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Astronauts giving Atlantis full post-launch inspection BY WILLIAM HARWOOD STORY WRITTEN FOR CBS NEWS "SPACE PLACE" & USED WITH PERMISSION Posted: November 17, 2009 
The Atlantis astronauts are working through a busy day in space, facing a lengthy heat shield inspection, spacesuit checkout and preparations for rendezvous and docking with the International Space Station Wednesday. The astronauts were awakened a few minutes before 4:30 a.m. EST to begin their first full day in space. An inspection of the shuttle's reinforced carbon carbon nose cap and wing leading edge panels begins at 8:13 a.m., a process that will take about six hours to complete. The nose cap and wing leading edge panels experience the most extreme heating during re-entry and the inspection is a now-standard post-Columbia task intended to spot areas that might have been damaged by debris impacts during launch. Only a few debris events were noted during Atlantis' ascent Monday and Bill Gerstenmaier, chief of space operations at NASA headquarters in Washington, said Monday that they occurred after the shuttle was out of the dense lower atmosphere where impacts pose the greatest risk. Using a 50-foot-long boom on the end of the shuttle's robot arm, the astronauts will start by inspecting an umbilical panel on the right side of the shuttle where launch pad propellant and electrical lines were connected. "That'll begin with a survey of the OMS pod and what we call the T-zero umbilical where we flow cryogenic fluids through that interface, make sure there's no residual ice or damage to that area from the launch environment ... before sweeping the boom up and down the starboard wing surface, the reinforced carbon carbon that sees the hottest temperatures during the landing phase," said Flight Director Mike Sarafin. "After a series of racetrack maneuvers up and down the starboard wing, we will eventually reposition the boom up and over the crew cabin to get a view of the thermal blankets and tiles around the windows on the front of Atlantis. And then start to survey the nose cap, which again, is a reinforced carbon carbon surface, it's a very hard material that's used to reject the heat of re-entry. "Once that's complete, we'll go perform a very similar survey of the port wing and view the lower surface of the wing ... to make sure it, again, sustained the launch environment without any issues," he said. "Towards the tail end of the survey, we'll take a similar view by looking at the OMS pod and T-zero umbilical on the opposite side of the vehicle, again, pan, tilt and zoom the camera on the end of the boom to make sure that it looks good in that area of the vehicle before putting the boom away at the end of the day." Today's mission status briefing is scheduled for 2 p.m., followed by a post-Mission Management Team briefing at 5 p.m. Here is an updated timeline of today's activity (in EDT and mission elapsed time; includes revision B of the NASA television schedule): EST........DD...HH...MM...EVENT 11/17/09 04:28 AM...00...14...00...Crew wakeup 05:58 AM...00...15...30...Minicam downlink 06:37 AM...00...16...09...NC-2 rendezvous rocket firing 06:58 AM...00...16...30...SRMS unberths OBSS 07:23 AM...00...16...55...Ergometer setup 07:53 AM...00...17...25...Spacesuit checkout preps 08:13 AM...00...17...45...OBSS starboard wing survey 08:23 AM...00...17...55...Spacesuit checkout 10:08 AM...00...19...40...Crew meals begin 11:08 AM...00...20...40...OBSS nose cap survey 11:08 AM...00...20...40...Spacesuit prepped for transfer 11:58 AM...00...21...30...OBSS port wing survey 12:00 PM...00...21...32...WISE pre-launch briefing (education channel) 02:00 PM...00...23...32...Mission status briefing on NTV 02:13 PM...00...23...45...SRMS berths OBSS 03:08 PM...01...00...40...SRMS grapples ELC1 03:23 PM...01...00...55...OMS pod survey 03:28 PM...01...01...00...Centerline camera setup 03:28 PM...01...01...00...LDRI downlink 03:58 PM...01...01...30...Orbiter docking system ring extension 04:28 PM...01...02...00...Rendezvous tools checkout 05:00 PM...01...02...32...MMT briefing on NTV 05:44 PM...01...03...16...NC-3 rendezvous rocket firing 08:28 PM...01...06...00...Crew sleep begins 09:00 PM...01...06...32...Daily highlights reel on NTV
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VIDEO:
CREW FINISHES GETTING SUITED UP 