Shuttle, Station Crews Wrapping Up Joint Operations

(NASA) – The combined crews of Endeavour and the International Space Station will field questions from reporters during a Joint Crew News Conference at 9:39 p.m. EST. At 11:39 p.m., they will hold a ribbon-cutting ceremony to dedicate Tranquility and the cupola before closing hatches between the spacecraft at 2:34 a.m. Friday.

At 5:14 p.m. on Wednesday, all 11 astronauts and cosmonauts on the docked vehicles received a congratulatory phone call from President Barack Obama, who was accompanied at the White House by a dozen middle school students from across the country who are in Washington, D.C. for a national engineering competition.

An orbital sunrise is featured in this image photographed by Expedition 22 Flight Engineer Soichi Noguchi from a window in the newly-installed cupola of the International Space Station. Image credit: NASA