The crew of the shuttle Atlantis plans to spend today wrapping
up work at the International Space Station (ISS) in preparation for departure
tomorrow.
The seven STS-129 astronauts, led by commander Charlie Hobaugh,
have had a busy week docked at the orbiting laboratory, where they've completed
three
spacewalks and complicated robotic work to deliver about 15 tons of spare
supplies. They plan to spend Tuesday transferring the last of their cargo to
the ISS and loading any equipment that needs to be carried back to Earth.
The home-bound
spaceflyers will say goodbye to the five long-term station residents in the
afternoon and close the hatches between the two vehicles at 12:28 p.m. EST
(1728 GMT). Atlantis is set to undock from the outpost early Wednesday.
"We expect a busy day onboard the space station
tomorrow to get all our final
items transferred and the hatch closed on time," lead station flight
director Brian Smith said Monday. "The mission is proceeding well."
Atlantis will be leaving with one more person than it came
with, as station flight engineer Nicole Stott, a NASA astronaut, is due to end
her three-month space tenure and fly home with the STS-129 crew.
"One of our primary goals is bring Nicole Stott back,
so we will not close the hatches if at all possible without her on the shuttle
side and we'll bring her home," STS-129 mission specialist Mike Foreman
said in a preflight interview.
The shuttle astronauts must pack up the spacesuits used for
the mission's spacewalks and move them back to the orbiter, as well as check
out the tools they will need for undocking and returning to Earth.
One spaceflyer especially eager to come back to the ground
is mission specialist Randy Bresnik, who made his first voyage to space on this
trip. Early Sunday, Bresnik's wife Rebecca gave birth to the couple's second
child, a girl
named Abigail.
The astronaut has had to balance focusing on his mission
with missing his family back home. In fact, his wife was laboring to give birth
while Bresnik was making his first spacewalk. Despite the potential for
distraction, the spacewalk went off without a hitch and mission managers said
he performed admirably.
"Randy was completely focused on the mission and that's
exactly how it should be," Smith said.
The STS-129 spaceflyers will also get some time off today to
rest up for the final leg of their space journey. Before they close the hatches
on the station they will take part in a change-of-command ceremony to mark the
end of the station's Expedition 21 mission and the beginning of Expedition 22.
Normally these ceremonies happen just before the outgoing ISS
commander leaves, though Expedition 21 commander Frank
DeWinne of Belgium will not return to Earth until Dec. 1. DeWinne requested
to hold the event early, and transfer control to his replacement, NASA
astronaut Jeff Williams, while Stott was still onboard.
"Frank's idea made a whole lot of sense," Smith
said. "It's how he wanted to do it, so we said, 'Sure.'"
DeWinne, the first European Space Agency astronaut to serve
as station commander, also had the shortest tenure of an ISS captain, with a
total command time of about six weeks.
SPACE.com is providing complete coverage of Atlantis'
STS-129 mission to the International Space Station with Staff Writer Clara
Moskowitz and Managing Editor Tariq Malik based in New York. Click here for shuttle mission
updates and a link to NASA TV.
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