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Discovery begins final phase of rendezvous for docking BY WILLIAM HARWOOD STORY WRITTEN FOR CBS NEWS "SPACE PLACE" & USED WITH PERMISSION Posted: October 25, 2007 Trailing the international space station by about 9.2 miles, shuttle commander Pam Melroy and pilot George Zamka fired Discovery's maneuvering rockets today at 5:55 a.m. to kick off the final stages of a two-day rendezvous procedure that began with launch Tuesday. If all goes well, Melroy will guide Discovery to a docking with pressurized mating adapter No. 2 on the front of the lab complex around 8:33 a.m. "The rendezvous is a very exciting time for us, for a lot of different reasons," Melroy, the second woman to command a space shuttle, said in a NASA interview. "First of all, for the pilot and commander, we're test pilots. So any opportunity to fly the vehicle is what really gets us excited, and we focus a lot on it during training. But I also find, on a personal level, it's very exciting because when you approach the space station, it's an extraordinary sight. Everybody can go to Florida, if they want to, and watch a space shuttle launch. But only astronauts get to see the space station. And it actually inspires that same sense of awe and wonder as you approach. So it's a very exciting moment, to see it there. You just can't believe how huge it is, and it's absolutely gorgeous!" The astronauts have been wrestling with computer network glitches involving laptop computers used for a variety of tasks, but engineers came up with a way to work around the problem in the near term and it's not expected to have any impact on today's rendezvous and docking. On the station, engineers have been monitoring higher-than-expected vibration and electricity use by a massive rotating joint that is used to slowly turn the lab's right-side solar arrays to keep them face on to the sun. This issue has been under study for the past few weeks and the plan today is simply to lock the joint in place during Discovery's final approach. Following a standard approach profile, Discovery will reach a point 600 feet directly below the lab complex around 7:25 a.m. A few minutes later, Melroy will guide the shuttle through a slow back flip to expose the orbiter's belly to the station. Using digital cameras with 400-mm and 800-mm lenses, the station crew will photograph the heat shield tiles on the shuttle's belly to look for signs of damage. Based on preliminary analysis of camera views during and after launch, along with laser scans carried out by the astronauts Wednesday, mission managers believe Discovery's heat shield is in good shape. But the rendezvous pitch maneuver provides the best close-up views of the shuttle's belly. "We do that as part of the heat shield inspection procedures that are in place now," Zamka said in a NASA interview. "About 600 feet below the space station on the R-bar, (the imaginary line) between the space station and the surface of the Earth, Pam Melroy will initiate a three-quarter-of-a-degree per second flip. Itšs nose going over the tail. And as shešs going over, we expose the underside of the shuttle, all the heat shield tiles to the space station. Onboard the space station we have crew members (who will be) systematically taking pictures of the tiles on the space shuttle." Once the rendezvous pitch maneuver is complete, Melroy will position the shuttle directly in front of the space station with its tail pointing toward Earth and its open payload bay toward the station. From there, she will slowly guide the orbiter in for a docking at PMA-2. After leak checks to make sure the docking mechanisms are fully engaged, hatches between the shuttle and the station will be opened and the station crew will welcome their shuttle colleagues aboard around 10:33 a.m. One of the first items on the agenda is to transfer a Soyuz seat-liner from the shuttle to the station so astronaut Dan Tani can replace astronaut Clay Anderson aboard the lab complex. Anderson, launched to the station last June, will return to Earth aboard Discovery while Tani remains behind with Expedition 16 commander Peggy Whitson and flight engineer Yuri Malenchenko. Here is an updated timeline of today's events (including rev. B of the NASA television schedule; in EDT and mission elapsed time):
EDT........DD...HH...MM...EVENT
01:08 AM...01...13...30...ISS crew wakeup
01:38 AM...01...14...00...STS crew wakeup
02:43 AM...01...15...05...Group B computer powerup
02:58 AM...01...15...20...Begin rendezvous timeline
04:24 AM...01...16...46...NC-4 rendezvous rocket firing
05:45 AM...01...18...07...ISS in attitude for docking
05:55 AM...01...18...17...Terminal phase initiation (TI) burn
06:31 AM...01...18...53...Sunset
06:31 AM...01...18...53...ISS in rendezvous mode
06:45 AM...01...19...07...US solar arrays feathered
06:54 AM...01...19...16...Range: 10,000 feet
07:01 AM...01...19...23...Sunrise
07:02 AM...01...19...24...Range: 5,000 feet
07:08 AM...01...19...30...Range: 3,000 feet
07:12 AM...01...19...34...MC-4 rendezvous burn
07:16 AM...01...19...38...Range: 1,500 feet
07:17 AM...01...19...39...Rendezvous pitch start window open
07:21 AM...01...19...43...Range: 1,000 feet
07:24 AM...01...19...46...KU antenna to low power
07:25 AM...01...19...47...+R bar arrival; Discovery is directly below ISS
07:30 AM...01...19...52...Range: 600 feet
07:32 AM...01...19...54...Start pitch maneuver
07:32 AM...01...19...54...Noon
07:39 AM...01...20...01...RPM full photo window close
07:40 AM...01...20...02...End pitch maneuver
07:43 AM...01...20...05...Initiate pitch up maneuver
07:47 AM...01...20...09...RPM start window close
07:47 AM...01...20...09...Russian solar arrays feathered
07:54 AM...01...20...16...+V bar arrival; Discovery in front of ISS
07:55 AM...01...20...17...Range: 300 feet
07:59 AM...01...20...21...Range: 250 feet
08:03 AM...01...20...25...Sunset
08:03 AM...01...20...25...Range: 200 feet
08:06 AM...01...20...28...Range: 170 feet
08:08 AM...01...20...30...Range: 150 feet
08:12 AM...01...20...34...Range: 100 feet
08:15 AM...01...20...37...Range: 75 feet
08:19 AM...01...20...41...Range: 50 feet
08:22 AM...01...20...44...Range: 30 feet; start station keeping
08:27 AM...01...20...49...End station keeping; push to dock
08:33 AM...01...20...55...Sunrise
08:33 AM...01...20...55...DOCKING
08:58 AM...01...21...20...Leak checks
08:58 AM...01...21...20...Post-rendezvous laptop reconfig
09:18 AM...01...21...40...Group B computer powerdown
09:28 AM...01...21...50...Airlock prepped for ingress
09:48 AM...01...22...10...Hatch opening
09:53 AM...01...22...15...Video playback of docking
10:33 AM...01...22...55...Welcome aboard!
10:38 AM...01...23...00...Safety briefing
11:00 AM...01...23...22...Mission status briefing on NASA TV
11:03 AM...01...23...25...Station robot arm grapples/unberths
heat shield inspection boom
11:03 AM...01...23...25...Spacewalk tools transferred to ISS
11:23 AM...01...23...45...Inspection boom handoff to shuttle robot arm
11:33 AM...01...23...55...Soyuz seatliner transfer
12:03 PM...02...00...25...Airlock preps
01:58 PM...02...02...20...EVA-1: Procedures review
03:53 PM...02...04...15...EVA-1: Mask pre-breathe
05:08 PM...02...05...30...ISS crew sleep begins
05:38 PM...02...06...00...STS crew sleep begin
06:00 PM...02...06...22...Post-MMT briefring on NASA TV
07:00 PM...02...07...22...Daily video highlights reel
10:30 PM...02...10...52...Flight director update on NASA TV
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