Six Atlantis astronauts this morning are inspecting their spaceship's heat shields before a planned Wednesday return to Kennedy Space Center. Known as a "late" inspection, the process repeats some of the survey conducted on the mission's second day with a robotic arm and boom equipped with laser and camera sensors.
The first inspection was limited by a jam in the boom's pan-and-tilt mechanism that required repair work by spacewalkers.
But there has been no trouble during this morning's inspection, which began more than 90 minutes ahead of schedule at 4:30 a.m. EDT.
The crew has completed a survey of the reinforced carbon-carbon panels on the orbiter's starboard wing leading edge and is ready to move on to the nose cap. A port wing survey will conclude the inspection.
While the early inspection looks for damage that could have occurred during launch, the late inspection tries to detect any strikes from micrometeroids or space junk during Atlantis' week-long stay at the International Space Station. Atlantis undocked Sunday morning.
Images are being transmitted to analysts in Houston who will hopefully determine that Atlantis is safe to re-enter Earth's atmosphere around 7:45 a.m. Wednesday.
Landing is planned at 8:48 a.m., weather permitting.
Check out this NASA TV schedule for a look at the action ahead, and take a look at this Flight Day 11 Execute Package to see the notes sent to the crew by Mission Control today.
2 comments:
If they had found a problem, what would they have done?
If the problem was deemed serious enough, mission managers could call upon spacewalkers to try to fix it. Or, if it was extremely serious and irreparable, Atlanis could return to the station for safe haven until a rescue vehicle was launched.
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