The STS-122 crew is ready to return on Earth, after a successful
mission during which they installed the Columbus
module and performed various additional tasks.
The STS-122 and Expedition 16 crews are scheduled to bid one
another farewell before the hatches close at 12:15 p.m. EST between space
shuttle Atlantis and the International Space Station.
The Atlantis crew performed three spacewalks to prepare the
module for its scientific work and replaced an expended nitrogen tank on the
station.
On Friday, Mission Specialists Rex Walheim and Stan Love
have successfully installed the two external facilities on Columbus, the SOLAR
observatory and the European Technology Exposure Facility (EuTEF).
With the help of the robotic arm controlled by Mission
Specialist Leland Melvin, the two spacewalkers transferred the two facilities
from Atlantis’ payload to an external platform on Columbus.
NASA officials announced that on Saturday morning Saturday
morning, the station got a reboost, a routine procedure to adjust its orbit.
The purpose of the reboost was to place the orbital outpost in better position
to receive future visitors, including the Expedition 17 crew, who are slated to
arrive in April.
Atlantis also transported ESA astronaut Leopold Eyharts to
the station to take the place of Daniel Tani as Expedition 16 flight engineer.
Tani is returning to Earth aboard the shuttle.
Atlantis and the STS-122 crew are scheduled to leave the
space station on Monday, with undocking slated for 4:26 a.m.
The landing is scheduled for Wednesday at Cape
Canaveral, Fla., or the backup
touchdown site in California.
For the next month, NASA is preparing the mission STS-123 on
space shuttle Endeavour, which will deliver the first pressurized section, Japanese
Experiment Logistics Module (ELM-PS), of the future Kibo (Hope) Japanese module.
The Japanese Experiment Logistics Module, Pressurized
Section it will contain critical avionics and serve as a storage area for
experiment materials. At 14.4 feet in diameter and 12.8 feet in length, it is
the smaller of two pressurized Japanese modules.
On Monday, February 18, Endeavour will begin its 3.4-mile
journey to Launch Pad 39A that will take
about six-and-a-half hours.
The mission STS-123 astronauts will be at Kennedy Feb. 23-25
for the terminal countdown demonstration test, which is a full launch dress
rehearsal to prepare for a targeted March 11 liftoff.
Endeavour's crew includes Commander Dominic Gorie, Pilot
Gregory Johnson and Mission Specialists Rick Linnehan, Robert Behnken, Mike
Foreman and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency's, Takao Doi.
After getting the JAXA module installed, the crew’s
attention will turn to the Canadian Space Agency’s newest contribution to the
station, the Special Purpose Dexterous Manipulator. Dubbed Dextre by a
Canada-wide naming contest, the robot, with its two small robotic arms, will
attach to the station’s robotic arm, Candarm2, and allow astronauts to replace hardware
outside the station without doing a spacewalk.
Endeavour is launching with the expectation of staying in
space for 16 days, and there are always extra days set aside in case weather or
a technical problem delays landing.
For NASA every mission is critical because the US space agency
is rushing double capacity on the space station by 2010, when the ageing
shuttle fleet is set to retire.
