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Shuttle Endeavour to depart the space station tonight
BY WILLIAM HARWOOD
STORY WRITTEN FOR CBS NEWS "SPACE PLACE" & USED WITH PERMISSION
Posted: February 19, 2010


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The Endeavour astronauts are prepping the shuttle for undocking and separation from the International Space Station this evening, leaving the lab complex more than 98 percent complete after the delivery of a new habitation module and multi-window cupola.


Credit: NASA
 
Aboard the space station, meanwhile, commander Jeffrey Williams and T.J. Creamer plan to carry out a detailed internal inspection of the lab's U.S. water recycling racks to look for any signs of a leak or other problem that might explain the apparent loss of about two pints of urine.

The loss was noted after the water processing racks were moved into the new Tranquility module and reactivated. Engineers do not believe any urine actually leaked out of the processor's plumbing, but it's not yet clear what went wrong during two attempts to re-activate the urine processing system. The inspections will not conflict with Endeavour's scheduled undocking.

With pilot Terry Virts at the controls, undocking is planned for 7:54 p.m. EST. Virts plans to pull out directly in front of the station before beginning a 360-degree photo-documentation fly around.

"Undocking day's always a big day for the pilot because we get to fly the undocking and so that's going to be a lot of fun," Virts said in a NASA interview. "We're going to slowly back away from the station. At about 400 feet, we'll start to fly up above the station. We're going to fly a 600-foot circle around it and we should get some great views.

"What we'll be seeing will be the first time that the station is in basically its final configuration. We'll see node 3 (Tranquility), the cupola, all the major station modules will be there at that point and so that's going to be a lot of fun."

At the end of the fly around, Virts and commander George Zamka will oversee a rocket firing around 9:37 p.m. to leave the area. The shuttle astronauts plan to spend the rest of their "day" inspecting the ship's reinforced carbon carbon nose cap and wing leading edge panels to look for any signs of micrometeoroid impact damage that might have occurred since a similar inspection the day after launch.

"The whole crew will be involved in doing a late inspection where we take the boom sensor system and we move it around the shuttle to look to make sure there hasn't been any damage to the shuttle while we were in space, during our, roughly, two weeks in space," Virts said.

A mission status briefing is planned for 1:30 a.m. Saturday and the crew will call it a day at 7:14 a.m. The astronauts plan to pack up and test Endeavour's entry systems overnight Saturday.

Landing back at the Kennedy Space Center is targeted for 10:16 p.m. Sunday, weather permitting. The forecast for Sunday and Monday night at both Kennedy and Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., calls for showers, or a chance for showers, within 30 nautical miles.

Here is an updated timeline of today's activity (in EST and mission elapsed time; includes revision M of the NASA television schedule):


EST........DD...HH...MM...EVENT

02/19
03:14 PM...11...11...00...Crew wakeup
05:09 PM...11...12...55...ISS daily planning conference
05:45 PM...11...13...30...53...US Arrays Feathered
05:59 PM...11...13...45...Group B computer powerup
06:07 PM...11...13...53...14...Sunset
06:39 PM...11...14...24...54...Maneuver to Undock Attitude
06:42 PM...11...14...28...37...Sunrise
07:07 PM...11...14...52...53...Orbiter/ISS in Undock Attitude
07:09 PM...11...14...55...Undocking timeline begins
07:10 PM...11...14...56...38...Noon
07:38 PM...11...15...24...39...Sunset
07:44 PM...11...15...30...Russian Segment Arrays Feathered

07:54 PM...11...15...40...Undocking

07:55 PM...11...15...41...Initial Separation Pulses
07:55 PM...11...15...41...40...ISS Holds Current Attitude
07:59 PM...11...15...45...Range = 50 feet
08:01 PM...11...15...47...Range = 75 feet
08:14 PM...11...16...11...Sunrise
08:14 PM...11...16...12...RS Arrays Resume Tracking
08:23 PM...11...16...09...Range = 400 ft; Start Flyaround
08:32 PM...11...16...18...30...Range = 600 feet
08:32 PM...11...16...18...31...US Arrays Resume Tracking
08:33 PM...11...16...18...54...ISS Maneuver to normal attitude begins
08:34 PM...11...16...20...30...Shuttle directly above ISS
08:42 PM...11...16...28...08...Noon
08:46 PM...11...16...32...Shuttle directly behind ISS
08:57 PM...11...16...43...30...Shuttle directly below ISS
09:09 PM...11...16...55...Sep 1 Burn
09:10 PM...11...16...56...05...Sunset
09:37 PM...11...17...23...Sep 2 Burn
09:39 PM...11...17...25...Post-undocking PGSC reconfig
09:54 PM...11...17...40...Group B computer powerdown
10:09 PM...11...17...55...Crew meals begin
10:34 PM...11...18...20...Playback ops

02/20
12:19 AM...11...20...05...Starboard wing survey
01:30 AM...11...21...16...Mission status briefing on NTV
01:59 AM...11...21...45...EVA unpack and stow
02:04 AM...11...21...50...Nose cap survey
02:54 AM...11...22...40...Post EVA entry preps
02:54 AM...11...22...40...Port wing survey
04:39 AM...12...25...00...LDRI downlink
07:14 AM...12...03...00...STS crew sleep begins
08:00 AM...12...03...46...Daily highlights on NTV
03:14 PM...12...11...00...Crew wakeup

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