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Endeavour nearing station for today's rendezvous BY WILLIAM HARWOOD STORY WRITTEN FOR CBS NEWS "SPACE PLACE" & USED WITH PERMISSION Posted: November 16, 2008 The shuttle Endeavour is closing in on the international space station today, on track for a docking around 5:04 p.m. The shuttle astronauts were awakened at 9:25 a.m. by a recording of the Rolling Stones' "Start Me Up" transmitted from mission control in Houston. "Good morning, Endeavour. And a special good morning to you today, Sandy," astronaut Shannon Lucid called from the control center. "And good morning, Shannon," space station flight engineer Sandra Magnus replied from the shuttle. "I want to thank my family for that music and I'm looking forward to moving into my new home today." Magnus will remain behind aboard the station when Endeavour undocks Thanksgiving day or the day after, replacing outgoing flight engineer Gregory Chamitoff, who was launched to the outpost last June. Chamitoff will return to Earth in Magnus' place aboard Endeavour. Today's terminal rendezvous sequence begins at 2:26 p.m. Trailing the station by about 9.2 miles, commander Chris Ferguson will fire the shuttle's maneuvering rockets to begin a slow approach, moving into position about 600 feet directly below the lab complex by around 4 p.m. At that point, he plans to guide Endeavour through a slow back flip, exposing the shuttle's belly to the station for a heat shield photo survey by the lab's crew. Those pictures, taken with 400-mm and 800-mm telephoto lenses, will be downlinked to Houston to help engineers assess the health of the shuttle's thermal protection system. Because of on-going problems, the shuttle's KU-band antenna system may not work in radar mode today. If not, Ferguson and his crewmates will use Endeavour's star trackers to supply long-range navigation data, a backup procedure that has been used in at least one previous station rendezvous. Ferguson and his crewmates are trained in the procedure and flight controllers do not expect any difficulty if the radar does, in fact, fail to operate properly. After the rendezvous (or rotational) pitch maneuver, or RPM, is complete, Ferguson will guide Endeavour up to a point about 300 feet directly in front of the station. From there, with the shuttle's nose pointed toward deep space and its open payload bay facing the station, Ferguson will manually guide the orbiter to a docking at a port on the front of the Harmony module around 5:04 p.m. Here is an updated timeline of today's activity (in EST and mission elapsed time; supersedes rev. A of NASA's TV schedule; rendezvous times approximate): EST........DD...HH...MM...EVENT 11/16/08 09:25 AM...01...13...30...STS/ISS crew wakeup (begin FD-3) 11:15 AM...01...15...20...Group B computer powerup 11:25 AM...01...15...30...ISS daily planning conference 11:30 AM...01...15...35...Rendezvous timeline begins 12:10 PM...01...16...15...NH rendezvous rocket firing 12:30 PM...01...16...35...Spacesuits removed from airlock 12:52 PM...01...16...57...NC-4 rendezvous rocket firing 02:04 PM...01...18...09...ISS in docking orientation 02:26 PM...01...18...31...TI burn 03:02 PM...01...19...07...Sunset 03:19 PM...01...19...24...U.S. solar arrays feathered 03:24 PM...01...19...29...Range: 10,000 feet 03:33 PM...01...19...38...Range: 5,000 feet 03:36 PM...01...19...41...Sunrise 03:38 PM...01...19...43...Range: 3,000 feet 03:43 PM...01...19...48...MC-4 rendezvous burn 03:47 PM...01...19...52...Range: 1,500 feet 03:49 PM...01...19...54...RPM start window open 03:52 PM...01...19...57...Range: 1,000 feet 03:55 PM...01...20...00...KU antenna to low power 03:56 PM...01...20...01...+R bar arrival directly below ISS 04:01 PM...01...20...06...Range: 600 feet 04:03 PM...01...20...08...Start pitch maneuver 04:05 PM...01...20...10...Noon 04:11 PM...01...20...16...End pitch maneuver 04:12 PM...01...20...17...RPM full photo window close 04:13 PM...01...20...18...Initiate pitch up maneuver (575 ft) 04:21 PM...01...20...26...RPM start window close 04:25 PM...01...20...30...+V bar arrival; range: 310 feet 04:26 PM...01...20...31...Range: 300 feet 04:30 PM...01...20...35...Range: 250 feet 04:33 PM...01...20...38...Sunset 04:34 PM...01...20...39...Range: 200 feet 04:36 PM...01...20...41...Range: 170 feet 04:38 PM...01...20...43...Range: 150 feet 04:42 PM...01...20...47...Range: 100 feet 04:43 PM...01...20...48...Russian ground station AOS 04:45 PM...01...20...50...Range: 75 feet 04:49 PM...01...20...54...Range: 50 feet 04:53 PM...01...20...58...Range: 30 feet; start stationkeeping 04:58 PM...01...21...03...End stationkeeping; push to dock 05:02 PM...01...21...07...Range: 10 feet 05:04 PM...01...21...09...DOCKING 05:08 PM...01...21...13...Sunrise 05:25 PM...01...21...30...Leak checks 05:30 PM...01...21...35...Post docking laptop reconfig 05:55 PM...01...22...00...Orbiter docking system prepped for ingress 06:00 PM...01...22...05...Group B computer powerdown 06:15 PM...01...22...20...Hatch open 06:45 PM...01...22...50...Welcome aboard! 06:55 PM...01...23...00...Safety briefing 07:25 PM...01...23...25...Shuttle-station power transfer system activation 07:30 PM...01...23...35...Soyuz seatliner transfer/installation 07:30 PM...01...23...35...Mission status briefing on NASA TV 07:30 PM...01...23...35...SSRMS grapples OBSS 08:00 PM...02...00...05...SSRMS unberths OBSS 09:00 PM...02...01...05...SRMS grapples OBSS 09:30 PM...02...01...35...SSRMS ungrapples OBSS 09:45 PM...02...01...50...SOKOL suit leak check 10:20 PM...02...02...25...Docking video playback 11/17/08 Mon 12:55 AM...02...05...00...ISS crew sleep begins Mon 01:25 AM...02...05...30...STS crew sleep begins
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VIDEO:
FLIGHT DIRECTOR'S SUMMARY OF FLIGHT DAY 3 