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Atlantis launch coverage

Shuttle Atlantis blasted off Friday evening on its mission to the space station.

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Atlantis date set

NASA leaders hold this news briefing to announce shuttle Atlantis' launch date and recap the Flight Readiness Review.

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Phoenix: At the Cape

NASA's Mars lander named Phoenix has arrive at Kennedy Space Center to begin preparations for launch in August.

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STS-63: A rendezvous with space station Mir

As a prelude to future dockings between American space shuttles and the Russian space station Mir, the two countries had a test rendezvous in Feb. 1995.

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"Apollo 17: On The Shoulders of Giants"

Apollo's final lunar voyage is relived in this movie. The film depicts the highlights of Apollo 17's journey to Taurus-Littrow and looks to the future Skylab, Apollo-Soyuz and shuttle programs.

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Atlantis returns to pad

Two months after rolling off the launch pad to seek repairs to the hail-damaged external fuel tank, space shuttle Atlantis returns to pad 39A for mission STS-117.

 Part 1 | Part 2

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Third EVA of shuttle Atlantis' mission about to begin
BY WILLIAM HARWOOD
STORY WRITTEN FOR CBS NEWS "SPACE PLACE" & USED WITH PERMISSION
Posted: June 15, 2007

The Atlantis astronauts were awakened around 8:30 a.m. to begin a busy day in orbit highlighted by an afternoon spacewalk to complete the retraction of the P6-2B solar array and the impromptu repair of a pulled up insulation blanket on the shuttle's left-side maneuvering rocket pod.

Russian flight controllers, meanwhile, have told space station commander Fyodor Yurchikhin they don't plan any additional attempts today to restart the Russian segment's computer system. After isolating the system from U.S. solar array power, an attempt was made early today to activate the three-channel navigation system and command-and-control computers. But the navigation system did not boot up and while one of the three channels, or "lanes," making up the central computer came to life, communications were not normal and power to all the computers was shut off one orbit later.

Some engineers had speculated that some subtle quirk in the electrical system feeding power from newly installed solar arrays to the Russian segment might have led to this week's problems. The German-built computers are known to be susceptible to "noisy" circuits. But their behavior today in the absence of U.S. power was similar to what was observed earlier in the week. Engineers are continuing to assess the situation.

Today's spacewalk, the third of four excursions planned by the Atlantis astronauts, is highlighted by work to repair the insulation blanket and finish the retraction of the P6-2B solar array. The P6 array was attached to the station in 2000 to provide power during the early stages of assembly. Now, NASA needs to move it to the left end of the station's main power truss to prepare the complex for the delivery of European and Japanese resarch modules later this year and early next.

During retraction of the P6-4B array last December, the astronauts ran into major problems and ultimately had to stage an unplanned spacewalk to fold the blankets back in their storage boxes. This time around, the Atlantis astronauts have taken a more deliberate, step-by-step approach, retracting the array about 28 feet before a spacewalk Wednesday in which Pat Forrester and Steve Swanson manually cleared hangups and ultimately got the 115-foot-long array in about half way.

Today, Reilly and Olivas plan to finish the job, although time is available in a fourth spacewalk Sunday if they run into any major problems.

As for the pulled-up insulation blanket, Olivas, working on the end of the shuttle's 50-foot-long robot arm, plans to push the bent-up corner down flush and use a surgical stapler to secure its edges to adjacent blankets. He also will use steel thread to anchor the blanket in an adjacent row of heat-shield tiles. The work is fairly straight forward as such things go and mission managers are optimistic the repair will stand up to the rigors of re-entry when temperatures on the upper part of the shuttle can reach 1,000 degrees.

Here is a timeline of today's activities (in EDT and mission elapsed time; includes rev. I of the NASA TV schedule):


DATE/EDT...DD...HH...MM...EVENT

06/15/07
08:38 AM...06...13...00...STS/ISS crew wakeup
09:18 AM...06...13...40...EVA-3: Airlock repress
09:33 AM...06...13...55...EVA-3: Hygiene break
10:00 AM...06...14...22...NASA Video File on NTV
10:08 AM...06...14...30...EVA-3: Airlock depress to 10.2 psi
10:28 AM...06...14...50...EVA-3: Campout EVA prep
11:58 AM...06...16...20...EVA-3: Spacesuit purge
12:13 PM...06...16...35...EVA-3: Spacesuit prebreathe
01:03 PM...06...17...25...EVA-3: Crew lock depressurization
01:08 PM...06...17...30...Station robot arm EVA-3 maneuver
01:38 PM...06...18...00...EVA-3: Airlock egress
01:58 PM...06...18...20...EVA-3: Reilly: OMS pod setup
01:58 PM...06...18...20...EVA-3: Olivas: OMS pod repair
02:23 PM...06...18...45...EVA-3: Reilly: H2O/H2 vent valve R&R
03:53 PM...06...20...15...EVA-3: Reilly: OMS pod cleanup
04:23 PM...06...20...45...EVA-3: P6-2B retraction
07:23 PM...06...23...45...EVA-3: Cleanup and airlock ingress
07:38 PM...07...00...00...Work site 3 configuration
08:03 PM...07...00...25...EVA-3: Airlock repressurization
08:18 PM...07...00...40...Spacesuit servicing
08:48 PM...07...01...10...Shuttle robot arm powerdown
10:00 PM...07...02...22...Mission status briefing on NTV
11:38 PM...07...04...00...ISS crew sleep begins

06/16/07
12:03 AM...07...04...25...Robot arm transporter moves from work site 3 to WS-5
12:08 AM...07...04...30...STS crew sleep begins

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Additional coverage for subscribers:
VIDEO: SECOND SOLAR WING FULLY DEPLOYED PLAY
VIDEO: SECOND SOLAR WING DEPLOYED HALF-WAY PLAY
VIDEO: FIRST SOLAR WING FULLY DEPLOYED PLAY
VIDEO: FIRST SOLAR WING DEPLOYED HALF-WAY PLAY

VIDEO: FLIGHT DAY 4 HIGHLIGHTS MOVIE PLAY
VIDEO: POST-SPACEWALK STATUS BRIEFING PLAY
VIDEO: BRIEFING ON MISSION EXTENSION PLANS PLAY

VIDEO: SPACEWALK No. 1 BEGINS PLAY
VIDEO: NARRATED PREVIEW OF THE SPACEWALKS PLAY
VIDEO: FLIGHT DAY 3 HIGHLIGHTS MOVIE PLAY
VIDEO: SUNDAY'S MISSION STATUS BRIEFING PLAY
VIDEO: SHUTTLE CREW WELCOMED ABOARD STATION PLAY
VIDEO: ATLANTIS DOCKS WITH THE SPACE STATION PLAY
VIDEO: WATCH THE RENDEZVOUS BACKFLIP MANUEVER PLAY
VIDEO: FLIGHT DAY 2 HIGHLIGHTS MOVIE PLAY
VIDEO: SATURDAY'S MISSION STATUS BRIEFING PLAY
VIDEO: FLIGHT DAY 1 HIGHLIGHTS MOVIE PLAY
VIDEO: INSIDE MISSION CONTROL DURING LAUNCH PLAY
VIDEO: LAUNCH REPLAY: VIEW FROM COMPLEX 41 PLAY
VIDEO: LAUNCH REPLAY: PAD PERIMETER PLAY
VIDEO: LAUNCH REPLAY: THE VAB ROOF PLAY
VIDEO: LAUNCH REPLAY: THE PRESS SITE PLAY
VIDEO: LAUNCH REPLAY: UCS-23 TRACKER PLAY
VIDEO: LAUNCH REPLAY: PAD FRONT CAMERA PLAY
VIDEO: LAUNCH REPLAY: CAMERA AT THE BEACH PLAY

VIDEO: LAUNCH OF ATLANTIS! PLAY
VIDEO: FULL LENGTH MOVIE OF ASCENT TO ORBIT PLAY
VIDEO: EXTERNAL TANK ONBOARD VIDEO CAMERA PLAY
VIDEO: POST-LAUNCH PRESS CONFERENCE PLAY

VIDEO: ASTRONAUTS DEPART QUARTERS FOR THE PAD PLAY
VIDEO: PAD'S ROTATING SERVICE STRUCTURE RETRACTED PLAY
VIDEO: HIGHLIGHTS FROM ATLANTIS' LAUNCH CAMPAIGN PLAY
VIDEO: HIGHLIGHTS OF THE PAYLOAD'S LAUNCH CAMPAIGN PLAY

MORE: STS-117 VIDEO COVERAGE
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