LIVE: STS-124 Flight Day 12 - Undocking, Flyaround and Late Inspections

[elmarko]

Anyone recorded it?

[Chris Bergin]

ISS crew undocking video.

[psloss]

Really pretty video of sunrise on the station from the orbiter just now...

[postalworker]

Wonderful views from Discovery of the flyaround playback.  The sunrise over the mountain range below was breathtaking.  The shadow of the shuttle wing on the solar panel (at the beginning) was very cool, also.

[erioladastra]

I thought the solar panels were going to be feathered edge-on for undock to avoid shuttle burn contamination.  That's not the way they look in the attached pictures, why is that?

It is a balance between plume impingement, power load balance and shadowing of the array longerons (to prevent thermal buckling).  It is a VERY complicated compromise.

[erioladastra]

As it's still very quiet ahead of all the excitement later today I'm going to sneakily make a slightly OT post here.

I noticed this mission that the interaction of Volkov and Kononenko with the American (and Japanese) crewmembers was very relaxed and easy going. Lots of smiling going on. Very good obviously. I didn't notice this at all during expedition 16 where Malenchenko always seemed to try to hide from the camera's and seemed to be busy with his own program. During expedition 15 I noticed that mainly Kotov was more like Volkov and Kononenko.

It has a LOT to do with fluency.  The younger folks are much better at English.  Fyodor was very relaxed and involved in US PAO events, but Oleg was just more at ease with better English. 

[jmjawors]

LOL
"The purpose of any mission is to get a cool crew video and I think you've done very well on that"

-CAPCOM Drew

Now I really hope that someone got a recording of this.  None of that footage made it into the flight day highlights package.

[Chris Bergin]

LOL
"The purpose of any mission is to get a cool crew video and I think you've done very well on that"

-CAPCOM Drew

Now I really hope that someone got a recording of this.  None of that footage made it into the flight day highlights package.

Me too. It looked like it was more a personal video that was being downlinked, as PAO weren't talking over it and it was literally 10 second clips, then bluescreen, then another 10 second clip.

Hope John 44 caught it as it was hilarious.

[Chris Bergin]

Updated the latest article, as the latest results on L2 show the OBSS scans on Late Inspection to be positive so far.

http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/content/?cid=5446

[Felix]

[elmarko]

No FD13 thread yet?

Also, has anyone notice that the execute package that NASA.gov have uploaded for today is from STS-122?

[Spiff]

As it's still very quiet ahead of all the excitement later today I'm going to sneakily make a slightly OT post here.

I noticed this mission that the interaction of Volkov and Kononenko with the American (and Japanese) crewmembers was very relaxed and easy going. Lots of smiling going on. Very good obviously. I didn't notice this at all during expedition 16 where Malenchenko always seemed to try to hide from the camera's and seemed to be busy with his own program. During expedition 15 I noticed that mainly Kotov was more like Volkov and Kononenko.

It has a LOT to do with fluency.  The younger folks are much better at English.  Fyodor was very relaxed and involved in US PAO events, but Oleg was just more at ease with better English. 

Understand. Which begs the question: How fluent are the American ISS astronauts in the Russian language?
Example: I remember a PAO event during Exp 16/17 change where a Russian Journalist asked Peggy Whitson a question, and she had to look at Volkov first for some translations. Of course this could have been just to check, or, it was harder to understand over the radio, or it was an accent that she wasn't familiar with, or whatever. But I'm just wondering.

[erioladastra]

As it's still very quiet ahead of all the excitement later today I'm going to sneakily make a slightly OT post here.

I noticed this mission that the interaction of Volkov and Kononenko with the American (and Japanese) crewmembers was very relaxed and easy going. Lots of smiling going on. Very good obviously. I didn't notice this at all during expedition 16 where Malenchenko always seemed to try to hide from the camera's and seemed to be busy with his own program. During expedition 15 I noticed that mainly Kotov was more like Volkov and Kononenko.

It has a LOT to do with fluency.  The younger folks are much better at English.  Fyodor was very relaxed and involved in US PAO events, but Oleg was just more at ease with better English. 

Understand. Which begs the question: How fluent are the American ISS astronauts in the Russian language?
Example: I remember a PAO event during Exp 16/17 change where a Russian Journalist asked Peggy Whitson a question, and she had to look at Volkov first for some translations. Of course this could have been just to check, or, it was harder to understand over the radio, or it was an accent that she wasn't familiar with, or whatever. But I'm just wondering.

Peggy's Russian was very good.  I think if you look at her interviews you will see that she usually does that whether in Russian or English to sync up on an answer. Usually the language skills are passable though in an emergency or rapid speak it can be tough to follow (though there you then know key words).  Applies to both sides.

[fkrueger]

Id like to chime in and say a few words about this forum.  I currently am an electrical tech that is assigned to the mid body of OPF Bay 3 (Discovery currently parks there).  Anyway, I have followed everyones comments for a while and actually enjoy most of it.  The negative stuff can be a bit harsh from time to time but overall all of you forum subscribers do an incredible job at keeping everyone up to speed.  So in short thanks for everyones efforts and i looked foreward to my next "chime" in session.

[Spiff]

@ erioladastra:
Understand. Thank you for your answers.

[Moonbase_Alphan]

undock and flyaround pics started getting posted this morning at the imagery site. I'll put a few here and some hi-rez over in L2.

[Moonbase_Alphan]

two more

[Moonbase_Alphan]

and from the other direction