|
|
|
|
|
|
NASA decides to bring Endeavour home a day early BY WILLIAM HARWOOD STORY WRITTEN FOR CBS NEWS "SPACE PLACE" & USED WITH PERMISSION Posted: August 18, 2007; Updated with early landing decision The Endeavour astronauts staged a final, abbreviated spacewalk today and closed hatches between the shuttle and the international space station to set the stage for undocking early Sunday and landing Tuesday - a day early because of concern about Hurricane Dean - to close out a dramatic station assembly mission. NASA's Mission Management Team met today and after evaluating the hurricane's predicted track and speed, decided that if the storm threatens to force an evacuation of the Johnson Space Center in Houston, flight controllers in Texas will stay long enough to oversee a Tuesday landing in Florida or, if bad weather develops at Kennedy, at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., or White Sands Space Harbor, N.M. If the hurricane does not threaten Johnson, the astronauts will still attempt a landing at Kennedy on Tuesday but in that case, if bad weather crops up in Florida, they will stay in orbit another day and try again on Wednesday. The shuttle has enough on-board supplies to stay in orbit until Friday, but the last day is always held in reserve in case of last-minute technical problems. Cain said NASA hopes to have the shuttle on the ground by Thursday at the latest. "End of mission day is now Tuesday," said LeRoy Cain, chairman of NASA's Mission Management Team for launch and landing. "Tuesday is our first landing day. So we have now changed our plan so that instead of end-of-mission being on Wednesday, end-of-mission is on Tuesday. The only thing to think about that might be different is whether or not the storm might be threatening us when we get to the late-Monday, early-Tuesday timeframe. Essentially, if the storm is indeed threatening (the Johnson Space Center) area, we will have all three landing sites called up Tuesday and we will land somewhere on Tuesday. And that'll be the going-in plan." Canadian astronaut Dave Williams and Expedition 15 flight engineer Clay Anderson staged a five-hour and two-minute spacewalk today to finish up a few final space station assembly tasks. As soon as they were back aboard, the combined crews rushed to finish last-minute equipment transfer work and then gathered in the Destiny laboratory module for a final farewell just after 5 p.m. "Unfortunately, time has only one meaning here, it comes very fast," said Expedition 15 commander Fyodor Yurchikhin. "We had some problems but (we did very well), very good job. Thank you very much for everybody. We will be here just a little more than two months. Come back again!" "We got a lot accomplished," shuttle commander Scott Kelly agreed. "We couldn't have done all that stuff without you guys, we really appreciate your help and it's great being part of one big team between the shuttle crew and the station crew. Thanks." The two crews then shared hugs and handshakes before the Endeavour astronauts floated back aboard the space shuttle. Hatches between the two spacecraft were closed around 5:10 p.m. If all goes well, Endeavour will undock at 7:57 a.m. Sunday. Here is an updated timeline of key events (in EDT and mission elapsed time): EDT........DD...HH...MM...EVENT 08/19/07 04:37 AM...10...10...00...Shuttle crew wakeup 06:33 AM...10...11...56...Sunrise 06:37 AM...10...12...00...Group B computer power up 07:01 AM...10...12...24...Noon 07:12 AM...10...12...35...Undocking timeline begins 07:28 AM...10...12...51...Sunset 07:57 AM...10...13...20...UNDOCKING 07:57 AM...10...13...20...Initial orbiter separation (+10 seconds) 07:58 AM...10...13...21...ISS holds current attitude 08:01 AM...10...13...24...Range: 50 feet 08:02 AM...10...13...25...Range: 75 feet 08:05 AM...10...13...28...Sunrise 08:26 AM...10...13...49...Range: 400 feet 08:26 AM...10...13...49...Separation burn No. 1 08:32 AM...10...13...55...Range: 600 feet 08:32 AM...10...13...55...Noon 08:54 AM...10...14...17...Separation burn No. 2 09:00 AM...10...14...23...Sunset 09:02 AM...10...14...25...ISS: Station docking port depressurization 09:07 AM...10...14...30...Group B computer power down 09:07 AM...10...14...30...Post-undocking laptop reconfiguration 09:07 AM...10...14...30...Supply transfer cleanup 09:32 AM...10...14...55...Shuttle arm (SRMS) unberths heat shield inspection boom (OBSS) 10:22 AM...10...15...45...OBSS starboard wing survey 10:52 AM...10...16...15...Spacesuit install in airlock 11:07 AM...10...16...30...EVA tool stow 12:02 PM...10...17...25...OBSS nose cap survey 01:02 PM...10...18...25...OBSS port wing survey 01:27 PM...10...18...50...ISS: docking port leak check 02:47 PM...10...20...10...OBSS berthing 03:22 PM...10...20...45...SRMS power down 03:37 PM...10...21...00...Crew meal 03:42 PM...10...21...05...Laser data downlink 04:37 PM...10...22...00...Crew off duty 08:37 PM...11...02...00...Shuttle crew sleep begins The astronauts originally planned to carry out a full-duration spacewalk today and finish up equipment and supply transfers to and from the lab complex Sunday. Hatches between Endeavour and the station were scheduled to be closed Sunday night to set the stage for undocking Monday. A now-routine post-Columbia final heat shield inspection was on tap Monday afternoon and the crew planned to pack up and test the shuttle's re-entry systems Tuesday. Touchdown at the Kennedy Space Center was targeted for around 12:52 p.m. Wednesday. But Hurricane Dean has thrown a wrench into those plans because NASA may be forced to evacuate the Johnson Space Center early next week. If so, and if landing remained targeted for Wednesday, the agency would have to set up an emergency mission control center at the Kennedy Space Center. While controlling a shuttle from Kennedy is part of a long-established contingency plan, NASA would have to rely on a much smaller team and give up some of its ability to monitor the orbiter's myriad systems. By moving landing up a day, NASA likely could ensure a normal JSC-controlled re-entry. "If by the time we show up in the late-Monday, early-Tuesday timeframe the storm is not threatening the area and looks like it is not going to be a threat, then the entry team will execute the normal deorbit-and-entry mission planning, which is typically on the first end-of-mission day we will try to land at Kennedy Space Center in Florida and if we're not able to - and again, if the storm is not threatening us (in Houston) - in all likelihood we would elect to go around and make a landing attempt on Wednesday." The forecast for Tuesday calls for generally good weather in Florida with only a chance of showers in the area. "It's really dependent on what the storm does," Cain said. "We are prepared to land on Tuesday if the storm is threatening us, we've set ourselves up to be able to do that. We will still attempt to land on Tuesday even if the storm is not threatening us. However, if we are not able to land at Kennedy Space Center on Tuesday and the storm is not threatening us then we will be in our normal landing operations and we would go around and show up on Wednesday and try to land at Kennedy." Williams and Anderson accomplished three primary objectives during today's spacewalk. They installed clamps on the station's main solar array truss that will be used next year to temporarily hold a shuttle heat shield inspection boom; Anderson retrieved two space exposure experiments while Williams adjusted an antenna gimbal lock assembly. After that, the spacewalkers worked together to install a wireless instrumentation antenna on the Destiny laboratory module. Deferred to a future spacewalk was work to tie down debris shields on Destiny and the multi-hatch Unity connecting module. As they worked to install the wireless antenna, the space station sailed 214 miles above Hurricane Dean. "Oh, wow!" one of the astronauts - presumably Williams - exclaimed as he caught sight of the huge storm. "Oooo man, can't miss that!" "Holy smoke," Anderson said. Television views from the station showed the hurricane in its entirety, sporting a tight, well-defined eye at the heart of of the storm. "That's impressive," Williams said. "Can you see the eye?" "Oh yeah," Williams said. "Definitely." "Oh yeah, that's wild," Anderson said. "All right, Dave, I'm going to put another tether on there before I hand it to you." "Copy that," Williams said as the two spacewalkers continued work to install a wireless instrumentation antenna. "Man, that's impressive." "Very," Anderson agreed, adding: "They're only impressive when they're not coming to you." "That's true." The spacewalk began at 9:17 a.m. and ended at 2:19 p.m. for a duration of five hours and two minutes. Williams, Anderson and shuttle astronaut Rick Mastracchio logged a total of 23 hours and 15 minutes of spacewalk time across four outings during Endeavour's mission. This was the 92nd spacewalk since station construction began in 1998 and the 15th so far this year. Total station assembly EVA time now stands at 567 hours and 59 minutes.
|
|
|
|
|
|
MISSION INDEX |
||||||
VIDEO:
THE FLIGHT DAY 10 HIGHLIGHTS MOVIE 