Live in orbit: Crew gets "go" to close doors

The Atlantis astronauts have been given a go to close the shuttle's payload bay doors, and the clam-shell-like devices are about to swing shut.

The milestone move keeps the shuttle crew on track for a planned 9:07 a.m. landing at Kennedy Space Center, and weather conditions appear as if they will be acceptable for an on-time touchdown.

Looking out cockpit windows in the aft of the shuttle's flight deck, the astronauts will video tape the door closure, keeping close tabs on a radiator hose found bent before flight, causing a pre-launch scramble to right it.

Mission managers wanted to monitor its retraction for post-flight engineering analysis. The hose, which will be replaced after flight, routes Freon that is used to cool orbiter systems when the shuttle's payload bay doors are open in orbit. A separate system provides cooling from the time the payload bay doors are closed until convoy teams hook up ground support equipment on the runway.

Flight director Bryan Lunney polled colleagues in Mission Control and then the word was passed up to the shuttle as it crossed over the southeast Australia, heading out over the south Pacific Ocean.