The three crew members of the ISS - Mike Fincke, Yury Lonchakov and Sandy Magnus - were very happy to see new faces and they greeted the members of the Discovery space shuttle accordingly.

 

The crew of the space shuttle consists of Commander Lee Archambault, Pilot Tony Antonelli, Mission Specialists Joseph Acaba, John Phillips, Steve Swanson, Richard Arnold and Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata. 

 

Koichi Wakata will replace Sandy Magnus on the ISS. 

 

The STS-119 mission will take 13 days during which the astronauts will work together to install the two solar panels the space shuttle brought with it. The Discovery also brought a new distiller for the urine recycling system of the space station. The processor NASA sent in November malfunctioned repeatedly. 

 

Astronauts aboard the ISS and the Discovery will start working late Wednesday morning. Then they will lift the framework holding the solar wings out of the space shuttle’s payload bay. The $300 million solar panels will be installed Thursday when two spacewalks are scheduled in order to accomplish that goal of the mission. The two panels are the last pair of solar wings to be installed on to ISS.

 

By installing the new solar wings, NASA is boosting the electric power aboard the ISS, thus enhancing the station’s capability to host three more members.