Mission Specialists Mike Fossum and Ron Garan completed the third STS-124 spacewalk at 4:28 p.m. EDT Sunday. Their excursion lasted six hours and 33 minutes.

Fossum and Garan accomplished all planned activities and several "get-ahead" tasks. They exchanged a depleted nitrogen tank assembly for a new one, removed thermal covers and launch locks from the Kibo laboratory, and reinstalled a repaired television camera. Fossum also retrieved samples of a dust-like substance from the left solar alpha rotary joint for analysis by experts on the ground.

The spacewalk was Fossum's sixth, Garan's third, the 112th spacewalk devoted to space station assembly and maintenance, and the 197th by U.S. astronauts.

The shuttle and station crews opened the hatches to the newly installed Japanese laboratory Kibo at 5:05 p.m. EDT Wednesday. The experiment module was installed on the Harmony Node's port side Tuesday.

Mission specialists Karen Nyberg and Akihiko Hoshide prepared Kibo for activation before opening the hatches. Shortly after entering Kibo, the crew members sampled the air and tested for contamination. Crew members wore protective goggles and masks inside Kibo until they were sure the Japanese lab's air was clean.

Mission specialists Mike Fossum and Ron Garan will review procedures for their second spacewalk and sleep in the U.S. Quest airlock overnight to purge the nitrogen from their bodies. During Thursday's spacewalk, the second of the mission, the spacewalkers will outfit the new lab and prepare the Japanese logistics module for relocation.

[img]http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/160328main_JPM_unberth.jpg[/img] Image above: A view of the Japanese Pressurized Module as it moves from space shuttle Discovery's payload bay to its new home on the station. Credit: NASA TV The crews of space shuttle Discovery and the International Space Station have completed the first of three spacewalks, attaching a new laboratory to the orbital outpost. During the excursion, spacewalkers retrieved a shuttle inspection tool, inspected components of a solar alpha rotary joint and prepared the largest component of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency's Kibo laboratory for installation on the station.

On Saturday, May 31, the space shuttle Discovery launched into the heavens carrying a crew of one Japanese and six American astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS); of the seven crew members, two are Amateur Radio operators. NASA's Greg Chamitoff, KD5PKZ, is the ISS Flight Engineer and Science Officer on Expedition 17 and will spend six months living and working onboard the ISS, returning home on Endeavour (STS-126), currently targeted for November 10. Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency's (JAXA) Akihiko Hoshide, KE5DNI, is a mission specialist.

Source http://www.arrl.org/news/st

Space shuttle Discovery docked with the International Space Station at 2:03 p.m. EDT, delivering the STS-124 crew, a new Japanese module and a new crew member to the orbital outpost.

Discovery carries with it the second component of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency's Kibo laboratory, the Japanese Pressurized Module (JPM). The 37-foot, 32,000-pound JPM will be attached to the left side of the Harmony connecting node by shuttle and station crew members during a series of three spacewalks. The JPM will join the first component of Kibo, the Japanese Logistics Module, which was launched on the last shuttle flight, STS-123, in March.