Astronauts entered a newly delivered International Space Station module for the first time Saturday as their colleagues prepared for a second spacewalk of the mission.
Italian Paolo Nespoli and space station commander Peggy Whitson of the United States opened the hatches to the Harmony module at 8:24 am (1224 GMT) Saturday and began preparing it for future work.
"For today, the biggest activity is to get the ventilation set up," Rick LaBrode, the Discovery mission manager, told reporters.
The bus-size module was attached to the station during the first spacewalk of the Discovery mission Friday. It will eventually connect together two Japanese and European scientific laboratories to be delivered to the ISS in the coming months.
"Everything is going great," LaBrode pointed out Saturday, assessing the mission. "We'll continue pressing on. Tomorrow is a great day."
Sunday's spacewalk that will be conducted by US astronauts Scott Parazynski and Daniel Tani will be used to begin moving to a new location a truss that supports a set of the station's key solar panels.
This reconfiguration is necessary to prepare the ISS for the arrival of the new laboratories, experts said.
ParazynskiandTaniwillstart their walk with disconntecting cables from the truss. Then, astronauts will use the spacestation'sroboticarmtomovethe truss toanovernightparkingposition.
Its installation in a new location will be completed during subsequent walks.
The Sunday spacewalkers will also completeexternaloutfittingofHarmonyandreplacearemotecircuitbreaker.
To prepare for the walk that is expected to begin at about 6:00 am (1000 GMT), ParazynskiandTaniwill camp out overnight in the station's airlock, NASA officials said.
During Discovery's two-week mission to the ISS, the astronauts are scheduled to perform a record five spacewalks, lasting a total of 30 hours.
