ISS prepared for upcoming Soyuz TMA-11

A station reboost is planned for Sept. 24. The orbital firing will put the ISS in the correct attitude for the upcoming Soyuz TMA-11 and Space Shuttle Discovery dockings in October. With the Progress 25 undocking on Sept. 18, the aft port of the Zvezda service module is open and ready for the relocation of the Soyuz TMA-10 on Sept. 27. The relocation opens up the Zarya nadir, or earth-facing, port for the arrival of Expedition 16 in its Soyuz TMA-11 on Oct. 12. Discovery arrives Oct. 25 on the STS-120 mission bringing with it the Harmony Node 2. Harmony enables the station to add two new European and Japanese space laboratories on upcoming missions. Aboard the station, Commander Fyodor Yurchikhin and flight engineers Oleg Kotov and Clay Anderson continue packing items for return to Earth aboard Discovery. The crew members also measured their body mass. The measurements are taken to study the effects of microgravity on astronauts’ bodies.