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![]() Space station astronauts unpack bags
Over 1.5 tonnes of equipment will be transferred
The highly-trained crew of the Space Shuttle Discovery worked as baggage handlers on Tuesday, as they unpacked supplies into the International Space Station.
Included in the supplies are tools, spare parts, computers, water, clothes and even exit signs ready to be fitted. The will make the ISS habitable for its first residents who arrive next March. However, flight director Wayne Hale said: "It's not real easy. Every single bag, every single item has got an exact place it's supposed to go. It reminds me a lot of packing for going on a long camping trip."
The astronauts went to bed on Tuesday with over half the material transferred and stowed. Repair job Monday's work had involved repairs and these have mostly gone well. A broken Earth-ISS communication system on the US-built Unity module was fixed by replacing two electronics boxes. On the Russian-built Zarya module, 18 faulty meters were successfully replaced on six batteries which store solar power. But the foam sound mufflers fitted over noisy fans and ducts inside Zarya had an unexpected effect - the relative humidity rose to 60%. This occurred because a kink in one of the mufflers hampered the air flow in one spot.
The temperature in the space station was also up this morning, to a warm 25 Celsius (78 Fahrenheit). When the astronauts entered the ISS, the temperature was only 13 Celsius (55 F). Home on Sunday The hatches to the ISS will be sealed early on Thursday and Discovery will then pull away. The shuttle is due back on Earth on Sunday. The $60bn ISS construction programme is the first truly international space mission. It brings the US, Russia, Japan, Canada and Brazil together with the 11 members of the European Space Agency. The current mission, STS-96, is the first construction activity on the ISS since the first two pieces - Zarya and Unity - were launched late last year. It is due to be completed by 2005 after an estimated 158 more spacewalks.
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See also:
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27 May 99 | ISS
30 May 99 | ISS
30 May 99 | ISS
31 May 99 | ISS
31 May 99 | ISS
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