Veteran astronaut Eileen Collins, commander of Discovery's STS-114
mission, manually guided the orbiter in a backflip—known as the Rendezvous
Pitch Maneuver—to allow astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS)
to photograph the shuttle's bell
Veteran
astronaut Eileen Collins, commander of Discovery's STS-114 mission, manually
guided the orbiter in a backflip—known as the
Rendezvous Pitch Maneuver—to allow astronauts aboard the International Space Station
(ISS) to photograph the shuttle's belly-mounted heat resistant tiles.
The procedure occurred
early Thursday morning, July 28, just prior to the shuttle docking with the ISS.
The station's Expedition 11 crew, SergeiKrikalev and John Phillips had about 1 minute and 40
seconds – a bit longer than the 93 seconds they trained for—to take a carefully
rehearsed set of photographs to record the state of Discovery’s belly tiles,
which protect the orbiter from the searing heat of reentry during landings.
Image credit: NASA
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