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Atlantis streaking toward space station linkup BY WILLIAM HARWOOD STORY WRITTEN FOR CBS NEWS "SPACE PLACE" & USED WITH PERMISSION Posted: November 18, 2009 
The Atlantis astronauts closed in on the International Space Station Wednesday, working through the final steps in a complex rendezvous procedure that began with liftoff Monday. If all goes well, commander Charles Hobaugh, flying Atlantis from the shuttle's aft flight deck, will guide the spaceplane to a docking on the front end of the space station around 11:53 a.m. as the two spacecraft sail 220 miles above the Tasman Sea east of Tasmania at five miles per second.
Hobaugh, pilot Barry Wilmore, Leland Melvin and spacewalkers Robert Satcher, Michael Foreman and Randolph Bresnik were awakened to begin flight day three just before 4:30 a.m. by a recording of Stevie Wonder's "Higher Ground" beamed up from mission control. At that point, the shuttle was trailing the space station by about 50 miles. By 9:05 a.m., when the terminal phase of the rendezvous begins, Atlantis will be just 9.2 miles behind and below the station. "They'll perform two more burns that'll put us on what's essentially a controlled course to the International Space Station," said lead Flight Director Mike Sarafin. "The second and final burn is the terminal initiation burn, and that'll put us within hundreds of feet of the International Space Station. Then there are four small mid-course correction burns, just to kind of slow the profile and make sure we kind of ease up to the International Space Station." At a distance of about 600 feet directly below the lab complex, Hobaugh will initiate a computer-controlled 360-degree back-flip called a rendezvous pitch maneuver, or RPM, to expose the shuttle's belly to the station. The maneuver is expected to kick off around 10:52 a.m. As Atlantis slowly flips over, the station crew will photograph the ship's underside using digital cameras with 400-mm and 800-mm telephoto lenses to look for any signs of heat shield damage. "Then the crew will stop the back-flip maneuver after a full 360-degree rotation and maneuver Atlantis up in front of the International Space Station on what we call the velocity vector, again at a range of about 400 to 600 feet," Sarafin said. "Then they'll come in the docking corridor, a very narrow, roughly 3-degree corridor, and close in at about a tenth of a foot per second in the final feet." After leak checks to make sure the two spacecraft are firmly locked together, hatches will be opened and the six-member station crew - European Space Agency commander Frank De Winne of Belgium, cosmonauts Maxim Suraev and Roman Romanenko, NASA astronauts Jeffrey Williams and Nicole Stott and Canadian astronaut Robert Thirsk - will welcome their shuttle colleagues aboard around 1:48 p.m. The primary goal of the 129th shuttle mission is to deliver some 15 tons of spare components and equipment to the station to protect against failures after the shuttle is retired next year. The equipment is mounted on two Express Logistics Carrier pallets in Atlantis' cargo bay. "Flight day three is the busiest day of the mission," said station Flight Director Brian Smith. "The crew, as soon as they get done with the safety briefing, they're going to get right into the ELC-1 installation ops." Two-and-a-half hours after docking, Bresnik and Melvin, operating the shuttle's robot arm, will carefully lift ELC-1 from its perch in the shuttle's cargo bay just in front of ELC-2. The first cargo carrier will be maneuvered to a position on the left side of the shuttle where the station's robot arm, operated by Wilmore and Williams, will latch on and take over. After the shuttle arm lets go, ELC-1 will be moved to the Earth-facing side of the port three (P3) truss segment on the left side of the station's power truss and locked into place. Mounted on ELC-1's upper deck are a 600-pound control moment gyroscope, a solar array battery charge-discharge unit, a device to prevent electrical arcing between the station and the space environment and a latching end effector for the station's robot arm. Mounted on the lower surface are a 550-pound nitrogen tank assembly, a 780-pound external cooling system pump module and a 1,700-pound ammonia coolant tank. While ELC-1 is being installed, Foreman and Satcher will be reviewing procedures for a spacewalk Thursday, the first of three planned for Atlantis' mission. Foreman and Satcher will spend the night in the station's Quest airlock module at a reduced pressure of 10.2 pounds per square inch to help prepare them for a day of work in NASA's low-pressure spacesuits. The astronauts are scheduled to go to bed at 8:28 p.m. Today's mission status briefing is planned for 2:30 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 C of the NASA television schedule): EST........DD...HH...MM...EVENT 11/18/09 04:28 AM...01...14...00...00...STS/ISS crew wakeup 05:48 AM...01...15...20...00...Group B computer powerup 06:03 AM...01...15...35...00...Rendezvous timeline begins 06:03 AM...01...15...35...00...ISS daily planning conference 07:34 AM...01...17...06...17...NC-4 rendezvous rocket firing 07:53 AM...01...17...25...00...Spacesuits removed from airlock 09:05 AM...01...18...37...47...TI burn 09:44 AM...01...19...16...18...Sunset 10:04 AM...01...19...36...23...Range: 10,000 feet 10:13 AM...01...19...45...03...Range: 5,000 feet 10:18 AM...01...19...50...32...Range: 3,000 feet 10:20 AM...01...19...52...20...Sunrise 10:22 AM...01...19...54...41...MC-4 rendezvous burn 10:26 AM...01...19...58...41...Range: 1,500 feet 10:31 AM...01...20...03...41...Range: 1,000 feet 10:34 AM...01...20...06...41...KU antenna to low power 10:35 AM...01...20...07...41...+R bar arrival directly below ISS 10:41 AM...01...20...12...53...Range: 600 feet 10:48 AM...01...20...19...59...Noon 10:52 AM...01...20...23...59...RPM start window open 10:52 AM...01...20...24...00...Start pitch maneuver 10:56 AM...01...20...28...07...RPM full photo window close 11:00 AM...01...20...32...00...End pitch maneuver 11:02 AM...01...20...34...36...Initiate pitch up maneuver (575 ft) 11:04 AM...01...20...36...30...RPM start window close 11:14 AM...01...20...46...06...+V bar arrival; range: 310 feet 11:15 AM...01...20...46...56...Range: 300 feet 11:15 AM...01...20...47...38...Sunset 11:19 AM...01...20...51...06...Range: 250 feet 11:23 AM...01...20...55...16...Range: 200 feet 11:25 AM...01...20...57...46...Range: 170 feet 11:27 AM...01...20...59...26...Range: 150 feet 11:31 AM...01...21...03...36...Range: 100 feet 11:34 AM...01...21...06...36...Range: 75 feet 11:38 AM...01...21...10...46...Range: 50 feet 11:42 AM...01...21...14...06...Range: 30 feet; start stationkeeping 11:47 AM...01...21...19...06...End stationkeeping; push to dock 11:51 AM...01...21...23...26...Range: 10 feet 11:51 AM...01...21...23...39...Sunrise 11:53 AM...01...21...25...07...DOCKING 12:13 PM...01...21...45...00...Leak checks 12:13 PM...01...21...45...00...Video playback 12:33 PM...01...22...05...00...Post docking laptop reconfig 12:43 PM...01...22...15...00...Docking system prepped for ingress 12:43 PM...01...22...15...00...Group B computer powerdown 01:03 PM...01...22...35...00...Hatch open 01:48 PM...01...23...20...00...Welcome aboard! 01:58 PM...01...23...30...00...Safety briefing 02:28 PM...02...00...00...00...Shuttle arm (SRMS) unberths ELC1 02:30 PM...02...00...02...02...Mission status briefing on NTV 02:33 PM...02...00...05...00...Spacesuits moved to ISS 02:38 PM...02...00...10...00...EVA-1: Tools configured 03:08 PM...02...00...40...00...Station arm (SSRMS) grapples ELC1 03:33 PM...02...01...05...00...SRMS ungrapples ELC1 03:43 PM...02...01...15...00...SSRMS moves ELC1 to install point 04:08 PM...02...01...40...00...EVA-1: Equipment lock preps 04:23 PM...02...01...55...00...EVA-1: Procedures review 04:33 PM...02...02...05...00...SSRMS installs ELC1 05:00 PM...02...02...32...00...Post-MMT briefing on NTV 05:33 PM...02...03...05...00...ISS evening planning conference 06:53 PM...02...04...25...00...EVA-1: Mask/pre-breathe 07:33 PM...02...05...05...00...EVA-1: Airlock depress to 10.2 psi 07:58 PM...02...05...30...00...ISS crew sleep begins 08:28 PM...02...06...00...00...STS crew sleep begins 09:00 PM...02...06...32...00...Daily highlights 11:00 PM...02...08...32...00...HD highlights
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Credit: NASA 
VIDEO:
SUMMARY OF THE SPARE PARTS PALLETS 