Update on Discovery

The crews of Space Shuttle Discovery and the International Space Station have both been busy since Sunday's launch. Discovery's primary mission is to deliver the last set of solar panels to the space station. This will increase the amount of power available up there for scientific experiments. They are about halfway through their two-week mission, and here's a short recap of what's been going on:

Sunday evening: launch

Monday: One of the biggest jobs on Monday was to use specialized cameras mounted on the shuttle's robotic arm to inspect the exterior of the shuttle for any damage that was sustained during launch.

Tuesday: On Tuesday Discovery docked with the International Space Station. The two crews exchanged personnel...one astronaut will be leaving the ISS after several months in orbit and returning to earth aboard Discovery. One member of Discovery's crew will stay aboard the ISS when Discovery departs. (It's like a space version of "Red Rover".)

Wednesday: The shuttle and space station worked together to unload a "truss" which will support the new solar panels.

Thursday: Two astronauts performed a 6-hour spacewalk to install the truss that was deployed on Wednesday.

Friday: The new solar wings were deployed on Friday. They will be installed during later spacewalks.

Saturday: A second spacewalk, this time lasting 6.5 hours. The objectives of this one appeared to be some work in preparation for later missions to the ISS.

Sunday: The shuttle and space station performed a maneuver today that slowed down their combined orbit slightly. This was important to allow them to "dodge" a 4-inch piece of space debris. The third and final scheduled spacewalk will happen tomorrow.

NASA's website has a ton of great information and pictures of this (and other) missions. It's definitely worth taking some time to check it out. Also, if you're really interested in this stuff, there's a 45 minute animated video on YouTube that details the entire mission.