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Discovery's astronauts are climbing into their bright orange partial-pressure launch-and-entry suits as clocks tick toward a planned 1:39 p.m. landing at Kennedy Space Center.
A new resident crew and a space tourist, meanwhile, are preparing to open hatches between their Soyuz spacecraft and the International Space Station after a docking at the outpost earlier this morning.
You can watch the hatch opening live here in The Flame Trench. Simply click the NASA TV box on the righthand side of this page to launch our NASA TV viewer and live coverage.
Discovery's astronauts are now "fluid-loading" in advance of a planned atmospheric reentry that would begin with a deorbit burn at 12:33 p.m.
Mission commander Lee Archambault is drinking 40 ounces of orange ade and taking 10 salt tablets. Pilot Tony Antonelli is drinking 24 ounces of lemon-line ade and 16 ounces of orange ade. Mission specialist Joe Acaba, a former Melbourne High School science teacher is drinking 24 ounces of water and eight ounces of orange ade. He is taking six salt tablets.
Mission specialist Steve Swanson is drinking 24 ounces of water and 16 ounces of orange ade and he is taking six salt tablets. Mission specialist Ricky Arnold is drinking 24 ounces of water and 16 ounces of lemon-lime ade and he is taking six salt tablets. Mission specialist John Phillips is drinking 48 ounces of water and taking 12 salt tablets.
Mission specialist Sandra Magnus, who is returning to Earth after 134 days in space, is drinking eight ounces of water and 24 ounces of chicken consomme. She is taking two salt tablets.
In weightlessness body fluids pool in the head and upper torso. Then during a return to normal gravity, those fluids are pulled down toward the lower torso, and astronauts cause suffer dizzy spells as a result. So they "fluid-load" prior to atmospheric reentry.
It's also a sign that NASA still thinks the weather might be good enough for an on-time landing at 1:39 p.m. The shuttle's toilet has been deactivated, so flight directors are careful about the timing of fluid-loading.
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