Six astronauts have two training-filled months
ahead as they prepare to haul new solar arrays towards the International Space
Station (ISS) aboard NASA Atlantis
orbiter in March.
Commanded
by veteran shuttle astronaut Rick Sturckow, Atlantis' six-member crew is
drilling through simulations and spacewalk rehearsals for their STS-117 mission,
NASA's first ISS
construction flight of 2007.
"Training
is going really well," Atlantis' STS-117 pilot Lee Archambault told SPACE.com
Friday. "We're ramping up now and we're really into the mission-specific
training."
Atlantis'
STS-117 crew is slated to launch spaceward no
earlier than 6:20 a.m. EDT (1020 GMT) on March 16 carrying the first starboard
pair of U.S.-built solar arrays to the ISS [image].
Riding up to the orbital laboratory with Sturckow and Archambault are mission
specialists James Reilly II, Patrick Forrester, Steven Swanson and John "Danny"
Olivas [image].
The STS-117
crew has several long mission simulations over the next few weeks, NASA spokesperson Kylie Clem, of the
agency's Johnson Space Center training site in Houston, told SPACE.com.
Among them is a multi-day session to first rehearse orbital inspections of
Atlantis' heat shield the day after launch, and then continue through ISS
docking activities on Flight Day 3 to the first of several planned spacewalks
during the mission, she added.
In
additional to delivering the two starboard solar arrays, Atlantis' STS-117
astronauts will help fold away the last of two solar wings extending from the
space station's mast-like
Port 6 (P6) truss.
Archambault
said he and his crewmates paid close attention to NASA's Discovery
shuttle flight last month, in which the orbiter's STS-116
astronaut crew wrangled the first P6 solar
array into its storage boxes [image].
"We can
benefit their experience and make our solar array retraction go a little bit
smoother," Archambault said, adding that he and his crewmates also studied NASA's
STS-115
shuttle flight in September 2006, which delivered
two portside solar arrays. "We watched them very closely...a lot of the things
they did on that mission we're going to have to do mimic, but just on the
opposite side of the space station."
The STS-117
solar arrays are the third of four U.S.-built power-generating wings to launch
towards the ISS before the station's planned completion in 2010 [image].
"Before we
can expand the space station any further, and that is add any more laboratories
such the Columbus
European laboratory and Japanese laboratory, we have to bring up the
capability to provide that power," said Archambault.
NASA is
aiming to launch up to five shuttle flights in 2007, all of which aimed at ISS
construction. The STS-117 spaceflight will mark Archambault's first spaceflight
since he joined NASA's Astronaut Corps in 1998.
"It's been
a long wait," Archambault said. "But I'm sure the wait will have been worth it."
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