EarthKAM, mounted in the overhead starboard window of Endeavour's aft flight deck, lets middle school students take pictures of the Earth. They use interactive web pages to select photos. On four previous flights, EarthKAM took more than 2,000 photos. By early afternoon, more than 29 million square miles had been mapped, representing more than 61 percent of the planned coverage for the mission. That's equivalent to the combined area of North America, South America and Africa.
Additional steps are under review for their potential propellant-saving potential.
Optimism is increasing that these measures will enable Endeavour to complete its planned mapping operations. Endeavour continued without interruption, even without the availability of a small nitrogen thruster on the end of the extended boom. By midday, about 24 million square miles had been mapped once, and 9 million square miles twice. After only three days of flight, the mission has tripled the world's supply of digital terrain elevation data. The orbiter flies tail-first during mapping operations.