Tuesday, November 06, 2007

Discovery crew preparing to come home

Discovery's crew will spend today preparing for landing. Stowage operations, a crew interview and installing a new crew member's seat are some operations scheduled.

Watch a 9:48 a.m. EST crew interview on NASA TV by clicking above.

A deorbit adjustment burn is scheduled for 2:54 p.m. EST, and the crew goes to sleep at 6:38 p.m.

A cold front passing through Brevard County tonight should create good weather conditions for a 1:02 p.m. EST landing Wednesday at Kennedy Space Center. The forecast is for partly sunny skies, with highs in the lower 70s and north winds 10 to 15 mph.

After 11 days and four spacewalks, Discovery left the International Space Station Monday morning. The crew delivered the Harmony module and relocated the massive P6 truss, a solar array that ripped and required tricky repairs before it could be extended.

A new station crew member, flight engineer Daniel Tani, rode up with Discovery and replaced astronaut Clayton Anderson, who has been on the station since June.

The next mission is scheduled to launch in mid-December, when Atlantis will deliver a European Space Agency laboratory. Japanese laboratory modules are scheduled for delivery in mid-February and April.

The shuttle is scheduled to be retired in 2010, after which the U.S. will depend on Russian spacecraft to supply the space station until 2015, when a new rocket is scheduled for development.

No comments: