Then during the mission itself, I used the space shuttle's robot arm to release a satellite into orbit.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
I'll be the person using the shuttle robotic arm.
I wanted to get superimposed on a shuttle launch.
Shortly afterwards, I did a third one to repair the robotic arm of the station. This arm plays a very important role in the ongoing expansion of the station as well as in the deployment of solar panels.
The rocket had worked perfectly, and all I had to do was survive the reentry forces. You do it all, in a flight like that, in a rather short period of time, just 16 minutes as a matter of fact.
The nature of the shuttle was, we couldn't put a crew escape system in it.
When you see the orbiter headed out the launch pad and then crawling up the hill and being hard down on the pad, it does something to you.
When we did the pilot, I sort of pictured this guy pirating a signal and then this story unfolding of him building this satellite and these robots and watching these bad movies.
During that space walk there will be some repositioning of the power so that the arm can be fully controlled by the robotic station that is in the Lab.
I witnessed the building of the Space Shuttle Columbia, the first orbiter to be launched into space.
We didn't use the shuttle robot arm before, so this has been a training flow to get ready for that.