As space shuttle Atlantis and the International Space Station sail above Earth today, the crews are enjoying some off-duty time after Wednesday’s busy spacewalk. Angela Merkel, the Chancellor of Germany, is scheduled to speak to shuttle and station astronauts today at 9:55 a.m. EST. Hans Schlegel, a German astronaut with the European Space Agency, helped activate Columbus, the station’s newest laboratory from Europe.

Image at right: Spacewalker Rex Walheim works in the payload bay of space shuttle Atlantis.

The astronauts also will prepare for Friday’s spacewalk, slated to begin at 8:35 a.m. Mission Specialists Rex Walheim and Stanley Love will spend tonight in the station’s Quest Airlock. The purpose of this “camp out” is to purge the nitrogen from their bodies before they exit the station.

On this third and final STS-122 excursion, Walheim and Love will install two payloads on Columbus’ exterior: SOLAR, an observatory to monitor the sun; and the European Technology Exposure Facility that will carry eight experiments requiring exposure to the space environment.

Image Credit: NASA TV