Shuttle begins final approach to ISS
Wednesday, Oct. 9, 2002 at 9:05 a.m. EDT

With a 12-second burst of power from the shuttle's left-hand orbital maneuvering engine, Atlantis is now on its final approach to rendezvous and dock with the International Space Station.

The Terminal Initiation burn took place on time at 9:04 a.m. EDT, setting Atlantis on a course that will take it to 600 feet below the outpost. Up to four small mid-course correction thruster firings are possible during the next two hours.

Once Atlantis arrives in the vicinity of the station, commander Jeff Ashby will take manual control of the flying for the rest of the operation, which is to lead to docking as early as 11:24 a.m. EDT.

It's possible that the final push into dock will take longer than planned depending on Ashby's piloting style. Previous commanders have taken a little more time than the flight plan indicated to make sure they didn't use too much propellant and were perfectly aligned.

Unlike a launch window, there is no specific time the two ships have to dock. During the Shuttle-Mir days the docking always had to take place over a Russian ground station, which gave the pilots a short amount of time to complete the maneuver. There is no longer any such restriction.

Station and Atlantis in sight
Wednesday, Oct. 9, 2002 at 10:25 a.m. EDT

Shuttle Atlantis and the International Space Station are within sight of each other and have established direct, two-way contact via UHF radio.

Excited greetings between Expedition Five flight engineer Peggy Whitson and members of the Atlantis crew was followed by well wishes from station commander Valery Korzun to shuttle skipper Jeff Ashby.

The spaceplane is on course to dock with the outpost at 11:24 a.m. EDT.

At 10:17 a.m. EDT Atlantis was 2,300 feet away from the station and closing at a rate of five feet per second. But in the short time it will take to post this update those numbers will have changed as the distance is constantly diminishing and the closure rate is slowing as well.

Atlantis is expected to arrive at a point 600 feet directly below the station in about 10 minutes, at which point Ashby will take manual control of the flying duties and pilot the orbiter on into docking.

The station itself is in the correct position for docking.

Expect our next update following docking.

Atlantis docks with Space Station
Wednesday, Oct. 9, 2002 at 11:20 a.m. EDT

Shuttle Atlantis has returned to the International Space Station, docking with the orbital outpost at 11:17 a.m. EDT, just a few minutes ahead of schedule.

Concluding a two-day chase that began with Monday's launch from the Kennedy Space Center, Atlantis commander Jeff Ashby slowly nudged the shuttle's docking ring against the forward port of the station without incident as the complex flew some 245 miles above western China.

It will now take about two hours for the crew to step through a series of procedures that will lead to the opening of the hatches and the station crew welcoming aboard their first visitors since they took up residence on the station in June.

Those procedures include waiting for the motion between the shuttle and the station to dampen, retracting the docking ring to form a tight seal between the two ships, checking that there are no air leaks in that seal, pressurizing the small volume of space between the hatches and finally the opening of the hatches themselves.

Hatch opening is officially scheduled for about 1:35 p.m. EDT, but very often that time slips a bit.

Unless events warrant otherwise, we will next update this page shortly after the hatch opening.

Hatches open and crews together
Wednesday, Oct. 9, 2002 at 1 p.m. EDT

Hatches between the shuttle and the station were opened at 12:51 p.m. EDT, about a half-hour earlier than planned.

Although we haven't seen pictures yet of the two crews greeting each other, the audio we heard made it clear the nine astronauts and cosmonauts were happy to see each other as there were cheers and laughing and comments about how "wonderful you look" and the like.

Following this brief time of welcome, Expedition Five commander Valery Korzun will offer a safety briefing to their visitors and make sure everyone understands who needs to go where in the event of an emergency. Once that is out of the way, some critical items will be moved from the shuttle to the station.

Among those items are spacesuit parts that will be necessary for tomorrow's planned spacewalk in which Dave Wolf and Piers Sellers will head outside to help connect the S-1 truss to the outpost.

We'll post a daily wrap up story here a little later this afternoon and then we invite you to check back here again early in the morning as operations to install the truss are scheduled to begin about 6:30 a.m. EDT, which is when we will next update this box.

Big day in space begins
Thursday, Oct. 10, 2002 at 6:55 a.m. EDT

The major goal of Atlantis' mission is the installation of the S-One (S1) truss and that work has now begun in earnest this morning as the station's Canadarm2 reached into the shuttle's cargo bay and grabbed hold of the truss at 6:30 a.m. EDT.

Station flight engineer Peggy Whitson and shuttle mission specialist Sandy Magnus are at the robotics work station inside the Destiny science laboratory controlling the robot arm's movements and at this writing have begun to move the 45-foot-long truss out of Atlantis' payload bay.

It will take a couple of hours for the truss to be moved into position and attached to the S-Zero truss already in place atop the station. During this time, mission specialists Dave Wolf and Piers Sellers are stepping through their procedures to get ready for a spacewalk that is scheduled to start about 10:45 a.m. EDT.

The actual start time of the spacewalk will depend on when the two trusses are bolted together.

We will update this page every couple of hours or so throughout the day, and you are invited to follow along by watching NASA TV -- available by clicking on the link above. Our next update will come about 9 a.m. EDT.

S1 truss in position
Thursday, Oct. 10, 2002 at 9:10 a.m. EDT

Today's major construction operation in orbit is going well as the S1 truss is now being held in position next to the S0 truss at the International Space Station.

Astronauts Peggy Whitson and Sandy Magnus have been working the station's robot arm to move the 45-foot-long, 15-ton package of electronics, cooling systems and structural girder out of Atlantis' cargo bay and up to the S0 truss, which is attached to the top of the Destiny science module.

They're working on the fine alignment now and when ready a capture claw on the S0 truss will be commanded to close around a bar on the end of S1. That will be followed by the crew giving a command for four motorized bolts to be driven into the S1 to permanently attach the two segments.

By the time that's done, spacewalkers Dave Wolf and Piers Sellers will be ready to depart the station's Quest airlock and begin a 6.5-hour extravehicular activity (EVA) to electrically connect the S1 truss with the rest of the station. As of this writing the spacewalkers are in the airlock and are putting on and checking out their spacesuits.

The spacewalk is expected to begin about 10:45 a.m. EDT this morning.

You are invited to watch all of today's activity on NASA TV by clicking on the link above to access our feed.

We will continue to update this page about every two hours. Our next update will come when the spacewalkers officially begin their EVA.

Spacewalk begins at ISS complex
Thursday, Oct. 10, 2002 at 11:30 a.m. EDT

Atlantis astronauts Dave Wolf and Piers Sellers have officially begun the first of three spacewalks planned for this mission at 11:21 a.m. EDT, about a half-hour or so later than planned as it took a little longer than expected to depressurize the Quest airlock.

During the next 6.5 hours or so the pair have a handful of tasks, all related to continuing the installation of the S1 truss.

Those tasks include the connection of power, data and fluid lines between the S1 truss and its SO truss neighbor; releasing several locks on equipment that helped keep things from moving during launch; deploying an S-band radio antenna and installing some new television equipment on the outside of the station.

All that work is possible because of the successful mechanical installtion of the S1 truss earlier today as the $390 million package was plucked from Atlantis' cargo bay and moved into position by astronauts Peggy Whitson and Sandy Magnus, who were operating the station's robot arm.

You are invited to watch the spacewalk today by clicking on the link above to our feed of NASA TV. During the spacewalk Wolf's suit will have red stripes, while Sellers' is plain white.

Unless events warrant otherwise, we will next update this page about 1:30 p.m. EDT.

EVA No. 1 going well
Thursday, Oct. 10, 2002 at 1:30 p.m. EDT

Work is going well outside the International Space Station complex as Dave Wolf and Piers Sellers continue hooking up the newly installed S1 truss to the rest of the outpost.

The 6.5-hour spacewalk began at 11:21 a.m. EDT following an already busy morning in which the truss was lifted from Atlantis' cargo bay and mechanically bolted to the station's pre-existing truss. It's up to the spacewalkers to make all the fluid, power and data line connections.

Another major task for them is to remove a number of bolts that locked various pieces of hardware in place for the launch into orbit. Once these so-called launch locks are released, equipment such as a new S-band radio antenna and a beam that holds three radiator panels can be released.

Another piece of equipment that will be freed today is called the Crew and Equipment Translation Aid (CETA), a fancy name for what is essentially an unpowered railroad flatbed car that can be moved up and down the tracks that are built into the truss segements. Future spacewalkers will use the CETA cart to help haul their stuff around.

Meanwhile, here at the Kennedy Space Center the skies are grey, it's breezy and raining as a tropical depression that used to be called Hurricane Kyle is immediately offshore to our east. The storm is delaying or threatening to delay some lifting work at the Cape, but otherwise promises only to keep today and tomorrow soggy.

We will next update this page in about two hours.

Sluggish bolts slowing EVA efforts
Thursday, Oct. 10, 2002 at 3:40 p.m. EDT

Spacewalkers Dave Wolf -- in the red stripes -- and Piers Sellers are a little more than four hours into their extravehicular activity this afternoon.

The work continues to generally go well, although they are now about 30 minutes behind schedule, mostly because of some uncooperative bolts that have taken longer than planned and more torque in the power tools to free. It's all getting done, it's just taking longer.

The pair have mixed up their timelines a bit as well so while one spacewalker is delayed doing a task, the other is taking advantage of the time to do something that might have been planned later.

All of the work falls under the general category of connecting the systems inside the S-1 truss with the rest of the station and removing fasteners to free equipment that was locked down for launch.

Since the spacewalk began about 30 minutes late, and is now running long, it could be close to 6:30 p.m. EDT before the first of three spacewalks wraps up for the day.

Expect our next update to this page about 6 p.m. EDT.

First spacewalk in clean up
Thursday, Oct. 10, 2002 at 6 p.m. EDT

Today's spacewalk, the first of three planned for the STS-112 mission, is in the clean up phase and Dave Wolf and Piers Sellers are expected back inside the Quest airlock within the next 20 minutes or so.

Although the timeline went a little long today, the pair were able to finish just about everything that was expected of them, including the key tasks of connecting power, data and fluid lines from the S1 truss to the rest of the station.

We will post another update following the official conclusion of today's spacewalk, and then after the daily status brieing we will post a story wrapping up the day's activities.

EVA No. 1 in the history books
Thursday, Oct. 10, 2002 at 6:30 p.m. EDT

The first of three planned spacewalks for this STS-112 shuttle mission is concluding and the two spacewalkers should be safely inside the airlock and repressurizing. An extended loss of signal communications pass is preventing us from learning the official spacewalk end time for a little while.

What we can report is that the seven-hour excursion outside can be considered a success, although some difficulty with the station's robot arm and removing some stubborn bolts put Dave Wolf and Piers Sellers behind the timeline.

Among the items accomplished: connecting power, data and fluid lines from the S1 truss to the outpost; deploying an S-band radio antenna, installing the first components of a new television camera system on the station's exterior and removing a great number of bolts that served to lock down certain equipment during launch.

The day began with the successful mechanical attachment of the 45-foot-long S1 truss to its neighboring S0 truss. Astronauts Peggy Whitson and Sandy Magnus, operating the station's robotic arm, were mostly responsible for that achievement.

Next up for the crew on Friday is a brief break and then another busy day in which the spacesuits must be recharged and hundreds of pounds of supplies must be moved from the shuttle to the station. The next spacewalk is set to begin late Saturday morning.