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Raffaello cargo module returned to shuttle bay BY WILLIAM HARWOOD STORY WRITTEN FOR CBS NEWS "SPACE PLACE" & USED WITH PERMISSION Posted: July 18, 2011 
KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FL--In the final hours of the shuttle program's last visit to International Space Station, the Atlantis astronauts detached the bus-size Raffaello cargo module, loaded with nearly three tons of trash and no-longer-needed equipment, and moved it back to the shuttle's payload bay early Monday for return to Earth. It was the 11th and final transfer of a multi-purpose logistics module in 10 years of space station resupply missions.
"It's a little hard to realize that it's the last mission, largely because we've all been so busy," said space station Flight Director Courtenay McMillan. "It's just beginning to creep into (our) realization that it's coming to an end." Atlantis delivered 9,403 pounds of equipment and supplies to the station inside the Raffaello multi-purpose logistics module and more than a ton in the orbiter's crew cabin. By the end of the day Sunday, the astronauts had re-packed the cargo carrier with 5,666 pounds of trash, packing material and no-longer-needed equipment. Experiment samples and a few other last-minute items were moved into the shuttle's crew cabin early Monday. "One thing to note, we had a new item added to the transfer list today, that was item 9,006 and that was (loadmaster) Sandy Magnus, to make sure she gets on the right side of the hatch when the mission is complete," McMillan joked. "But it turns out 9,006 is the total number of line items that have been tracked in (space station resupply) transfer lists over the course of the shuttle program, to the space station. So it's quite a lot. "You imagine all the work that goes into each line item and doing that 9,006 times over the course of the program, that's huge. It's going to be a very odd morning to wake up and think we're not doing that part of the program again. All along the way there's going to be little moments like that where we realize, oh, we're not going another docking like this. We'll be doing other dockings, there are other vehicles coming, but it's never going to be quite the same. It's a strange feeling." Along with overseeing the transfer work in her role as loadmaster, Magnus took time out to cheer for the U.S. women's soccer team, which lost to Japan Sunday in the Women's World Cup final. Shortly after wakeup, she congratulated Japanese astronaut Satoshi Furukawa, a space station flight engineer. "I just wanted to say, there was a lot of trash talk yesterday going on, and I don't mean debating the nuances between payload trash and common trash," space station flight engineer Ronald Garan said in a morning tagup with mission control. "But I have to say, first thing this morning Sandy came over and congratulated Satoshi. She was a really good sport." "Yeah, we knew she was a good sport, and I'm happy to hear we have international harmony on the station," astronaut Dan Tani replied from Houston. "Only in node two," Garan joked. Node two's official name is Harmony. With the station's robot arm locked onto Raffaello, commands were sent at 6:14 a.m. to begin driving the 16 motorized bolts holding the module in place on the station's forward Harmony compartment. Magnus and Hurley, operating the robot arm from a work station in the Tranquility module's multi-window cupola, pulled the cargo module away at 6:48 a.m. and carefully moved it to its mounting point in the back of Atlantis' cargo bay. The move was complete by around 7:47 a.m. Here is an updated timeline of the crew's planned activities for flight day 11 (in EDT and mission elapsed time; includes revision K of the NASA television schedule; best viewed with fixed-width font): DATE/EDT...DD...HH...MM...SS...EVENT 07/17 10:29 PM...09...11...00...00...Crew wakeup 07/18 12:19 AM...09...12...50...00...ISS daily planning conference 12:44 AM...09...13...15...00...MPLM egress 01:04 AM...09...13...35...00...MPLM deactivation 01:24 AM...09...13...55...00...MPLM vestibule demate 01:34 AM...09...14...05...00...Middeck transfers 02:54 AM...09...15...25...00...MPLM vestibule depress 04:24 AM...09...16...55...00...Crew meals begin 05:34 AM...09...18...05...00...SSRMS grapples MPLM 06:49 AM...09...19...20...00...SSRMS uninstalls MPLM 07:54 AM...09...20...25...00...MPLM secured in shuttle payload bay 08:00 AM...09...20...31...00...Mission status briefing on NASA TV 08:19 AM...09...20...50...00...SSRMS ungrapples MPLM 09:19 AM...09...21...50...00...Farewell ceremony 09:34 AM...09...22...05...00...Hatches closed 10:04 AM...09...22...35...00...Leak checks 10:09 AM...09...22...40...00...Centerline camera install 10:49 AM...09...23...20...00...Rendezvous tools checkout 11:19 AM...09...23...50...00...ISS daily planning conference 01:29 PM...10...02...00...00...ISS crew sleep begins 01:59 PM...10...02...30...00...STS crew sleep begins 03:00 PM...10...03...31...00..."Launching our Dreams" video on NASA TV 04:00 PM...10...04...31...00...Flight day 11 highlights on NASA TV 09:59 PM...10...10...30...00...Crew wakeup
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FLIGHT DAY 8 HIGHLIGHTS REEL 