deployment of the Z1 utility tray, and opening and closing of the Z1 Manual Berthing Mechanism latches. Wisoff and Lopez-Alegria also will test the SAFER, or "simplified aid for EVA rescue," a backpack that could enable an astronaut drifting away from the shuttle or the station to get back to the spacecraft. Finally, they will test methods for rescuing an incapacitated astronaut.

Once inside, Pilot Pam Melroy and Mission Specialist Jeff Wisoff will gather samples from various surfaces in the Zarya module to characterize the onboard environment and identify any microbial growth. They also will inspect and wipe down some surfaces and stowage bags with a fungicide to inhibit microbial growth. Melroy and Wisoff also team up to complete final connections and outfitting of the Z1 pressure dome that links cables between the externally mounted truss structure and the Unity module.

Mission Specialists Bill McArthur and Leroy Chiao will work together to check out the control moment gyros - the attitude control system integrated into the Z1 Truss - connecting a laptop computer to a local power bus and commanding on operational heaters to provide additional warmth for the CMGs prior to their activation following the arrival of the Destiny laboratory module early next year.

NASDA Astronaut Koichi Wakata once again will power up Discovery's robot arm, this time to conduct a photographic survey of the International Space Station.

All seven crew members will participate in transferring equipment between Discovery and the Unity and Zarya modules of the station. The bulk of the material to be transferred to the station includes computer equipment, hardware and IMAX camera equipment that will be used to document life on the station. In return, Discovery will carry a variety of material back to Earth, including a protein crystal growth experiment that has been on board the station since it was installed by the STS-106 crew in early September, becoming the first microgravity science experiment to be conducted on board the space station.

Late in the day, Commander Brian Duffy will begin the process of closing hatches between the Zarya and Unity modules as the seven-member crew leaves the space station. The final hatch closure between Discovery and the International Space Station should occur just before 4:30 p.m. CDT today. Discovery is scheduled to undock from the station Friday morning at 8:40 a.m. CDT.

Duffy, Melroy, Chiao and McArthur will take a break from their activities this morning to discuss their mission with Space.com, ABC Radio Network and KNX Radio, Los Angeles in a series of interviews beginning at 11:57 a.m. CDT.

Discovery has two landing opportunities Monday at KSC, where the weather is expected to be questionable, and three at Edwards Air Force Base in California. The second KSC and first Edwards opportunities are on the same orbit, six minutes apart. Edwards will be activated for a possible Monday landing, but weather there is expected to be marginal. Weather conditions at KSC are not expected to improve over the next two days, while improvement in California is forecast.

For the first Monday landing opportunity - to KSC - Discovery would fire its orbital maneuvering system engines at 12:43 p.m. CDT to begin its descent from orbit, with landing to follow at 1:51 p.m. The second Florida opportunity is one orbit later with a 2:21 p.m. deorbit burn resulting in a landing at 3:28 p.m.

The first opportunity to Edwards would see a deorbit burn at 2:15 p.m. CDT with landing at 3:23 p.m. The second would have Discovery's deorbit burn take place at 3:51 p.m. with landing at 4:58 p.m. and the final opportunity one orbit later with an engine firing at 5:29 p.m. and landing at 6:35 p.m.

Flight controllers in Houston will work through Monday morning to develop a landing plan based on conditions at the two sites.

After "deorbit backout" -- undoing their preparation to come home on Sunday -- the crew spent much of the afternoon relaxing and communicating with their families via computer. STS-92 Mission Commander Brian Duffy, Pilot Pam Melroy and Mission Specialists Leroy Chiao, Bill McArthur, Mike Lopez-Alegria, Jeff Wisoff and Koichi Wakata, are scheduled to go to bed tonight shortly after 9 p.m. and be awakened at 5:17 a.m. Monday.

The International Space Station, from which Discovery undocked Friday, continued to function well. The station flight control room in the Mission Control Center continued to monitor systems on board. They watched and commanded heaters on the huge gyroscopes on the newly installed Z1 truss. The gyros will provide attitude control for the ISS, and the heaters are designed to protect them from damage by the cold of space.

The station trails Discovery by 248 statute miles. The distance is increasing by 5.4 miles each 90-minute orbit of the Earth.

Discovery touched down at 4 p.m. CDT and rolled to a stop on Edward's concrete runway at 4:0l, for a mission elapsed time of 12 days, 21 hours and 43 minutes.

The astronauts fired Discovery's orbital maneuvering system engines for the deobrit burn at 2:52 p.m. as the spacecraft was over the Indian Ocean, north of Madagascar and east of Kenya. Discovery felt the first traces of the atmosphere about 78 statute miles over the South Pacific, just south of the Tropic of Capricorn and east of Australia. The spacecraft passed south of Hawaii and crossed the California coast over Los Angeles. By the time it landed at Edwards, Discovery had traveled more than 5.3 million statute miles.

Commander Brian Duffy, Pilot Pam Melroy and Mission Specialists Leroy Chiao, Bill McArthur, Jeff Wisoff, Mike Lopez-Alegria and NASDA Astronaut Koichi Wakata spent 6 days, 21 hours and 23 minutes docked to the ISS. They left a larger and more complete station that they had helped prepare for the early November arrival of the first station crew. They added two major components, increasing the mass of the ISS by about 10 tons to a total of about 80 tons.

In addition to the total of 27 hours, 19 minutes spent outside the station on the four spacewalks, -- two each by Chiao, McArthur, Wisoff and Lopez-Alegria, the astronauts spent 27 hours and 4 minutes inside, completing connections with the new elements and transferring equipment and supplies for the Expedition 1 crew.

Discovery's crew is scheduled to spend Tuesday night at Edwards. They are to return to Houston on Wednesday, where the crew return ceremony will be held at Ellington Field's Hangar 990 at about 1:30 p.m.

Discovery is targeting a landing later today, after poor weather conditions in Florida and California kept the crew in space two days longer than originally planned. Duffy and his crew mates - Pilot Pam Melroy and Mission Specialists Leroy Chiao, Bill McArthur, Jeff Wisoff, Mike Lopez-Alegria and NASDA Astronaut Koichi Wakata - will begin their preparations for a return trip to Earth about 8:30 this morning, in anticipation of a landing at either the Kennedy Space Center or Edwards Air Force Base later today.

With continuing strong winds, cloud cover and rain at the Florida landing site, a landing there today remains unlikely. However, there is one opportunity for the crew to land in Florida if weather conditions improve significantly. That opportunity would see a deorbit burn at 1:21 p.m. with landing to follow at 2:28 p.m. An opportunity to return to KSC one orbit earlier, on Orbit 200, has already been ruled out due to the crew's activity timeline

On the west coast, improving weather conditions at Edwards Air Force Base hold promise for Discovery's return. Entry Flight Director LeRoy Cain and his team will watch over the weather this morning and likely will adjust the crew's deorbit timeline to focus on the Edwards opportunities today.

On the first of two opportunities to land at Edwards today, Discovery's orbital maneuvering system engines would fire in a deorbit burn at 2:52 p.m. as it passes over the Indian Ocean, just north of Madagascar and east of Kenya, and land at 3:59 p.m. Discovery would encounter the first traces of the atmosphere while flying over the South Pacific, just south of the Tropic of Capricorn and east of Australia and continue its flight over the Pacific, passing well South of the Hawaiian Islands before arriving on the west coast of the United States. As it heads into Edwards Air Force Base, Discovery will pass just south of the Santa Rosa and Santa Cruz Islands before crossing the California coastline over Los Angeles.

There is a second opportunity to Edwards with a deorbit burn starting the descent at 4:29 p.m. and landing at 5:35 p.m. A landing today brings to a close the 100th mission in Shuttle program history on a mission that paved the way for the first residents of the orbiting International Space Station.

The crewmembers were inside Zvezda monitoring the automated docking as ISS flew 220 statute miles above Central Asia near northern Kazakhstan at the time of contact and capture. Once leak checks are completed, Krikalev and Phillips will open the hatch to Progress later today and will begin to unload its contents on Sunday.

The supplies include food, fuel, oxygen and air, clothing, experiment hardware, and Russian spacesuit components. The more than 2,700 pounds of dry cargo contained in this supply ship also include a new water circulation device called a liquids unit for the Station's Elektron, the primary system for supplying oxygen for the crew to breathe and spare parts for the Vozdukh carbon dioxide removal system. Time is set aside in the crew's schedule Sept. 15 for installation of the new liquids unit to attempt to bring Elektron back into service, months after it failed.

The remainder of the Progress payload includes 1,763 pounds of propellant for the Russian thrusters, 242 pounds of oxygen and air in tanks as a backup supply for the oxygen generated by Elektron and 463 pounds of water to augment the supplies left by The Space Shuttle Discovery during the recent STS-114 mission.

Some of the clothing and personal effects delivered to the Station today include items for the next resident crew of the Station, Expedition 12 Commander and NASA Science Officer Bill McArthur and Flight Engineer Valery Tokarev. They are scheduled to launch from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan Oct. 1 on the Soyuz TMA-7 capsule.

Expedition 11 Commander Sergei Krikalev and NASA Science Officer John Phillips also spent some time packing up for their own return home, readying their launch and entry suits. They checked out the Soyuz spacecraft that brought them to the station April 16 to make sure it is ready to take them back to Earth.

The 12th crew of the station, Commander and NASA Science Officer William McArthur and Valery Tokarev, flight engineer and Soyuz commander, are scheduled to launch from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan tonight at about 10:55 p.m. CDT. NASA Television coverage of the launch will begin at 10 p.m.

The new crew is scheduled to dock with the station a little after 12:30 a.m. on Monday. NASA Television coverage of the docking will begin at 11p.m. Sunday.

With the Expedition 12 crew will be spaceflight participant Gregory Olsen, an American businessman traveling to the station under a contract with the Russian Federal Space Agency. He will spend about eight days on the station and return to Earth with Krikalev and Phillips. Their landing is scheduled for about 8:10 p.m. CDT Oct. 10 on the steppes of Kazakhstan.

Thursday managers at Mission Control Moscow said launch preparations were moving along flawlessly. Managers at Mission Control Houston said the station was ready to receive the new crew.

McArthur and Tokarev will spend the eight days they will share with their predecessors aboard the station in intensive handover briefings, learning about the spacecraft's systems, processes, procedures, scientific experiments, the location of equipment and supplies. In short, they will be trying to learn all they still need to know before they begin their months in orbit alone.

Krikalev and Phillips began the week with NASA flight controllers in Moscow exercising primary mission control. Mission Control Houston and the rest of Johnson Space Center were closed because of the threat of Hurricane Rita. Houston flight controllers resumed normal operations at 9 a.m. Monday.

On Tuesday Krikalev and Phillips each spent more than an hour familiarizing themselves with Olsen's scientific experiments. On Wednesday they continued preparations for arrival of the new crew, and on Thursday did predocking tests and more preparation for their own departure. Phillips regenerated METOX carbon dioxide absorbing cartridges for U.S. spacesuits. McArthur and Tokarev have a spacewalk scheduled in those suits in November.

Today's schedule includes maintenance of the Elektron oxygen generating system, functioning again after Krikalev replaced its liquids unit two weeks ago.

A Soyuz spacecraft carried Expedition 12 Commander and NASA Science Officer William McArthur and Flight Engineer Valery Tokarev to orbit. Gregory Olsen rode with them, beginning a 10-day space mission as part of a commercial contract with the Russian Federal Space Agency.

The Soyuz launched at 10:55 p.m. CDT from the Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan. At the time, the station was flying in a southeasterly direction about 230 miles above the South Pacific Ocean, off the coast of Chile. With Tokarev at the controls, the Soyuz is on course to catch up and dock with the station at 12:32 a.m. Monday, Oct. 3.

The hatches between the arriving Soyuz spacecraft and the station will be opened at about 3:25 a.m. Monday. Live NASA Television coverage of the docking will begin at 11 p.m. Sunday.

Tokarev and McArthur will stay aboard the station until the spring, while Olsen will spend eight days there conducting experiments.

Expedition 11 Commander Sergei Krikalev and Flight Engineer and NASA Science Officer John Phillips have been doing research and maintaining station systems since April. With Olsen, they will undock from the station and return to Earth Oct. 10.

With Expedition 12 Flight Engineer and Soyuz Commander Valery Tokarev at the controls, the Soyuz TMA-7 spacecraft automatically linked up to the Pirs Docking Compartment at 12:27 a.m. CDT as the Soyuz and the station flew over eastern Asia. Within minutes, hooks and latches between the two vehicles joined together to form a hard mate.

Aboard the Soyuz with Tokarev were NASA Expedition 12 Commander and Science Officer Bill McArthur and U.S. Spaceflight Participant Gregory Olsen, who will spend eight days on the complex under a commercial agreement with the Russian Federal Space Agency.

After two orbits worth of systems checks, hatches between the Soyuz and the station were opened at 3:36 a.m. CDT. Expedition 11 Commander Sergei Krikalev and NASA Flight Engineer and Science Officer John Phillips greeted their colleagues with handshakes and hugs and the traditional offering of bread and salt. The first activity scheduled for the five crewmembers was a safety briefing to familiarize the newly arrived trio with emergency escape procedures. For Krikalev and Phillips, today marked their 171st day in space and their 169th day on the station since they arrived in April.

McArthur and Tokarev will remain on board the station until April 2006. Olsen will return to Earth next week after eight days of scientific and photography experiments with Krikalev and Phillips in the Soyuz TMA-6 spacecraft that is docked to the Zarya module. The new crew launched Saturday from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan for its two-day journey to the outpost.

McArthur and Tokarev are scheduled to relocate the new Soyuz from Pirs to Zarya on Nov. 18.

Among the NASA officials on hand for the docking activities at the Russian Mission Control Center outside Moscow were William Gerstenmaier, NASA's associate administrator for space operations, and Bob Cabana, the deputy director of the Johnson Space Center.

Later today, before beginning an extended sleep period, the new crewmembers will transfer Olsen's custom-made Soyuz seatliner to the older Soyuz he will ride home in as well as cargo carried aloft on the new Soyuz for the complex. In addition, initial briefings on the handover from the current residents to their replacements will be conducted and the new Soyuz' systems will be deactivated.

Over the next week, McArthur and Tokarev will familiarize themselves with station systems and stowed equipment, conduct robotics training with the Canadarm2 robot arm, and receive detailed briefings on scientific payloads.

McArthur, Tokarev and Olsen arrived at the space station at 12:27 a.m. CDT Monday, Oct. 3, and entered the orbital laboratory at 3:36 a.m. For McArthur and Tokarev, the station will serve as home for the next six months.

The crews began joint activities with safety briefings and a review of emergency escape procedures. The remainder of the first day together for the two crews included initial handover briefings, deactivation of the Soyuz spacecraft and drying and stowage of the Russian Sokol spacesuits worn during launch.

Handover activities continued throughout the week. On Tuesday, Expedition 11 Flight Engineer John Phillips and McArthur reviewed robotic arm software that provides graphical depictions of the station's exterior to aid in arm operations. The following day, the two performed several maneuvers using the Canadarm2 to acquaint the new crew with how the robotic arm behaves in the space environment.

The crews also conducted experiments. The studies included the Intercellular Interactions experiment, a Russian study of the effect of microgravity on cell surfaces and intercellular interactions, and an experiment that studies the process of genetic material transmission in bacteria. Other experiment work included a study of the growth and development of higher plants in space, a study of changes in the human cardiovascular system in orbit and an investigation designed to help researchers understand the effect of radiation exposure on human organs.

The crews also fielded questions from media during a news conference and several interviews and received a special phone call from Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov. Fradkov congratulated the crews on their work and discussed his country's commitment to the international space station program.

Also this week, the crews installed radiation monitors and temperature sensor switching units, inspected U.S. emergency power supplies and smoke detectors, and replaced a laptop computer.

The crews will have some brief off-duty time this weekend, but will focus on completing handover and preparations for Expedition 11's return home. Expedition 11 Commander Sergei Krikalev and Phillips are scheduled to undock from the station at 4:43 p.m. CDT and land at 8:09 p.m. CDT on Monday in Kazakhstan.

NASA Television coverage of the crew's farewells will begin at 1 p.m. CDT Monday as they say their goodbyes and close the hatches between the station and the Soyuz spacecraft. NASA TV coverage of the undocking will begin at 4 p.m. CDT. Coverage of the deorbit burn will begin at 6:45 p.m. and continue through landing. The deorbit burn is scheduled for 7:19 p.m.

The Soyuz spacecraft with Krikalev, Phillips and Olsen landed in north-central Kazakhstan, about 53 miles (85 kilometers) northeast of Arkalyk, at 8:09 p.m. CDT. The crew's families will greet them at Star City, Russia, near Moscow, early tomorrow. Krikalev and Phillips will remain in Star City for post-flight debriefings before returning to Houston in late October. Krikalev and Phillips launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan, April 14. They spent 179 days, 23 minutes in space. During their mission, they welcomed the Space Shuttle Discovery crew as it returned the shuttle to flight on STS-114.

While on the station, Krikalev amassed more time in space than any human. He is a veteran of six spaceflights, including two to the Russian space station Mir, two shuttle flights, and the first international space station expedition. Krikalev has 803 days, 9 hours and 39 minutes of time in space. On Aug. 16, he surpassed the previous record set by Cosmonaut Sergei Avdeyev of 747 days, 14 hours and 14 minutes.

The new station crew, Expedition 12 Commander and NASA Science Officer Bill McArthur and Flight Engineer Valery Tokarev, will have light duty for the next few days as they rest from a busy handover. They will remain in orbit six months, during which they are planned to perform at least two spacewalks. The first spacewalk will occur in early November.

McArthur and Tokarev, veterans of shorter space shuttle flights, began familiarizing themselves with the nuances of a longer on orbit life. While becoming acquainted with their new microgravity home and laboratory, they did some routine maintenance work, exercised and conducted early experiment work. The crew also reviewed emergency procedures for departing the station, swapped a battery in the Zarya module and rearranged some stowage items in the Unity connecting node.

During McArthur and Tokarev's six months in orbit, they expect to perform at least two spacewalks, the first in early November. Before that, they will relocate their Soyuz spacecraft from the Russian Pirs docking port so it can be used for the spacewalks. In December, the Expedition 12 crew members expect to oversee the arrival of a new supply ship, the 20th Progress vehicle.

This week, McArthur set up a camera for a session of the Earth Knowledge Acquired by Middle School Students, or EarthKAM experiment. Using the Internet, students can control the special digital camera mounted on the space station to photograph coastlines, mountain ranges and other geographic items of interest. Thousands of students from 119 schools around the world are participating in the 20th session of this NASA education program.

Expedition 12 Commander and NASA Station Science Officer Bill McArthur and Flight Engineer Valery Tokarev this week began reviewing procedures for the extravehicular activity, or spacewalk, they will make on Nov. 7 using U.S. spacesuits and the Joint Quest airlock. The two priority tasks for the 5½-hour spacewalk are installation of a new video camera on the far end of the station's P1 (port) truss structure and removal of a probe that measured the electrical potential around the station from the top of its P6 truss element.

The station's atmosphere was repressurized with oxygen from storage tanks on the Progress supply ship today as Russian specialists prepare a troubleshooting plan to recover the Elektron, the primary oxygen generation system on the space station. The Elektron, which creates oxygen by breaking down water into its oxygen and hydrogen components, stopped working late last week when its supply of water was depleted sooner than was expected.

A Russian commission of technical specialists is looking into the cause of the abort of a planned altitude reboost Tuesday using Progress fuel and thrusters. Mission managers believe Russian navigation computers properly shut down the thrusters when they lost information on how those thrusters were actually performing. A test firing of the thrusters in question is planned for next Wednesday to gather more data for Russian engineers troubleshooting the issue.

This week McArthur checked out a new device to analyze exhaled gases inside the station. After more than eight years of design, development and testing on Earth by U.S. and European Space Agency (ESA) scientists, the Pulmonary Function System - originally slated to be launched to the station inside ESA's science laboratory Columbus - was delivered by space shuttle Discovery in July integrated into the second Human Research Facility (HRF). The first HRF was launched inside Destiny in February 2001.

McArthur and Tokarev conducted the first of three sessions with the Renal Stone experiment by collecting urine samples for later return to Earth and logging all of their food and drink consumed during a 24-hour period. This ongoing experiment investigates whether potassium citrate - proven to minimize kidney stone development on Earth - can be used to reduce the risk of kidney stone formation for crewmembers in space.

Because urine calcium levels are typically much higher in space, space travelers are susceptible to an increased risk of developing kidney stones. An understanding of the crew's diet during the urine collection timeframes will help researchers determine if the excess calcium in the urine is due to diet or a response to the microgravity environment.

NASA's payload operations team at the Marshall Space Flight Center coordinates U.S. science activities on the space station.

McArthur and Tokarev will be in orbit for six months conducting experiments, at least two spacewalks and overseeing arrival of the next Progress supply vehicle in December. They also will relocate their Soyuz crew module to free the Russian Pirs docking port for a later spacewalk. Pirs doubles as an airlock and docking module.

McArthur and Tokarev will mark five years of continuous human presence on the International Space Station Nov. 2. They are the 12th station crew. The first station crew, Commander Bill Shepherd, Flight Engineers Sergei Krikalev and Soyuz Commander Yuri Gidzenko, arrived at the fledgling complex Nov. 2, 2000. The size of an efficiency apartment at that time, the station has grown to a volume larger than the average three-bedroom house with the most sophisticated laboratory ever to fly in space.

McArthur and Tokarev sent an anniversary greeting this week to crews that have flown before and to the thousands that support the station in 16 nations around the world.

The crew devoted most of their attention to spacewalk preparations during the week. On Tuesday, they performed a checkout of the spacesuits they will wear. The spacewalk will be the first from the station to use U.S. spacesuits and originate from the Quest Airlock since April 2003. During their work outside, they will install a television camera important for future assembly work on the station's port side truss. They also plan to remove an experiment from the station's highest point, the top of the P6 truss, that measured the electrical environment around the exterior of the station.

On Wednesday, the crewmembers reviewed the procedures they will use to put on and take off the spacesuits, reviewed plans for the spacewalk and conferred with spacewalk specialists on the ground. On Thursday, they suited up and rehearsed the activities inside the station that they will perform outside the station Nov. 7. The spacewalk is scheduled to begin about 9:30 a.m. EDT.

All station systems are operating well. The Elektron oxygen-generating system, one of several methods of replenishing oxygen in the station cabin atmosphere, is functioning. It was restored to operation Saturday when Tokarev performed a maintenance procedure to purge air bubbles from its systems. Russian flight controllers completed a test firing of thrusters on the Progress cargo craft on Wednesday, thrusters that shut off early last week during a planned reboost of the complex. The thrusters were fired using a different manifold as Russian controllers continued to evaluate a loss of data from the system they had seen during the aborted reboost. During the test firing, the engines operated normally. They are planned to be used next for a reboost of the complex Nov. 10.

NASA’s payload operations team at the Marshall Space Flight Center coordinates U.S. science activities on the space station.

Following a review by station program management last week, managers Thursday gave the green light for the first station-based spacewalk using U.S. space suits since 2003. Station Commander Bill McArthur and Flight Engineer Valery Tokarev reviewed procedures and prepared tools for the spacewalk. It will begin at 9:30 a.m. EST Monday.

During the 5½-hour spacewalk, McArthur and Tokarev will install a TV camera on the station's port truss. The camera will be an important aid during future assembly work to add additional truss segments on the port side of the complex. They also plan to remove an old experiment from the top of the P6 truss, the station's highest point. The experiment measured the electrical environment around the station.

During interviews with reporters from ABC and CBS News Wednesday, McArthur and Tokarev discussed their upcoming spacewalk and marked the fifth anniversary of the start of a permanent human presence on the outpost. The first station crew, Commander Bill Shepherd and cosmonauts Sergei Krikalev and Yuri Gidzenko, arrived at the complex on Nov. 2, 2000.

During the first half of this week, McArthur and Tokarev focused on the maintenance of hardware. Monday they disassembled and measured air flow in the Trace Contaminant Control System. The hardware keeps a clean, healthy atmosphere by filtering out contaminants in the air. Engineers noticed a reduction in the air flow, and after the crew examined its components, determined that replacement hardware may need to be delivered on a future supply ship. After reassembling the device, the system is running at a slightly reduced capacity, complemented by a fully operational and complementary system in the Russian segment.

McArthur and Tokarev also replaced a faulty pump in a thermal control loop and smoke detectors in the Zvezda Service Module and cleaned ventilation filters in the Zarya module.

Commander Bill McArthur and Flight Engineer Valery Tokarev began their spacewalk from the Quest Airlock at 9:32 a.m. CST as they placed their suits on internal battery power. The spacewalk lasted 5 hours and 22 minutes. The spacewalk started about an hour later than planned. The crew had to repressurize the Quest airlock to open a misaligned valve in the interior portion of the two-chambered module. With the valve properly positioned, they again depressurized the outer chamber to begin their work outside.

Once out the door, McArthur and Tokarev made up the time easily and completed all of their primary tasks as well as some get-ahead jobs. They installed a television camera on the outboard end of the port truss segment. The camera will be an important aid during future assembly work when additional truss segments are added to the port side of the complex. The camera installation job had originally been planned to be performed during the STS-114 space shuttle mission of Discovery in August. It was not performed during that mission, however, when a job to remove gap fillers from the shuttle heat shield was added in its place.

McArthur and Tokarev first retrieved the camera’s stanchion from an external tool platform attached to Quest, brought the equipment out to the port truss, installed the camera on top of the stanchion and installed the hardware. The camera was powered up and provided its first views from space just before 12 p.m. Central time.

Next, flight controllers asked the spacewalkers to complete a get-ahead task by removing a failed electronics box called a Rotary Joint Motor Controller (RJMC). The RJMC will be returned on the next shuttle mission so engineers can determine why it failed. The analysis will be used to evaluate future similar hardware to be shipped to the station

The pair then moved hand over hand to the highest point of the station, the P6 truss, about 50 feet above the U.S. Destiny Lab. There, McArthur removed an old experiment called the Floating Potential Probe from its stand and pushed it away from the station. It floated up and behind the station. It is expected to burn up in the Earth’s atmosphere in about 100 days.

The experiment was installed during a station assembly mission in 2000 to characterize the electrical environment around the station’s solar arrays. Imagery from STS-114 showed that pieces of the experiment were missing or backing out of place. Since it was no longer used, managers decided to remove the unit and discard it.

The crewmembers then received approval to move ahead with the final get-ahead task before calling it a day. They quickly removed a failed circuit breaker from the Mobile Transporter (MT) and installed a new one. Called a Remote Power Control Module, the breaker provides power for redundant heating on the transporter. The transporter is a type of space rail car that can moves along the station's truss structure.

With all tasks completed, McArthur and Tokarev entered the airlock and began repressurizing it at 2:54 p.m. CST. It was the 63rd spacewalk in support of station assembly and maintenance, the 35th staged from the station and the 18th staged from Quest. It was the third spacewalk for McArthur and the first for Tokarev.

Expedition 12 Commander Bill McArthur and Flight Engineer Valery Tokarev will get a special musical wakeup call this weekend as Paul McCartney connects with them live from a concert in Anaheim, Calif. The call will take place at 11:55 p.m. CST Saturday and will be broadcast live on NASA Television.

The McCartney wakeup music for McArthur and Tokarev is a follow-up to a tribute he paid to the crew of Space Shuttle Discovery during the STS-114 mission in August, when the Beatles’ classic "Good Day Sunshine" was played as a wakeup call for Discovery’s crew on the day weather conditions became favorable for landing.

McArthur and Tokarev spent the week servicing the spacesuits they wore Monday for a 5 hour, 22 minute excursion outside the station. During the spacewalk, they installed a television camera, jettisoned an inactive science experiment and removed and replaced other equipment on the truss system of the complex.

The crew's second spacewalk is planned for Dec. 7. McArthur and Tokarev will don Russian Orlan spacesuits and exit the Pirs Docking Compartment airlock for that excursion. During the spacewalk, they will move a cargo crane adapter, collect science experiments from the hull of the Zvezda Service Module and manually launch an expired Russian spacesuit equipped with amateur radio equipment. Called SuitSat, the experiment is designed to see if ham radio contacts can be made with a free-flying transmitter.

To prepare for that spacewalk, McArthur and Tokarev will relocate their Soyuz spacecraft from the Pirs docking port to the nadir docking port of the Zarya module on Nov. 18, briefly leaving the station unoccupied.

Earlier today, four thruster engines on the ISS Progress 19 resupply craft were fired for more than 33 minutes in two separate reboost maneuvers to raise the altitude of the outpost. The station is now in a near circular orbit of 219 statute miles to accommodate the launch and docking of the next Progress cargo ship in December. The reboost was the longest ever completed using Progress engines.

On Wednesday, Tokarev replaced a control panel for the station’s toilet in Zvezda that had malfunctioned earlier in the week. The temporary loss of the use of the device's liquid disposal component had no impact on station operations. Following the troubleshooting, the toilet is now operating normally.

McArthur and Tokarev left the station unoccupied for about half an hour as they relocated the Soyuz TMA-7. Tokarev unodocked the Soyuz at 2:46 a.m. CST while the station orbited 225 miles above the south Atlantic just east of South America. They redocked to the Earth-facing port of the nearby Zarya module at 3:05 a.m. As they docked, the station was over the Sahara Desert as the recently installed Port 1 Truss television camera provided dramatic views of the operation.

The Soyuz move will allow the Pirs Docking Compartment to be used as an airlock for an upcoming Russian spacewalk. That spacewalk, to be the second of three possible spacewalks during their mission, currently is scheduled for Dec. 7. However, managers are reviewing the schedule and the spacewalk may be delayed to early next year to ease the crew's workload. McArthur and Tokarev must finish unpacking the ISS Progress 19 cargo ship now docked to the complex, prepare it for undocking and get ready for the Dec. 23 arrival of the next Progress supply ship.

Today, Tokarev, in the center seat of the Soyuz, disengaged hooks and latches holding the craft to Pirs and backed it about 80 feet away from the complex. With McArthur seated to his left, Tokarev piloted the Soyuz forward along the station about 45 feet. He then rotated the capsule to align it with Zarya’s docking port. A few minutes after the Soyuz linked up to Zarya, hooks and latches engaged, establishing a firm connection. The crew is scheduled to re-enter the station just before 9 a.m., after a series of leak checks are completed.

The Soyuz will be the crew's ride home at the end of its six-month stay on the orbiting laboratory. It also serves as a lifeboat in the event the crew must evacuate the station.

Earlier this week, McArthur spent several hours photographing samples of colloids that had been undisturbed in the station’s microgravity environment for more than a year. The work is part of an experiment called the Binary Colloidal Alloy Test. The behavior of these supercritical fluids is important because they combine the properties of liquids and gases. A better understanding of their reaction in the weightless environment of space could help in the development of new drugs, cleaner power and interplanetary transportation.

The crew will begin an extended sleep period at about 11:30 a.m. and will awaken about midnight Saturday to begin a weekend of light duty.

A Progress spacecraft launches from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 1:38 p.m. EST, Dec. 21. The 20th supply ship to visit the station will arrive at the Pirs docking compartment Dec. 23 at 2:54 p.m. EST.

Expedition 12 Commander Bill McArthur and Flight Engineer Valery Tokarev brushed up on operating a backup, manual docking system in case the standard automated one fails. The Progress will deliver 3,097 pounds of food, clothing, experiment hardware, spare parts and gifts; 1,940 pounds of propellant; 463 pounds of water; 183 pounds of oxygen and air. The Progress docked to the station will remain for several months along with the new craft.

The crew also performed biomedical experiments to study the impact of long-duration missions in space. Maintenance work this week included upgrading software on equipment racks in the Destiny laboratory; restoring the air conditioner in the crew health care system to full operation; and reactivating an air monitoring system.

McArthur completed refresher training with the station's Canadian-built robotic arm. He also videotaped a lesson on how station crews recycle supplies. The video demonstrates basic scientific principles and will be part of NASA educational products made available to schools across the country.

The 20th supply ship to visit the station lifted off at 1:38 p.m. EST. Less than 10 minutes later, the spacecraft reached orbit and successfully deployed its solar arrays and navigational antennas for the two-day trip.

Two pre-programmed firings of the craft's main engine later today will fine-tune the ship's path to the station. Additional rendezvous maneuvers are planned Thursday and Friday.

At launch time, Expedition 12 Commander Bill McArthur and Flight Engineer Valery Tokarev were flying 220 miles over the south Pacific, west of Chile. Flight controllers informed them of the launch as the Progress reached orbit.

The craft is carrying nearly three tons of food, water, fuel, oxygen, air, spare parts and holiday presents. It is scheduled to automatically dock to the station's Pirs Docking Compartment at 2:54 p.m. EST, Friday.

The Progress docked to the station's Zvezda Service Module's aft port will remain there until early March. The crew will stow trash in the Progress and use its oxygen supply to replenish station cabin atmosphere.

Engineers are studying data to learn what may have caused last Friday's severing of a cable that provides power, command and video connections to the Mobile Transporter rail car. Two redundant cable reels support the Mobile Transporter and Mobile Base System, a movable platform that allows the station's robotic arm to move back and forth along the truss during construction and maintenance work.

The Trailing Umbilical System 2 cable appears to have been cut by the system designed to sever it if it ever became snarled or tangled. Video down linked from station cameras confirmed the cable was cut. The Trailing Umbilical System 1 was not affected.

The inadvertent severing of the cable tripped one of two redundant circuit breakers on the S0 Truss, which provides power to the Mobile Transporter. The transporter is not scheduled to be used in the near future, but the severed Trailing Umbilical System 2 cable can be replaced through a spacewalk to provide the required redundancy.

An unpiloted Russian Progress cargo craft linked up automatically to the station's Pirs Docking Compartment at approximately 2:46 p.m. EST. The Progress was launched Wednesday from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

Commander Bill McArthur and Flight Engineer Valery Tokarev will open the hatch to Progress, when leak checks are completed later today. The crew begins unloading cargo this weekend.

The Progress holds 1,940 pounds of propellant for the station's Russian thrusters; 183 pounds of back up oxygen and air for the Russian Elektron system; and 463 pounds of water to augment onboard supplies. More than 3,000 pounds of spare parts, experiment hardware, life support components and holiday gifts round out the cargo.

The Progress that arrived Sept. 10 will remain docked until early March. The crew will stow trash in it, and on Dec. 31, use the remaining 43 kilograms (94.6 pounds) of oxygen in the craft's tanks to replenish station cabin pressure.

On Saturday, McArthur and Tokarev plan to document various experiments in both the U.S. and Russian station modules. They will celebrate Christmas talking with their families, viewing Earth from orbit and dining on packaged Russian foods. The meal includes fish, meat dishes, vegetables and pastries.

Earlier in the week, McArthur and Tokarev conducted routine servicing of environmental systems and filters and continued biomedical experiments. McArthur inspected seals around the hatches of the U.S. modules and down linked educational videos.

The videos explained the differences between U.S. and Russian spacesuits; demonstrated how materials are recycled on orbit; and how the principles of Newton's Laws of Motion affect life and work in the absence of gravity.

McArthur also operated the Capillary Flow-Contact Line and Binary Colloidal Alloy Test-3 (BCAT-3) experiments. Capillary flow is the key process used to move fluids in a microgravity environment. The Contact Line portion examines the interface between the liquid and solid surface of the container. The experiment investigates capillary and fluid flows in containers with complex shapes. Results could be used by designers of low gravity fluid systems in future spacecraft. BCAT-3 examines the behavior of particles suspended in liquids in microgravity with potential future commercial applications.

The Elektron oxygen-generation system in the Zvezda module remains up and running on its primary pump. It will be shut down on Dec. 28, and the crew will burn solid fuel oxygen generation candles for two days to recertify the system.

McArthur discussed life and work on the station with newspaper reporters from his home state of North Carolina. He also spoke about his mission with students from the Carman Park Elementary School in Flint, Mich.

On Christmas Day, Tokarev will have a ham radio discussion with operators at the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center in Star City, Russia. The purpose is to honor cosmonaut Gennady Strekalov, who died on Christmas Day one year ago at age 64. Strekalov was a veteran of five spaceflights.

On Sunday, Expedition 12 Commander Bill McArthur and Flight Engineer Valery Tokarev spoke with their families, friends and co-workers. They also feasted on a meal including Russian soup, bread and fish.

They opened gifts, including a Russian Santa Claus matryoshka doll, and chocolates. The gifts arrived last Friday in a recent cargo shipment. The crew took Monday off in observance of Christmas and will take next Monday off for New Year's. They plan to ring in 2006 with another Russian meal.

This week, the crew unloaded almost three tons of equipment and supplies from the Progress. The crew also logged their food intake and collected urine samples as part of a medical study to understand ways to prevent kidney stones in weightlessness.

There were no problems with station operations. The Elektron oxygen generation system was intentionally shut down to deplete the oxygen in the Progress supply ship that arrived in September. The crew had several special audio/visual linkups in observance of the holidays. They had a news conference with Russian media and a conversation with Grandfather Frost, Russia's version of Santa Claus who delivers presents to children on New Year's.

Sunday is the crew's 100th day in space.

Expedition 12 Commander Bill McArthur conducted ham radio contacts with schools during the week, and the crew unloaded cargo from the Progress spacecraft that docked to the Pirs Docking Compartment Dec. 23. The Progress that arrived in September is docked at the aft port of the Zvezda Service Module. The crew uses its oxygen to replenish the station's atmosphere. The Elektron oxygen generation system will be activated next week after being deliberately shut off in mid-December.

McArthur engaged in computer training for the Foot/Ground Reaction Forces during Space Flight experiment this week. It measures activity and pressure on the legs and feet of crew members while in microgravity. Results will help scientists determine how long-duration missions contribute to bone and muscle loss.

McArthur did a dry run to calibrate the experiment on Wednesday. He also reconfigured power supplies to the station's computers. On Thursday, he worked with the Binary Colloidal Alloy experiment, which looks at the behavior of fine particles suspended in a liquid in microgravity. Paint, milk and ink are common examples of colloids.

Flight Engineer Valery Tokarev worked much of the week setting up the "Matryoshka" radiation detection experiment. It measures crew radiation level exposure. He set up detectors around the station and spent time with a companion "Phantom" torso experiment, placing about 370 radiation detectors around the horizontally-sliced replica of the upper part of a human body. He mounted the dummy torso in the Pirs for data collection.

Throughout the week, the crew performed additional scientific experiments, installed batteries in the U.S. spacesuits, exercised and performed station maintenance.

The assembly will conserve station oxygen during spacewalk preparations when the space shuttle is docked to the complex. It allows the crew to breathe oxygen from the shuttle rather than use oxygen from station tanks, as they prepare for the spacewalk. The crew must breathe pure oxygen for an extended period before beginning a spacewalk to prevent decompression sickness. The new system will be used during the next shuttle mission.

McArthur wore customized Lycra cycling tights for a session of the Foot/Ground Reaction Forces during Spaceflight (FOOT) experiment. FOOT investigates the differences between use of the body's lower extremities on Earth and in space. McArthur wore the instrumented garb to measure joint angles, muscle activity, and forces on his feet during daily activities.

On Thursday, McArthur maneuvered the station's Canadarm2 robotic arm to provide TV images of an interface umbilical assembly. The assembly houses a contingency cable cutter for a line that provides power, data and video to the station's Mobile Transporter. The transporter is a rail car that travels along the station's truss. A second identical assembly on the other side of the transporter inadvertently cut a backup cable for the system last month. The camera views allowed engineers to survey the remaining intact assembly and cable. The crew will install a safety bolt in the intact system during a Feb. 2 spacewalk.

McArthur also maneuvered the arm, positioning cameras to survey a station port seal where shuttle cargo modules dock. Engineers used the view to inspect the Common Berthing Mechanism on the Unity module for possible debris, and then the arm was positioned to provide views of the upcoming spacewalk.

The Elektron oxygen-generation system was activated by Tokarev after being deliberately shut off in mid-December. The Elektron was turned off to use the oxygen supplies aboard the first of two Progress cargo carriers docked to the station. Tokarev also worked on a number of Russian science projects throughout the week.

McArthur answered student questions from Peterson Elementary School in his hometown of Red Springs, N.C. and from St. Albert the Great School in North Royalton, Ohio via ham radio. He also talked with high school students in Hiroshima, Japan.

As he ran 220 miles above the Earth on board the station, the runners circled Houston.

On Tuesday and Wednesday, McArthur, Flight Engineer Valery Tokarev and ground flight control teams rehearsed procedures for a rapid cabin air leak requiring station evacuation. Similar emergency procedures are regularly practiced by all station crews.

The crew is preparing for their second spacewalk. On Thursday, mission managers decided to delay the spacewalk from Feb. 2 to Feb. 3 to ease the crew's preparation schedule. Mission Control sent the crew detailed procedures for the spacewalk this week, and they reviewed them with experts on the ground. The crew began charging batteries and preparing the Pirs Docking Compartment airlock for the excursion. For the spacewalk, they will wear Russian Orlan-M spacesuits.

During the spacewalk, the crew will move a cargo boom adapter from one module to another; install a safety bolt into a cable cutter on the Mobile Transporter truss rail car; and deploy SuitSat, an old Orlan space suit equipped with an active amateur radio transmitter. SuitSat will remain in orbit for several weeks and allow contact with amateur radio operators on the ground.

Science operations this week included powering on the European Space Agency Protein Crystal Growth Monitoring by Digital Holographic Microscope for the International Space Station (PROMISS-4) experiment.

McArthur spent several hours setting up the Microgravity Science Glovebox and other support equipment early in the week. He began sample processing for the PROMISS experiment in the glove box on Thursday. The experiment will investigate the growth processes of proteins during weightless conditions using advanced imaging methods such as digital holography.

McArthur and Tokarev took time out from their duties on Friday to answer questions from students at the Kuss Middle School in Fall River, Mass.

Expedition 12 Commander Bill McArthur and Flight Engineer Valery Tokarev reviewed procedures, gathered tools and outfitted equipment for their Feb. 3 spacewalk.

The walk may last up to six hours. It begins at 5:20 p.m. EST. During the walk, the crew will release the unusual SuitSat satellite. It's an old Russian Orlan spacesuit outfitted with amateur radio equipment. It will fly freely for several weeks of scientific research and amateur radio tracking. Eventually, SuitSat will burn up in the atmosphere.

The crew will also install a safety bolt in an emergency cable cutting system on the station's mobile transporter rail car. The transporter is used to move a platform containing the station's robotic arm along the truss of the complex. Other spacewalk tasks include relocation of an adaptor for the Russian Strela boom. The crane-like Strela is used to move spacewalkers and cargo.

Managers decided to extend Expedition 12's mission and delay launch of Expedition 13 by one week. Expedition 13 is planned to launch on a Soyuz rocket from the Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan on March 29. It will dock on April 1. Expedition 12 is scheduled to return home April 8. The additional time will be used to prepare the Expedition 13 Soyuz spacecraft for flight.

The Protein Crystal Growth Monitoring by Digital Holographic Microscope for the International Space Station experiment operated on the station this week. The experiment uses diagnostic equipment to monitor the exact growth conditions of protein crystals. The experiment was activated Jan. 19. It operates for 15 days inside the Destiny Laboratory's Microgravity Science Glovebox. A better understanding of protein crystals may aid in the development of new medicines.

The ground-commanded Binary Colloidal Alloy Test captured time-lapse photography of its sixth sample using camera equipment borrowed from a student photography experiment called EarthKAM. The experiment studies the physics of the Earth's surface crystallization and fluids at their critical point. The payload operations team at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Ala., coordinates U.S. science activities on the station. As part of NASA's education programs, McArthur also videotaped a description of how astronauts stay oriented in weightlessness. The video will be used in classrooms and NASA educational products.

Called SuitSat, it faintly transmitted recorded voices of school children to amateur radio operators worldwide for a brief period before it ceased sending signals.

Expedition 12 Commander Bill McArthur and Flight Engineer Valery Tokarev ventured outside for a five-hour, 43-minute spacewalk to release SuitSat, conduct preventative maintenance to a cable-cutting device, retrieve experiments and photograph the station's exterior. Clad in Russian Orlan spacesuits, McArthur and Tokarev opened the hatch to begin the spacewalk at 5:44 p.m. EST. It was the fourth career spacewalk for McArthur and the second for Tokarev.

After setting up tools and equipment, they positioned the unneeded Orlan spacesuit on a ladder by the station's Pirs airlock hatch. The suit reached the end of its operational life for spacewalks in August 2004. It was outfitted by the crew with three batteries, internal sensors and a radio transmitter for this experiment.

The SuitSat provided recorded greetings in six languages to ham radio operators for about two orbits of the Earth before it stopped transmitting, perhaps due to its batteries failing in the cold environment of space, according to amateur radio coordinators affiliated with the station program. The suit will enter the atmosphere and burn up in a few weeks.

Tokarev pushed the suit away toward the aft end of the station as the complex flew 225 miles above the south central Pacific Ocean. The suit initially drifted away at a rate of about a half meter per second, slowly floating out of view below the Zvezda Service Module and its attached Progress cargo craft. The suit is now separating from the station at a rate of about six kilometers every 90 minutes.

McArthur and Tokarev then moved from Pirs to the Zarya module where they removed a hubcap-shaped grapple fixture adapter for the Strela crane. They moved the adapter to Pressurized Mating Adapter-3 on the Unity module. The Strela fixture was moved to prepare Zarya for the future temporary stowage of debris shields.

McArthur and Tokarev made their way to the center truss segment of the station, where they tried and failed to securely install a safety bolt in a contingency cutting device for one of two cables that provide power, data and video to the Mobile Transporter rail car. The transporter moves along the truss to correctly position the Canadarm2 robotic arm for assembly work. The Trailing Umbilical System cable on the nadir, or Earth-facing side of the transporter was inadvertently severed by its cutter on Dec. 16.

After several attempts to drive the bolt with a high-tech screwdriver, McArthur wire-tied the cable to a handrail instead. That left the cable out of its cutting mechanism, disabling the Transporter from further movement on the station's rail system for the time being. The Transporter is not needed for assembly work until the STS-115 mission to install additional truss segments.

The severed cable reel mechanism will be replaced during one of the three spacewalks by Discovery crewmembers Piers Sellers and Mike Fossum during the STS-121 space shuttle mission later this year.

McArthur and Tokarev moved back to Pirs. Once at the Russian airlock, they retrieved an experiment to study the effect of the space environment on microorganisms.

As their final spacewalk task, the crew photographed the exterior of Zvezda, including Russian sensors that measure micrometeoroid impacts, handrails, propulsion systems and a ham radio antenna. McArthur and Tokarev then returned to the Pirs airlock and closed the hatch at 11:27 p.m. EST. It was the 64th spacewalk in support of station assembly and maintenance, the 36th staged from the station, and the 17th conducted from Pirs. In all, station spacewalkers have accumulated 384 hours and 23 minutes outside the facility since December 1998.

Meanwhile in Russia, final preparations were made this week to ship the next Soyuz spacecraft from Moscow to the Baikonur Cosmodrome launch site in Kazakhstan. The spacecraft is scheduled to depart Monday and will launch the 13th station crew in late March.

During the week, the station was maneuvered through a new procedure using guidance and navigation computers in the Destiny laboratory to request firings of the thrusters on the Zvezda module while maintaining overall attitude control through the Control Moment Gyroscopes.

Expedition 12 Commander Bill McArthur and Flight Engineer Valery Tokarev spent several days replacing worn components, inspecting and cleaning other parts of the treadmill. The Treadmill Vibration Isolation System floats in a pit in the floor of the station's Zvezda living- quarters module. A complex system prevents crew treadmill running from shaking the station's structure and experiments.

Following a final test run and inspection on Wednesday, the crew began normal use of the treadmill. The treadmill is one of several exercise options available on the station. Other equipment includes a stationary bicycle and a resistive exercise device that uses tension to simulate weights. Exercise is important to counteract the physical effects of long duration weightlessness.

A special activity is planned next week to test procedures that could shorten the preparation time required for future spacewalks. The crew and Mission Control call it a "camp out" since McArthur and Tokarev will shut themselves in the Quest Airlock overnight. They will lower the air pressure to 10.2 pounds per square inch (psi). That is approximately equal to the air pressure found at the 10,000 foot elevation level on Earth. The station is kept at 14.7 psi, which is near Earth sea-level pressure.

Spending the night at the lower air pressure helps flush nitrogen from the body faster, preventing decompression sickness. The new procedure can reduce the amount of time crew must breathe pure oxygen before a spacewalk to complete the purge. For the test, the crew will follow many of the same measures as if performing a spacewalk, but they will not don their spacesuits. The crew will enter the airlock around the start of its sleep period Thursday afternoon. They will return to the main station modules early Friday morning.

In preparation for the camp out, McArthur worked in the Destiny Laboratory to replace a faulty component in the device that can measure the composition of the station's air. On Thursday, he installed a new spectrometer in the mass constituent analyzer. An attempt by Mission Control to power up the unit early Friday was unsuccessful, and McArthur was asked to do more troubleshooting. The problem may be the device's electrical connectors are not seating properly. Engineers are analyzing the problem, and McArthur may do more troubleshooting this weekend.

In science work this week, the EarthKam experiment completed its most recent session on Saturday. EarthKam uses a camera to take photos of Earth through the station's window of locations selected by students on Earth. More than 1,900 students from 118 schools participated in the session.

Schools participated from: the United States, Canada, Argentina, Germany, Spain, United Kingdom, Belgium, Japan, and, for the first time, New Zealand. The images will be used in a wide-range of studies, including coastline erosion, deforestation and environmental impacts. Approximately 1,000 schools have participated in EarthKAM, with students taking nearly 20,000 photos.

Expedition 12 Commander Bill McArthur and Flight Engineer Valery Tokarev spent the weekend restoring the station to its normal layout after the spacewalk. They dried their spacesuits to be ready for future spacewalks and reconfigured station systems.

The crew had off-duty time on Monday and Tuesday, and they completed post-spacewalk conferences with flight controllers and engineers. Other work included standard ground communications' checks with sites at White Sands, N.M., and Wallops Island, Va. Tuesday, McArthur transmitted a narrated video tour of the station, offering viewers a look at the interior, equipment and stowed supplies.

On Wednesday, Tokarev prepared the Progress cargo spacecraft docked to the station's Pirs Docking Compartment for a thruster test. Tokarev checked the Progress's attachments for leaks to ensure they were properly sealed. The Progress thrusters will be used to reboost the station's altitude tomorrow. This test will be the first time thrusters of a Progress docked to Pirs are used for a reboost.

The station's Elektron oxygen generator was reactivated yesterday. The unit was shut down for the spacewalk, and the station used oxygen from tanks in the Progress. Today, McArthur gathered data for the Foot/Ground Reaction Forces During Spaceflight experiment. It's designed to help develop ways to counteract lower body muscle and bone loss during long spaceflights. He wore cycling tights outfitted with 20 sensors, which measure hip, leg and ankle joint angles and lower extremity pressures during the experiment. It's conducted on four separate days evenly spaced through the six-month mission.

Managers decided to postpone the planned station "campout" this week until next month. It will test procedures to shorten the preparation required for spacewalks. It was delayed after a device called the Major Constituent Analyzer (MCA) could not be activated following maintenance work by the crew. The device measures the composition of the station's air.

McArthur replaced a major component of the MCA last week, the mass spectrometer, but attempts to activate the unit were unsuccessful. McArthur continued troubleshooting the device Saturday. Engineers suspect the problem may be damaged electrical connectors and are evaluating ways to fix them.

The crew began preparations for the next shuttle mission, STS-121, targeted for launch to the station no earlier than May. McArthur made room in the storage racks inside the Destiny lab for new equipment scheduled to arrive on Space Shuttle Discovery.

He cleared space in EXPRESS Rack 3 for a European Space Agency experiment facility called the European Modular Cultivation System. The facility will house biological experiments dealing with the effects of gravity on plant cells, roots and physiology.

Tokarev and McArthur also continued packing the station's Progress 19 cargo spacecraft with trash, readying it to undock March 3. The supply craft's thrusters were used a final time to reboost the station Wednesday, increasing the altitude by eight miles.

McArthur continued science work, performing his third session with an experiment called Foot/Ground Reaction Forces During Spaceflight. The experiment investigates how muscles and joints of the legs and feet are used differently in space than on Earth. To gather data, McArthur wore the instrumented Lower Extremity Monitoring Suit, which measures joint angles, muscle activity and forces on the feet as he exercised. The experiment measures the musculoskeletal system and may lead to a better understanding of bone loss during long-duration missions.

The SuitSat experiment, an unneeded Russian Orlan spacesuit-turned-satellite, has stopped sending signals. SuitSat was released by Tokarev during a spacewalk Feb. 3. It transmitted recorded voices of school children to amateur radio operators as it orbited the Earth. Hundreds of reports from individuals receiving the faint signal from all over the world were logged at the project's Web site.

Filled with trash and items no longer needed, the Progress 19 vehicle undocked from the Zvezda living quarters module at 5:06 a.m. EST. Three hours later, Russian flight controllers commanded its engines to fire to put it on course to plunge into the atmosphere and burn up over the Pacific Ocean. The cargo ship was docked to the station since September 2005.

The station's Progress 20 cargo vessel, which arrived in December 2005, remains attached to the Pirs Docking Compartment.

Also this week, McArthur replaced the trace contaminant control system in the Destiny Laboratory. The system removes impurities from the cabin air. It experienced a slightly degraded performance over the past few months, but is operating normally.

On Monday, McArthur will attempt to reconnect and activate the major constituent analyzer in Destiny. It is a mass spectrometer that measures compounds in the station's atmosphere. Efforts to activate the system two weeks ago were unsuccessful due to what is believed to be damaged or bent electrical connectors.

Once the device is activated, plans can resume for a crew "campout" in the Quest Airlock to test streamlined spacewalk preparation procedures. The new procedures will shorten the time needed to cleanse nitrogen from spacewalkers' bodies to prevent decompression sickness. For the test, the crew will spend the night in Quest at a reduced pressure, lessening the time needed to breathe pure oxygen in advance of a spacewalk.

The "campout" technique will be used for the first time for spacewalks on the STS-115 shuttle mission later this year. If the major constituent analyzer is successfully activated, the campout test will be scheduled around March 23.

McArthur continued preparations for the arrival of the next shuttle mission. Discovery is targeted for launch no earlier than May on that flight, designated STS-121. This week, McArthur put unneeded items in racks earmarked for return to Earth aboard Discovery.

McArthur and Tokarev will soon begin preparations for a short trip from the station. Managers have agreed on a tentative schedule on March 20 for the crew to relocate their Soyuz TMA-7 spacecraft from the Earth-facing docking port of the Zarya module to the aft docking port of Zvezda. McArthur and Tokarev will undock from Zarya and conduct a 37-minute flight to re-dock at Zvezda. The move will clear the Zarya port for the April 1 arrival of the Soyuz carrying the next station crew, Expedition 13.

Expedition 13 is commanded by Pavel Vinogradov. Jeff Williams is NASA Flight Engineer. Brazilian astronaut Marcos Pontes will fly with them to the station for a short stay, returning to Earth a week later with McArthur and Tokarev.

Next week, McArthur will brush up on his robotics skills, operating the Canadarm2 for engineering tests. The arm also will be remotely commanded by flight controllers in Houston. They will operate the arm to survey one of two integrated umbilical assembly mechanisms on the mobile transporter rail car. The assembly's cutting blade system malfunctioned Dec. 16, severing one of two umbilicals on the transporter. The assembly will be replaced on the second of the three spacewalks planned for Discovery's mission. Controllers also will use the arm to survey a vent port for the carbon dioxide removal assembly on the Destiny Laboratory.

Expedition 12 Commander Bill McArthur and Flight Engineer Valery Tokarev repaired a cabin air analyzer. They also completed a scientific study of the effects of weightlessness on the muscles, joints and bones of the lower body.

For the first time, Mission Control, Houston, moved the station's Canadarm2 robotic arm by remote control from the ground for normal station operations. Previous remote operations of the arm were done only as capability tests, but this week controllers used it to survey several exterior station components.

On Thursday and Friday, controllers used the arm's TV cameras to view one of two integrated umbilical assembly mechanisms on the station's mobile transporter rail car. One umbilical was cut when an ass