This
story was updated at 4:10 p.m. EST.
HOUSTON — Seven astronauts on board
space shuttle Atlantis arrived at International Space Station (ISS) Saturday,
delivering a massive European science lab and a fresh crew member to the
growing orbital outpost.
STS-122
shuttle commander Stephen Frick piloted the 100-ton orbiter into position at
12:17 p.m. EST (1717 GMT) on the end of the space station's U.S. Harmony node,
where the European Space Agency's (ESA) Columbus
laboratory module will be installed.
"We have a great
view of ISS out the front window," Frick told Mission Control here at
Johnson Space Center (JSC) as Atlantis closed in on the orbital outpost.
"It looks tremendously bright and beautiful."
"Atlantis
arriving!" said Expedition
16 flight engineer Dan Tani as he rung the ceremonial docking bell on board
the space station. Hatches merged the two cheering crews around 1:40 p.m. EST
(1840 GMT).
Since docking, mission
controllers told astronauts on board the ISS that
they will be delaying tomorrow's spacewalk by 24 hours.
Chris Cassidy, spacecraft
communicator, also told the seven astronauts of the shuttle STS-122 crew and
the three Expedition 16 space station crew members that and ESA astronaut Hans Schlegel will be replaced by mission specialist Stanley
Love.
"We'll have [tomorrow's
plans] to you as soon as we have them," Cassidy said.
Orbital back-flip
Before Frick parked
Atlantis on orbit, however, the active Navy captain piloted the spacecraft into
a 360-degree back-flip below the space station around 11:25 p.m. EST (1625
GMT).
Expedition 16 space
station flight engineer Yuri Malenchenko and commander
Peggy Whitson took hundreds of images of the shuttle's underbelly during
the maneuver, which NASA specialists at JSC plan to pore over for any signs of
damage.
Mission managers John Shannon and Mike
Sarafin said Friday that there's no reason to believe launch inflicted any
Atlantis has suffered any damage during its heat shield, which protects the
spacecraft from the searing heat of a return to Earth. They cautioned, however,
that the images gathered from today's back-flip maneuver will be necessary to
clear the heat shield of damage.
Shuttle crew photos, in
fact, revealed what mission controllers referred to as a tear in a thermal
blanket of the shuttle's right Orbital
Maneuvering System (OMS) pod, located at the spacecraft's rear. NASA gave
special instructions to Whitson and Melenchenko to take extra photos of the
small, upturned flap there as well as an area on the shuttle's nose cone.
Big birthday present
Atlantis
ferried the 13.5-ton Columbus laboratory module to the space station today,
which coincides with Whitson's 48th birthday.
"My
present is a new module," Whitson said of the Columbus lab Friday. The
delivery kicks off a busy eight-to-nine days of on-orbit construction as the
shuttle-space-station complex travels more than 17,500 mph (28,200 kph) above
the Earth.
STS-122
mission specialists Rex Walheim and Hans Schlegel, an ESA astronaut, will
conduct the
first spacewalk on Sunday to prepare Columbus for attachment onto the
Harmony module. Once readied, lead robotic arm operator Leland Melvin will use
Atlantis' robotic arm to guide Columbus into place.
The third
and final spacewalk of the mission, slated to occur on Thursday, will outfit
the bus-sized laboratory with two external experiments.
The space
shuttle also delivered a fresh replacement for Tani, who has lived on orbit
since Oct. 12, 2007. The second ESA astronaut of the shuttle's crew —
Leopold Eyharts — now takes his place.
NASA is
broadcasting Atlantis' STS-122 mission live on NASA TV. Click here for SPACE.com's shuttle mission coverage and NASA TV feed.
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