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[[image of Space Shuttle] Insight the Shuttle: The Astronaut's Day The astronauts' time is tightly scheduled, and their activities are closely followed by Mission Control (and by us at KidSat). This section will describe the astronauts' schedule, and how the astronauts know what to do and when to do it. How do the astronauts start their day? The astronauts start their day just like people on Earth do, with a wake-up call. Except this wake-up call is given by Mission Control. Then they spend the first few hours getting ready for their day: they brush their teeth, get dressed, eat breakfast, and read "mail" sent up from Mission Control during the night. How do the astronauts keep track of time? What time zone are the astronauts in? The space shuttle moves so fast (once around the world in 90 minutes!) that it passes through a time zone in only about 4 minutes. To solve the problem of "what time zone to use", the astronauts and mission control keep track of their own "space shuttle time". At the instant of launch, the space shuttle clocks begin keeping track of "Mission Elapsed Time" (MET): the amount of time that has passed since launch. The astronauts set their watches to this time, and Mission Control in Houston sets its clocks to this time. During STS-81, you will set a clock in your classroom to Mission Elapsed Time. For example, 1 hour and 3 minutes after launch, your clock should read 1:03. All events on the space shuttle are scheduled by MET. EXAMPLE: An astronaut turns a computer on 4 hours and 21 minutes after launch. That astronaut will tell Mission Control: "Computer on at 4:21 MET". MET will be used extensively during KidSat operations. This is the time you'll use to tell the KidSat camera when to take a picture. To schedule KidSat photos, MET is expressed in days, hours, minutes and seconds after launch in the following format: days/hours:minutes:second (using two digits for each) 07/10/96 Page 3.13
