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Shuttle crew begins terminal phase of rendezvous BY WILLIAM HARWOOD STORY WRITTEN FOR CBS NEWS "SPACE PLACE" & USED WITH PERMISSION Posted: February 9, 2008 The Atlantis astronauts fired the shuttle's maneuvering rockets today at 9:37 a.m. to begin the final phase of today's rendezvous with the international space station. The space station will be in a so-called "biased" attitude, or orientation, today during docking to improve solar power generation. This is due to the current beta angle, i.e., the angle between the sun and the plane of the station's orbit, and it's not the normal docking attitude familiar to shuttle commander Steve Frick from previous training. But he can perform a procedure known as a fly-out if any misalignment develops and flight controllers do not anticipate any problems. The station's attitude will prevent normal Ku-band television downlink of the docking and may interfere with live TV of the traditional "welcome aboard" ceremony. If so, videotape is expected to be downlinked later. Early today, one of the shuttle's four flight computers - GPC-3 - failed to properly transition from "standby" to "run" when the astronauts powered up the full redundant set. Engineers believe the computer is healthy, but they deferred troubleshooting until after docking. In one other departure from normal operations, Frick was asked to loiter a bit when the shuttle reaches a point directly below the station to give the lab crew extra time to photograph insulation blankets on the orbiter's aft right-side rocket pod. A blanket may have pulled up a bit and the photography will help engineers assess its condition. Docking is targeted for around 12:25 p.m., although that could slip a bit depending how long it takes to complete the blanket photography and the normal rendezvous pitch maneuver used to collect imagery of the shuttle's heat shield tiles. Repeating from Friday, here is an updated timeline of today's activities (in EST and mission elapsed time): DATE/EDT...DD...HH...MM...EVENT 02/09/08 04:45 AM...01...14...00...STS/ISS crew wakeup 06:15 AM...01...15...30...Group B computer powerup 06:30 AM...01...15...45...Space station (ISS) daily planning conference 06:30 AM...01...15...45...Begin rendezvous timeline 08:06 AM...01...17...21...NC-4 rendezvous rocket firing 08:50 AM...01...18...05...Middeck prepped for docking 09:05 AM...01...18...20...Spacesuits removed from airlock 09:37 AM...01...18...52...Terminal initiation (TI) rocket firing 09:45 AM...01...19...00...Station in docking orientation 10:10 AM...01...19...25...U.S. solar arrays feathered 10:12 AM...01...19...27...Station in rendezvous mode 10:15 AM...01...19...30...Sunset 10:15 AM...01...19...30...Russian command module lights on 10:36 AM...01...19...51...Range: 10,000 feet 10:44 AM...01...19...59...Range: 5,000 feet 10:50 AM...01...20...05...Range: 3,000 feet 10:52 AM...01...20...07...Sunrise 10:54 AM...01...20...09...MC-4 rendezvous rocket firing 10:58 AM...01...20...13...Range: 1,500 feet 11:03 AM...01...20...18...Range: 1,000 feet 11:06 AM...01...20...21...Shuttle KU antenna to low power 11:07 AM...01...20...22...Shuttle directly below station 11:12 AM...01...20...27...Range: 600 feet 11:19 AM...01...20...34...Noon 11:23 AM...01...20...38...Start shuttle pitch-around photo survey maneuver 11:27 AM...01...20...42...RPM full photo window close 11:31 AM...01...20...46...End pitch maneuver 11:34 AM...01...20...49...Initiate pitch up maneuver to point ahead of station 11:35 AM...01...20...50...Russian solar arrays feathered 11:45 AM...01...21...00...Shuttle directly ahead of station 11:46 AM...01...21...01...Range: 300 feet 11:47 AM...01...21...02...Sunset 11:50 AM...01...21...05...Range: 250 feet 11:54 AM...01...21...09...Range: 200 feet 11:57 AM...01...21...12...Range: 170 feet 11:59 AM...01...21...14...Range: 150 feet 12:03 PM...01...21...18...Range: 100 feet 12:06 PM...01...21...21...Range: 75 feet 12:10 PM...01...21...25...Range: 50 feet 12:13 PM...01...21...28...Range: 30 feet; start stationkeeping 12:18 PM...01...21...33...End stationkeeping; push to dock 12:23 PM...01...21...38...Range: 10 feet 12:23 PM...01...21...38...Sunrise 12:24 PM...01...21...39...DOCKING 12:45 PM...01...22...00...Leak checks 01:10 PM...01...22...25...Group B computer power down 01:15 PM...01...22...30...Docking system prepped for ingress 01:35 PM...01...22...50...Hatch opening 01:35 PM...01...22...50...Post-rendezvous laptop reconfig 02:05 PM...01...23...20...Safety briefing 02:55 PM...02...00...10...Station arm (SSRMS) grapples shuttle inspection boom (OBSS) 03:00 PM...02...00...15...Mission status briefing on NTV 03:25 PM...02...00...40...SSRMS unberths OBSS 03:55 PM...02...01...10...Airlock preps 04:30 PM...02...01...45...Shuttle arm (SRMS) grapples OBSS 04:45 PM...02...02...00...SSRMS ungrapples OBSS 05:00 PM...02...02...15...Post-MMT briefing on NTV (may move earlier) 05:25 PM...02...02...40...Spacewalk No. 1 (EVA-1): Procedures review 07:00 PM...02...04...15...EVA-1: Mask pre-breathe for campout 07:55 PM...02...05...10...EVA-1: Campout begins (10.2 psi depress) 08:15 PM...02...05...30...Station crew sleep begins 08:45 PM...02...06...00...Shuttle crew sleep begin 09:00 PM...02...06...15...Daily video highlights reel
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VIDEO:
FRIDAY'S MISSION STATUS BRIEFING 