The space Discovery’s crew began unloading the Leo nardo Multipurpose Logistics Module, relocating the cargo from Discovery’s payload bay to a port on the Harmony node at 12:24 a.m. EDT Thursday.
The Italian-built module’s more than 17,000 pounds of cargo includes
four experiment racks along with the final private crew quarters.
This is the final roundtrip to the station for the 21-foot-long,
15-foot-diameter Leonardo, often described as the bus. Once back on
Earth, the module will be reconfigured with increased shielding on the
outside for the STS-133 mission in September when it will be left on
the station as a permanent module.
Crew members continued the transfer of items from Discovery’s mid-deck
to the ISS (International Space Station) and configured the Quest
airlock module for the first of three planned spacewalks, scheduled to
begin Friday morning at about 1:40 a.m. EDT. Discovery Mission
Specialists Rick Mastracchio and Clayton Anderson will serve as the
spacewalk team for all three.
On April 9, shuttle Pilot James P. Dutton Jr. joined Mastracchio and
Anderson to review procedures for the first spacewalk of the mission.
Anderson and Mastracchio will end their day preparing for Friday
morning’s spacewalk by camping overnight in Quest.