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Space station officially changes command

Frank Culbertson, far right, takes command from Yury Usachev, far left
Frank Culbertson, far right, takes command from Yury Usachev, far left  


(CNN) -- Space station Alpha officially is under the command of U.S. astronaut Frank Culbertson, after a ceremonial handshake from departing Russian commander Yury Usachev Friday afternoon.

"Now it's time to pass the station from our hands to your hands, from our minds to your minds, and from our hearts to your hearts," Usachev said. "I would like to pass my responsibilities as the commander to incoming commander Frank Culbertson."

Using NASA's designation for the crews, Culbertson accepted command.

"Expedition 2, Expedition 3 accepts the station from your hands to our hands, from your minds to our minds," Culbertson said. "We will continue what you started. We are very honored to do so. And to the mission control centers, to Houston, Expedition 3 has taken command of the station."

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Culbertson actually took over as commander of Alpha on August 13, but the ceremony gave the two men a chance to comment on their job swap. Both commanders made comments in English and Russian. Russians and Americans are rotating command of the station.

As Culbertson and Usachev spoke, they were surrounded by their crewmates: Expedition 2 engineers Jim Voss and Susan Helms; Expedition 3 engineers Vladimir Dezhurov and Mikhail Tyurin, and the four Discovery astronauts -- Scott Horowitz, Rick Sturckow, Dan Barry and Pat Forrester.

The new space station crew will spend four months on Alpha.

Packing for home continues

Meanwhile, packing the shuttle for the trip home still is the top priority for the astronauts and cosmonauts.

NASA gave the green light for a second spacewalk for two shuttle Discovery astronauts on Saturday, after clearing up concerns about finishing the packing job.

"We plan to do EVA (extravehicular activity) 2 tomorrow," said Canadian astronaut Steve MacLean at Mission Control in Houston. "All this is based on the caveat that we do well with transfer."

The transfer of trash, clothes and used equipment from Alpha to the Leonardo cargo module and the shuttle's mid-deck must be completed before the shuttle can undock from the space station. The items will be returned to Earth for disposal or recycling.

Dan Barry, with the red bands on his spacesuit legs, hands a MISSE suitcase to fellow spacewalker Pat Forrester.
Dan Barry, with the red bands on his spacesuit legs, hands a MISSE suitcase to fellow spacewalker Pat Forrester.  

If the crews of the shuttle and space station run into any problems that slow down the transfer process, the spacewalk still could be scratched, according to MacLean.

The second spacewalk is scheduled to begin Saturday at 10:15 a.m. EDT and last for about 6 hours. Astronauts Dan Barry and Pat Forrester, who successfully completed the first spacewalk on Thursday, will hang cables on the outside of Alpha in preparation for a future station assembly mission.

Spacewalkers hang equipment and experiments

Barry and Forrester on Thursday spent 6 hours and 16 minutes outside. They attached a device called the Early Ammonia Servicer to the exterior of the space station. The unit contains spare ammonia for the station's cooling system.

MISSE samples will be exposed to space for more than a year.
MISSE samples will be exposed to space for more than a year.  

They also snapped on two packages of experiments to the station's Quest module. Called the Materials International Space Station Experiments, or MISSE, the suitcase-like containers were the first experiments to be mounted on the outside of Alpha.

The MISSE containers hold a total of 750 samples of spores, seeds, coatings and other items, including some that were originally flown on the Russian Mir space station. They will be retrieved and returned to Earth in about 18 months, according to William Kinard, a senior research scientist at NASA's Langley Research Center which manages the project.

Researchers are flying the samples to get a better understanding of how the items hold up in the harsh space environment.

"These are materials that are planned for use on future spacecraft," Kinard said. "We're getting an opportunity now using the space station as a host to expose these experiments to the space environment and see how they survive and how they perform."

A second set of MISSE samples later will replace the set deployed on Thursday, according to Kinard.

Alpha still is growing

Space station Alpha
Space station Alpha  

Thursday marked the one-thousandth day in space for the first component of the space station -- the Russian-built Zarya module. Zarya was launched on November 20, 1998 on a Proton rocket.

Next month, a new Russian docking module will become the latest addition to Alpha. Russian flight controllers reloaded a software upgrade into the computers of the Zvezda module to prepare for the arrival of the docking port.

The Russians also are preparing to launch a Progress supply ship to the space station on Tuesday. The ship is slated to dock with Alpha on August 23.

Discovery, meanwhile, is scheduled to undock from Alpha on August 20 and land at Kennedy Space Center on August 22 at 12:48 p.m. EDT.






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