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Atlantis heat shield inspection goes smoothly BY WILLIAM HARWOOD STORY WRITTEN FOR CBS NEWS "SPACE PLACE" & USED WITH PERMISSION Posted: September 10, 2006 The Atlantis astronauts inspected the shuttle's wing leading edge panels and nose cap today as part of a now-standard post-Columbia checkout and while additional observations and analysis will take several more days to complete, no obvious signs of damage were seen. "We've been scanning the vehicle doing the post-ascent inspection," flight director Paul Dye said earlier today. "We finished the starboard wing, finished the nose cap, we're most of the way through the port wing and so far, everything has gone exactly according to plan. "I think once we get the data down and folks start looking at it, we'll have more to tell you about how things looked. We take the scans and the data needs to be interpreted. But what we've seen looks good so far." Dye said Commander Brent Jett and his crew also checked out and prepared two spacesuits for use during upcoming spacewalks and carried out a key rendezvous rocket firing to fine-tune the shuttle's approach to the international space station. "This has been a remarkable shift in the fact that I have not seen a single problem with the vehicle," Dye said. "The crew is ahead of schedule by a measurable amount. "We did a fairly significant burn this morning, part of our series of burns to catch up with the space station. I anticipate a good on-time docking. There's not much more to say except the crew sounds happy, they sound rested, they're doing great." The goal of the 116th shuttle mission is to deliver and install a 35,000-pound solar array truss segment on the international space station, a complex task that will require two spacewalks and part of a third to complete. If all goes well, Jett will guide Atlantis to a docking at a pressurized mating adapter on the front of the U.S. Destiny laboratory module around 6:46 a.m. Monday. The $372 million P3/P4 solar array truss will be pulled from Atlantis' payload bay two-and-a-half hours later and bolted in place Tuesday, followed by the first of three spacewalks. Here is a look ahead at Monday's schedule (in EDT and mission elapsed time. NOTE: This chart is more current than the flight plan posted on the CBS News STS-115 Quick-Look page. An update to that timeline will be posted shortly): EDT DD HH MM EVENT ____________________________________________________ MONDAY 12:15 AM 01 13 00 STS/ISS crew wakeup 01:35 AM 01 14 20 Rendezvous timeline begins 02:37 AM 01 15 22 NC4 rendezvous rocket firing 04:08 AM 01 16 53 TI rendezvous rocket firing 04:20 AM 01 17 05 ISS in attitude 04:44 AM 01 17 29 Sunset 04:45 AM 01 17 30 ISS: Verify RPM photo setup ready 05:07 AM 01 17 52 Range: 10,000 feet 05:15 AM 01 18 00 Range: 5,000 feet 05:17 AM 01 18 02 Sunrise 05:21 AM 01 18 06 Range: 3,000 feet 05:25 AM 01 18 10 MC-4 rendezvous burn 05:29 AM 01 18 14 Range: 1,500 feet 05:31 AM 01 18 16 Rotational pitch maneuver (RPM) window open 05:34 AM 01 18 19 Range: 1,000 feet 05:37 AM 01 18 22 KU antenna to low power 05:38 AM 01 18 23 +R bar arrival directly below ISS 05:43 AM 01 18 28 Range: 600 feet 05:45 AM 01 18 30 Start RPM maneuver 05:46 AM 01 18 31 Noon 05:53 AM 01 18 38 End RPM maneuver 05:54 AM 01 18 39 RPM window close 05:56 AM 01 18 41 Initiate pitch up maneuver 06:02 AM 01 18 47 RPM start window close 06:07 AM 01 18 52 +V bar arrival; range: 310 feet in front of ISS 06:08 AM 01 18 53 Range: 300 feet 06:12 AM 01 18 57 Range: 250 feet 06:16 AM 01 19 01 Sunset 06:16 AM 01 19 01 Range: 200 feet 06:19 AM 01 19 04 Range: 170 feet 06:21 AM 01 19 06 Range: 150 feet 06:25 AM 01 19 10 Range: 100 feet 06:28 AM 01 19 13 Range: 75 feet 06:32 AM 01 19 17 Range: 50 feet 06:35 AM 01 19 20 Range: 30 feet; start stationkeeping 06:40 AM 01 19 25 End stationkeeping; push to dock 06:45 AM 01 19 30 Range: 10 feet 06:46 AM 01 19 31 ATLANTIS DOCKS WITH SPACE STATION 06:49 AM 01 19 34 Sunrise 07:52 AM 01 20 37 Hatches opened 08:02 AM 01 20 47 Shuttle robot arm grapples P3/P4 08:20 AM 01 21 05 Welcome aboard! 09:18 AM 01 22 03 Shuttle arm unberths P3/P4 10:00 AM 01 22 45 Mission status briefing on NASA TV 10:42 AM 01 23 27 Shuttle arm hands P3/P4 to station arm 01:57 PM 02 02 42 Tanner, Piper begin airlock campout 03:45 PM 02 04 30 ISS crew sleep begins 04:15 PM 02 05 00 STS crew sleep begins 05:00 PM 02 05 45 Daily video highlights reel on NASA TV 06:00 PM 02 06 45 Post-MMT briefing on NASA TV
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FLIGHT DIRECTOR EXPLAINS INSPECTIONS 