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![]() Endeavour gears up for undocking, rendezvous test BY WILLIAM HARWOOD STORY WRITTEN FOR CBS NEWS "SPACE PLACE" & USED WITH PERMISSION Posted: May 29, 2011 ![]() ![]() KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FL--The shuttle Endeavour's crew prepared for undocking from the International Space Station late Sunday to close out the orbiter's 12th and final visit to the sprawling lab complex. Appropriately enough with the shuttle program down to its final two missions, the astronauts plan to test new navigation sensors and software after undocking to help engineers perfect a new system intended for use in NASA's Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle, a four-seat capsule being developed for deep space exploration. Commander Mark Kelly and his five crewmates -- pilot Gregory H. Johnson, Michael Fincke, Gregory Chamitoff, Andrew Feustel and European Space Agency astronaut Roberto Vittori -- went to bed shortly before 11:30 a.m. EDT (GMT-4) Sunday after bidding the station's three-man crew farewell. The astronauts were awakened at 7:26 p.m. with a recording of "Slowness" by the Tucson band Calexico, beamed up for Kelly and his wife, Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords. "It's about two people on a trip reaching across the distance and it references places like Signal Hill and Gate's Pass and Tucson," Kelly said. "I know she really, really wants to get back there and is really looking forward to that. So it's an appropriate song because that's coming soon. Thanks." With Johnson at the controls, Endeavour is scheduled to pull away from the space station's forward port at 11:55 p.m. Following standard practice, Johnson will guide the shuttle to a point about 400 feet directly in front of the outpost before kicking off a slow 360-degree photo-survey fly around, looping up above, behind, below and back out in front of the laboratory at a distance of about 600 feet. A small rocket firing then will put Endeavour on a trajectory carrying it back above and behind the station. Kelly then plans to take over for a partial re-rendezvous to test navigation sensors and software developed for NASA's next-generation spacecraft, the Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle. "It's the first time we'll be doing a re-rendezvous with space station, and it's a different kind of rendezvous," Kelly said in a NASA interview. "The plan is after we undock, we'll go out to about 400 feet, we'll do a fly-around like we normally do, and then when we come up back in front of the space station again, we're then going to do this series of burns where we're going to fall behind. "Then we're going to come back in doing a profile that's actually quite similar to what Apollo used for a rendezvous. Instead of coming up on the R-bar, which is right underneath the space station, or the V-bar, which is the direction it's going, we're going to come up on a 45-degree angle from behind. The sensor (is a) more advanced laser system, cameras, that can give some very accurate range and range-rate data. ... So we're going to test that as we come up to the space station." Originally designed for the Bush administration's Constellation moon program, the four-seat MPCV capsule, known as Orion, is being developed by NASA for future flights to a variety of deep space targets, including the moon, near-Earth asteroids and, eventually, Mars. Known by an acronym that's a stretch by even NASA standards -- the Sensor Test for Orion Relative Navigation Risk Mitigation -- the STORRM sensor package is mounted in the shuttle's cargo bay. It includes a high-definition camera and a laser that will flash on and off 30 times a second to "illuminate" targets mounted on the space station. By analyzing reflected laser light, STORRM software can compute the distance between the two spacecraft and their relative velocity. The STORRM equipment was used during Endeavour's approach to the station May 18 and engineers said it worked well. Since then, the recorder used to store data from the high definition docking camera failed and the camera is not expected to be available for the post-undocking rendezvous test. "It looks likely we won't be able to record any docking camera data for the undock and re-rendezvous," said Heather Hinkel, the principal investigator. "So that's a big disappointment to the STORRM team. We're really fortunate we got great data on rendezvous, we met about two thirds of our objectives already." As for the post-undocking test, "whatever we get will be sufficient," she said. "The re-rendezvous was designed to meet the (laser scan) objectives. So we have our primary objective coming up at that long range on that re-rendezvous trajectory. ... We were fortunate that we got as much as we did (during Endeavour's approach to the station). We feel we'll have been able to assess enough to feel that camera will be a good camera to use for Orion." Shuttle Flight Director Gary Horlacher said the STORRM laser system "will be taking data all the way out until the sensors drop lock outside 20,000 feet. Then we'll go ahead and do an orbit lowering burn, which is going to bring us down below the space station and get us set up for the trajectory to mimic the Orion approach to the space station." That trajectory is "designed to have us stall out about 1,000 feet below and 300 feet behind the space station," Horlacher said. "And then orbital mechanics will pull us down and away. STORRM sensors will continue to take data until the sensors drop lock. And when we get outside that range, we'll go ahead and call the docked mission complete and then we'll get our nominal water dumps accomplished and get the ship prepared to come back home." Horlacher said STORRM represents "an outstanding way to take advantage of the spaceflight capabilities we have today with the shuttle and the space station to demonstrate new technologies that will be used for future spacecraft." "This capability is being designed for Orion, but is absolutely applicable for any spacecraft doing dockings, in lunar orbit, in Mars orbit, anywhere," he said. "To me, it's a very significant progression of advancing technologies for future applications." A final separation burn is planned for 4:38 a.m. With the STORRM test complete, the Endeavour astronauts will wrap up a busy day and go to bed at 10:56 a.m. They plan to test the shuttle's re-entry systems overnight Monday and to pack up early Tuesday. If all goes well, Kelly will guide Endeavour to a landing back at the Kennedy Space Center around 2:35 a.m. Wednesday. A few miles away, engineers will be wrapping up rollout of the shuttle Atlantis to pad 39A for work to ready the ship for launch July 8 on NASA's 135th and final shuttle mission. Rollout is scheduled to begin at 8 p.m. Tuesday, a few hours before Endeavour's re-entry begins. Here is an updated timeline of the crew's planned activities for flight days 14 and 15 (in EDT and mission elapsed time; includes revision K of the NASA television schedule; best viewed with fixed-width font): DATE/EDT...DD...HH...MM...SS...EVENT 05/29 05/29 07:26 PM...13...10...30...00...STS/ISS crew wakeup 08:56 PM...13...12...00...00...ISS daily planning conference 10:11 PM...13...13...15...00...Group B computer powerup 10:46 PM...13...13...50...00...ISS maneuver to undocking attitude 11:11 PM...13...14...15...00...Undocking timeline begins 11:37 PM...13...14...41...02...Sunset 11:55 PM...13...14...59...00...UNDOCKING 11:56 PM...13...15...00...40...ISS holds attitude 05/30 12:00 AM...13...15...04...00...50 ft: reselect -X jets 12:02 AM...13...15...06...00...75 ft: low-z jets 12:13 AM...13...15...17...09...Sunrise 12:22 AM...13...15...26...00...Start flyaround at 400 ft 12:31 AM...13...15...35...30...Range = 600 feet 12:33 AM...13...15...37...00...ISS maneuvers to TEA attitude 12:33 AM...13...15...37...30...Shuttle directly above ISS 12:40 AM...13...15...44...48...Noon 12:45 AM...13...15...49...00...Shuttle directly behind ISS 12:56 AM...13...16...00...30...Shuttle directly below ISS 01:08 AM...13...16...12...00...Shuttle directly in front of ISS 01:08 AM...13...16...12...00...Separation burn No. 1 01:08 AM...13...16...12...26...Sunset 01:16 AM...13...16...20...00...STORRM* timeline begins 01:36 AM...13...16...40...00...Separation burn No. 2 01:44 AM...13...16...48...43...Sunrise 02:12 AM...13...17...16...17...Noon 02:24 AM...13...17...28...30...Range greater than 19,000 feet 02:36 AM...13...17...40...39...NH2 STORRM rocket firing 02:39 AM...13...17...43...51...Sunset 02:50 AM...13...17...54...40...Iss maneuvers to DTO attitude 02:58 AM...13...18...02...40...MC5 STORRM rocket firing 03:15 AM...13...18...19...58...Sunrise 03:23 AM...13...18...27...40...NSR STORRM rocket firing 03:28 AM...13...18...32...40...Range less than 20,000 feet (closest approach) 03:37 AM...13...18...41...40...MC6 STORRM rocket firing 03:57 AM...13...19...01...40...TPI STORRM rocket firing 04:11 AM...13...19...15...14...Sunset 04:38 AM...13...19...42...40...Separation burn No. 3 04:47 AM...13...19...51...20...Sunrise 04:56 AM...13...20...00...00...Crew meals begin 05:05 AM...13...20...09...40...Range greater than 20,000 feet 05:56 AM...13...21...00...00...EVA unpack and stow 06:30 AM...13...21...34...00...Mission status briefing on NASA TV 07:16 AM...13...22...20...00...Maui DTO 07:26 AM...13...22...30...00...Post EVA entry preps 07:56 AM...13...23...00...00...Undocking video playback 08:01 AM...13...23...05...00...Group B computer powerdown 08:11 AM...13...23...15...00...ISS daily planning conference 10:56 AM...14...02...00...00...STS crew sleep begins 01:00 PM...14...04...04...00...Mission Management Team briefing on NASA TV 06:56 PM...14...10...00...00...STS crew wakeup 09:06 PM...14...12...10...00...CBS News/network crew interviews 10:01 PM...14...13...05...00...Flight control system checkout 11:11 PM...14...14...15...00...Reaction control system hotfire
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MISSION STATUS CENTER |