One of the first things on the mission plan was a PAO event last night. The crew did a great job of answering questions for an hour during a live underwater video interview. The participants included Florida Today, WMGE TV Portland Maine (Jessica's hometown), and Space.com.

We spoke with the crew this morning during our usual morning Daily Planning Conference (DPC). They were all healthy and happy to finally be "in sat." Their first 2.5-hour dive this morning will be a construction exercise called " waterlab." This interesting experiment gives the crew the opportunity to work as a team to build an underwater platform and stresses crew communication, preparation, and real-time analysis. The second dive of the day is a science dive where the crew will collect data on the condition and size of the coral community.

During the day today, the crew will also be using a specialized piece of equipment called the OTO Acoustic Measuring Device to measure the effects of pressure on hearing loss. This tool is eventually planned to measure hearing loss on the ISS.

At about 16:00 this afternoon, the crew will have been in saturation for 24 hours. This is an exciting milestone for them because by definition, they will truly have become "aquanauts." Also, Scott and Rex will join a very small and elite cadre of people including Scott Carpenter, Dave Williams, Mike Gernhardt, Mike Lopez-Alegria, Dan Tani and Jeff Williams to have both flown in space and lived undersea.

One of our goals in this program is that we try to make the missions as "flight like" as possible. To that end, we publish timelines, daily summaries, and event summary messages. We are happy to have Michelle Lucas, a Space Station OPS Planner on our team to generate these products. An example of her work last night is included (report).