It was moving day aboard the International Space Station as the Leonardo Multipurpose Logistics Module was relocated 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. 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 middeck to the station and configured the Quest airlock module for the first of three planned spacewalks, scheduled to begin Friday morning at about 1:40. Discovery Mission Specialists Rick Mastracchio and Clayton Anderson will serve as the spacewalk team for all three.
