Crews to Fold Arrays, Prep for Spacewalk Repair Tasks

As Space Shuttle Atlantis and the International Space Station sail above Earth today, the STS-117 and Expedition 15 crews will continue retracting solar arrays and preparing for repair work during Friday’s spacewalk.

STS-117 Mission Specialists Jim Reilly and Danny Olivas will review procedures and practice techniques they will use during the spacewalk set to begin at 1:38 p.m. EDT Friday. The first task of the extravehicular activity is the repair of a thermal blanket that pulled away from the orbital maneuvering system pod on the rear of the shuttle.

This afternoon, the STS-117 crew will resume retraction of the starboard P6 solar array. Almost half of the 31½ array bays were retracted Wednesday. If the arrays are not fully retracted today, efforts will resume Friday with the assistance of the spacewalkers.

About an hour and 20 minutes before this morning’s scheduled wakeup call, the crews were awakened by a false alarm on the station. The alarm was triggered by the restart of Russian navigation computers that provide backup attitude control and orbital altitude adjustments. For now, the station’s control moment gyroscopes are handling attitude control, with the shuttle’s propulsion system providing backup.

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STS-117 Crew Inspected Shuttle Heat Shield

The STS-117 crew members completed the day's scheduled inspections of Space Shuttle Atlantis’ heat shield. They used Atlantis’ robotic arm and an attached boom extension to check the spacecraft’s underside, nose cap and leading edges of the wings as well as hard to reach shuttle surfaces.

The inspections are performed to check if any damage occurred to the heat shield during the climb to orbit that began when Atlantis lifted off Friday from Kennedy Space Center, Fla. Over the next few days, engineers and flight controllers will analyze the data collected by the STS-117 crew.

Last night during the robot arm checkout, the robotic arm cameras were used to take a closer look at an area of insulation blanket on the port orbital maneuvering system pod that pulled away from adjacent thermal tiles. Engineers are analyzing the imagery

Throughout the day, the crew has been preparing for Sunday’s arrival at the International Space Station. The day's activities include the extension of the shuttle’s docking ring and the check out of tools they will use to rendezvous and link up with the station. Docking is set for 3:38 p.m. Sunday.

Earlier today, the STS-117 crew checked out spacesuits to be used during the mission’s three scheduled spacewalks at the space station. The major objective of the spacewalks is to install and activate the station’s newest component, the Starboard 3 and 4 (S3/S4) truss segments, and to assist in the retraction of the starboard array on the Port 6 truss.

STS-117 is also delivering a new crew member to the station.

Credit: NASA TV

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STS 117 Mission

At today's Launch Readiness News Conference, the Mission Management Team announced that they were in agreement that Space Shuttle Atlantis is ready to fly on Friday.

"The team is ready to go and we're just really excited to be at this point after a very long and arduous spring and a lot of really hard work by the entire team," said LeRoy Cain, launch integration manager for the Space Shuttle Program. "I'm very proud of the team."

NASA Launch Director Mike Leinbach reported that the countdown is going fine and there no significant issues to report.

The forecast for launch day, according to U.S. Air Force Lt. Col. Pat Barrett, weather officer from the 45th squadron, remains at a 30-percent chance of violating launch constraints. A high-pressure ridge is expected to move to the north which could help clear out any thunderstorm activity over Kennedy Space Center.

At 10:30 p.m. EDT Thursday, the protective rotating service structure will be rolled away from the space shuttle. External tank fuel loading is scheduled to begin at around 9:30 a.m. EDT Friday.

The launch countdown for Atlantis officially began at 9 p.m. EDT Tuesday, at T-43 hours. Included in the countdown is nearly 28 hours of built-in hold time prior to a targeted 7:38 p.m. EDT launch on Friday.

credit: NASA/Troy Cryder

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