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Grades 4-6

Power to the Space Station

Welcome! We are dang glad to see you," said Mike Fincke, an astronaut aboard the International Space Station (ISS). He greeted the crew of NASA's space shuttle Discovery as they came aboard the orbiting space lab on March 17. As the crews shook hands and hugged, the ISS was 220 miles above Australia.

One of Discovery's seven crew members, Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata, will stay in space for at least three months. Wakata will replace U.S. astronaut Sandra Magnus on the three-person permanent ISS crew.

Discovery was launched on March 15. It was scheduled to spend eight days docked at the ISS. The space shuttle carried two 115-foot-solar panels that will produce electricity for the ISS. They can generate enough energy to power more than 40 average homes. The solar wings that already were on the space station power day-to-day operations. The energy from the new panels will power scientific research. Discovery and ISS astronauts trained together to perform the three spacewalks necessary to install the final set of solar wings. With the wings, the 10-year-old ISS will be at full power.

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