After a morning off, Discovery astronauts got back to work moving equipment and supplies to and from the International Space Station and preparing for Tuesday's spacewalk, the third and last planned for their mission.

Mission Specialists Rick Mastracchio and Clayton Anderson configured their tools in the Quest airlock. After a review of spacewalk procedures with other crew members, they will again spend the night in the airlock, its pressure reduced to 10.2 psi. That campout is aimed at reducing the nitrogen in their blood to avoid decompression sickness.

The spacewalk, replanned after difficulties bolting down an ammonia coolant tank on Sunday caused some rescheduling, is to begin at 3:11 a.m. EDT Tuesday and last 6½ hours. Activities include finishing the complicated change out of the large ammonia tank assembly, retrieving micrometeoroid shields from outside the airlock and retrieving a light-weight adapter plate assembly.

Fri, 09 Apr 2010 07:13:57 AM CDT

Spacewalkers Rick Mastracchio and Clay Anderson completed a six-hour, 27-minute spacewalk at 7:58 a.m. EDT. The pair finished all the primary jobs they were assigned and a few "get ahead" tasks that were added to their timeline.

This was the first of three STS-131 spacewalks, the 234th conducted by U.S. astronauts, and the second Mastracchio and Anderson have conducted together. It was the 141st in support of International Space Station assembly and maintenance, totaling 879 hours, 43 minutes. It was the 113th spacewalk out of the space station, totaling 692 hours, 28 minutes.

Mon, 05 Apr 2010 07:21:27 AM CDT

During a postlaunch news conference at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, the 6:21 a.m. EDT liftoff of space shuttle Discovery was hailed as a great success.

Calling the launch, "a great start to a great mission," Bill Gerstenmaier, associate administrator for Space Operations, said the successful liftoff was a tribute to the team at Kennedy that got the vehicle ready to fly.

Mike Moses, chair of the Mission Management Team, said it was, "a spectacular launch and picture-perfect countdown." He outlined a few minor technical issues that were recorded, but that the spacecraft and crew were ready to start an action-packed mission.

The space shuttle Discovery is set to launch April 5 on one of NASA's few remaining shuttle flights to the International Space Station, mission managers announced Friday after settling concerns over potential valve leaks.

Discovery is slated to blast off from a seaside launch pad at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 6:21 a.m. EDT (1021 GMT) on Easter Monday. It is one of NASA's final four shuttle missions before the fleet is retired later this year.

http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/sts131-shuttle-launch-date-set-1003...

Senator Kay Hutchison - in conjunction with Representatives Suzanne Kosmas and Bill Posey - has produced a 37 page Bill that proposes major refinements to NASA's FY2011 proposal, and NASA's forward plan. The Bill is centered around a shuttle extension to 2015, in support of fully utilizing the International Space Station (ISS), along with saving elements of Constellation - such as Orion and a Heavy Lift Launcher (HLV).

Shuttle Extension:

Efforts to reverse the 2010 retirement date of the shuttle fleet have been ongoing for a few years, without being realized - partly due to a lack of support from successive NASA administrators.

NASA will highlight the educational activities planned on the next space shuttle mission during a news briefing at 12 p.m. CDT, Tuesday, March 9. The briefing will originate from NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston and be carried live on NASA Television and the agency's Web site. Reporters will be able to ask questions from participating NASA locations.

Astronaut and former school teacher Ricky Arnold will be joined by Cindy McArthur from the Teaching from Space Office to discuss educational activities involving astronaut and former teacher Dottie Metcalf-Lindenburger during the STS-131 shuttle flight. Metcalf-Lindenburger will be the last of the three school teachers selected as mission specialists in the 2004 Educator Astronaut Class to fly on the space shuttle. Arnold and Joseph Acaba flew on the STS-119 shuttle mission in March 2009.

Florida lawmakers on Wednesday introduced legislation to extend the shuttle beyond its scheduled retirement this year and speed government development of a heavy-lift rocket.

The bill is designed to counter President Barack Obama's budget for NASA, which proposes abandoning the Constellation program to return people to the moon and would continue plans to retire the shuttle.

Obama wants to rely on Russian and commercial rockets to ferry supplies and people to the International Space Station, which he has proposed extending from 2015 to 2020.

http://www.space.com/news/florida-lawmakers

WASHINGTON â€" U.S. Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas) introduced legislation Wednesday that would keep NASA flying the space shuttle program two years beyond its planned 2010 retirement.

The proposed bill would also require the space agency to study options for a heavy-lift launcher that could be ready to deliver U.S. astronauts to the International Space Station by the end of 2013 and beyond low Earth orbit by the end of 2018.

Hutchison's bill, if enacted, would deal a setback to U.S. President Barack Obama's plan to retire NASA's space shuttle fleet after four more flights and rely on Russia, and eventually commercial U.S. firms to deliver crew and cargo to the orbiting outpost.

The hatches between space shuttle Endeavour and the International Space Station were closed at 3:08 a.m. EST Friday. During 9 days, 52 minutes of joint operations, the station got a new module and a viewport offering a valuable, enjoyable vantage.

Hatch closure came after a farewell ceremony by the two crews. Endeavour Commander George Zamka, Pilot Terry Virts and Mission Specialists Kathryn Hire, Stephen Robinson, Nicholas Patrick and Robert Behnken said their goodbyes in the Harmony module to Station Commander Jeff Williams and Flight Engineers Maxim Suraev, Oleg Kotov, Soichi Noguchi and T.J. Creamer.

With broad smiles and hearty hugs, the six Endeavour astronauts received a warm welcome as they entered the International Space Station just after 2:16 a.m. EST (0716 GMT). The two crews joined into one as the station flew 216 miles above the coast of western Australia. The two vehicles docked about two hours earlier.

"We're happy to see our friends," station commander Jeffrey Williams told his guests after they floated aboard. "Some of us are really happy because we haven't seen many people other than the crew for a long time."

The station is currently home to two American astronauts, two Russian cosmonauts and a Japanese astronaut. The station astronauts said they had made a special "Welcome" sign for their guests and greeted them with hearty laughs, at times saying "Welcome aboard!" and "It's good to see you!"