The space shuttle Discovery and International Space Station crews woke at 6:23 a.m. EST to the song "Java Jive" by Manhattan Transfer, played for STS-133 commander Steve Lindsey.
Discovery's crew will spend much of their Sunday moving supplies from the shuttle's middeck to the space station. They will also prepare for their mission's first spacewalk on Monday.
About an hour into their day, the crew received word from Mission Control that they will not need to perform focused inspections of Discovery's heat shield, which would have occurred on Tuesday (Flight Day 6) if required.
"Great news for you, no focused inspections for Flight Day 6," spacecraft communicator, or capcom, Steve Robinson radioed from Houston. "That means we will replan Flight Day 6 per the way we had intended pre-flight, which is to further outfit the [Permanent Multipurpose Module] and a little transferring, too."
"Outstanding news!" replied Lindsey.
The 50-foot robotic arm extension, the orbiter boom sensor system, that Discovery's crew used to inspect their orbiter's thermal protection system before docking to the space station will be moved today from Discovery's payload bay to the end of the shuttle's robotic arm. The move will clear a pathway to transport the Permanent Multipurpose Module from Discovery to the station later in the mission.
Due to the position of the shuttle while docked at the space station, its robotic arm isn't able to pick the boom up on its own, and requires it to be handed off by the station's robotic arm. The Canadarm2 was moved into place for this activity overnight by robotics officers on the ground.
Lindsey, pilot Eric Boe, and mission specialists Nicole Stott and Michael Barratt will maneuver the shuttle and station arms for the boom's handoff.
All six of Discovery's crew members will devote much of the day, in total nine hours, to transferring cargo from the shuttle to the station. Over the course of their mission, the crew will move the more than 2,000 pounds of payload they brought up on the shuttle's middeck across the station's threshold and replace it by 2,600 pounds of cargo from the space station that Discovery will be returning to Earth.
Near the end of their day, the shuttle and station crews will get together to review the plan for Monday's spacewalk, the first during the STS-133 mission. Afterward, spacewalkers Steve Bowen and Alvin Drew will move into the station's Quest airlock, where they will spend the night at a lower air pressure to prepare their bodies for working outside the station.
Discovery's crew downlinked Sunday footage captured during their launch with a camera positioned in STS-133 pilot Eric Boe's window.
The footage, which was originally planned to be shared on launch day but was delayed due to bandwidth issues, shows Discovery's nose and the top of the external tank as the vehicle makes its 39th and final eight and a half minute climb into orbit.
Moving equipment and supplies between Discovery and the International Space Station, robotics activities, and preparation for Monday's six and a half hour spacewalk kept the STS-133 astronauts busy much of Sunday.
The STS-133 crew filmed highlights of their Flight Day 4 activities, which they then shared in this video that they assembled and downlinked at the end of their day.
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