Johnson, shown here on the right, will back Endeavour away from the station at 11:56 p.m. Sunday and then guide the shuttle on a looping fly-around of the $100 billion station. The resulting god's-eye view will give Johnson and crewmates the first look at the outpost since the U.S. finished its planned construction work on Friday.
Then mission commander Mark Kelly, left, and Johnson will pull off a shuttle-first: the astronauts will back Endeavour off to a point about a mile away from the outpost and then re-rendezvous with the station. New rendezvous guidance-and-navigation sensors being developed for a next-generation NASA crew exploration vehicle will be tested during the unprecedented operation.
Kelly and Johnson will close to about 600 feet of the station before igniting steering thrusters in a separation burn that will put Endeavour on course for a 2:35 a.m. Tuesday landing at the shuttle's coastal Florida homeport.
You can watch the interview live here in The Flame Trench. Click the NASA TV box on the right to launch our NASA TV player.
1 comment:
Ya know, I guess ya could just keep on going out into deeper and deeper space for a little ride, say 1000 miles if ya wanted to. Heck man ! I taken this sucker any further than I have to ! I'm getting to the space station, turning around going back and I ain't taking this thing no further than I have to dog gone it !
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