Space Shuttle Atlantis Primed for Last Trip Home
This
story was updated at 2:20 p.m. EDT.
The six astronauts flying aboard space
shuttle Atlantis worked Tuesday to prepare their spacecraft for its final
planned return to Earth.
STS-132 mission commander Ken Ham, pilot
Dominic ?Tony? Antonelli and mission specialists
Garrett Reisman, Piers Sellers, Stephen Bowen and
Michael Good spent the day packing supplies, stowing equipment and testing
Atlantis? flight control systems, all in an effort to bring the shuttle to a
landing at NASA?s Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida on Wednesday.
Their first opportunity to land, weather
permitting, is targeted for 8:48 a.m. EDT (1248 GMT).
A chance of showers within about 30 miles of
Atlantis' landing strip poses the only concern, entry flight director Tony Ceccacci said. NASA is still hopeful despite Florida's
reputation for rainy summer weather, he added.
"It's a 50-50 chance no matter what the
forecast says," Ceccacci said.
Today, mission managers also cleared Atlantis
of any concerns related to its heat
shield after reviewing data beamed to Mission Control from a Monday
inspection to seek out signs of orbital debris damage. While engineers on Earth
tackled that, the shuttle crew prepared Atlantis to once again fly in Earth's
atmosphere.
?The crew will power up one of the auxiliary
power units that provide its hydraulic power to the aerosurfaces
on Atlantis
and they will check those out along with some navigational aids that are used
to find the landing site,? described lead shuttle flight director Mike Sarafin on Monday. ?Once those are complete, the crew will
proceed into some cabin stow activities and Atlantis will be ready to come
home.?
?The crew is doing exceedingly well and we
all look forward if all goes well, to the return of Atlantis to the Kennedy
Space Center,? Sarafin added.
Atlantis
launched May 14 and has enough supplies to stay in orbit through Saturday.
NASA has planned two landing attempts into KSC on Wednesday and two more on
Thursday before calling up back-up sites at Edwards Air Force Base in
California and in White Sands, New Mexico.
?We may get lucky and land on the first
attempt and the weather may cooperate, or we may have to go around another day
or two. We?ll just have to see how that plays out,? Sarafin
said.
Other activities scheduled for today aboard
Atlantis included the astronauts stowing the high bandwidth antenna through
which they have been relaying live and recorded video, as well as exercise
sessions to help prepare the crew for their return to gravity.
The shuttle astronauts also tool time to
speak with reporters, including ABC News and trade
jokes with Stephen Colbert, the comedian host of Comedy Central?s ?The
Colbert Report."
NASA currently plans to retire
Atlantis after this flight, but will ready the spacecraft to serve as a
rescue ship as a safety precaution for the agency's final space shuttle mission
slated to fly in late November. NASA and some lawmakers have been lobbying to
take that rescue mission and turn it into a full-fledged extra shuttle flight
for Atlantis, but the space agency has not yet received approval to add the
mission to its schedule.
After Atlantis lands, only two more shuttle
flights remain, on shuttles Discovery and Endeavour, before the orbiter fleet
is retired. President Obama?s proposal for NASA?s
future post-shuttle is for new technology development and launch vehicles aimed
at sending astronauts to an asteroid or Mars.
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SPACE.com is
providing complete coverage of Atlantis' STS-132 mission to the International
Space Station with Senior Writer Clara Moskowitz and Managing Editor Tariq
Malik based in New York. Click
here for shuttle mission updates and a link to NASA TV.









