Astronauts test Endeavour's re-entry systems, prep for landing (UPDATED)
Editor's note...
CBS News
KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FL--The Endeavour astronauts tested the shuttle's re-entry systems overnight Monday and began packing up for landing early Wednesday to close out the orbiter's 25th and final voyage.
"After Endeavour comes to a stop on the runway, hopefully in Florida, it'll head off to a museum," commander Mark Kelly told CBS News in an orbital interview. "It's certainly bittersweet. The space shuttle's been the workhorse of the U.S. space program for better than 30 years now, so it'll be sad to see it retired. But we are looking forward to new spacecraft and new destinations and we're all excited about the future."
If all goes well, Kelly and pilot Gregory Johnson will fire Endeavour's braking rockets at 1:29 a.m. EDT (GMT-4) Wednesday, setting up a landing on runway 15 at the Kennedy Space Center around 2:35 a.m. to wrap up a 6.5-million-mile voyage spanning 16 days and 248 orbits. A second landing opportunity is available one orbit later, at 4:11 a.m.
Forecasters with the Spaceflight Meteorology Group at the Johnson Space Center in Houston have been concerned about possibly high crosswinds for the past several days. But the latest forecast issued Monday evening called for "go" conditions for both Florida landing opportunities with crosswinds below NASA's 12-knot limit for nighttime landings.
"The weather is looking very promising," entry Flight Director Tony Ceccacci told reporters early Tuesday. "The past few days, the forecasts have been showing crosswinds above our fight rule limits for a nighttime landing. What has happened is, this high that we've had has set up and we were able to get a good trend last night and this evening. We're very confident that trend's going to stay the same for tomorrow.
"Right now, the forecasts are scattered (clouds) at 2,500, we have winds coming out of zero-eight-zero at six (knots) peaking at 10, giving us a crosswind of 10 knots, which is far below what we were predicting a couple of days ago. We're feeling pretty good about where we're going tomorrow."
The forecast for NASA's backup landing site at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., calls for good conditions with high-but-acceptable headwinds. But Endeavour has enough on-board supplies to stay in orbit three days past Wednesday and Ceccacci said NASA will not call up Edwards for the first landing opportunity.
If Endeavour does not get back to Florida on Wednesday, however, NASA will activate Edwards and bring the crew down Thursday on one coast or the other.
"Wednesday morning, we're going to be calling up KSC only," Ceccacci said. "If we did have to wave off, the end-of-mission-plus-one day would be pick 'em day. Even though we have the end-of-mission-plus-three capability, we decided just due to the duration of the mission it would probably be smart to get the crew down at end of mission plus one."
Monday night, Kelly, Johnson and fight engineer Roberto Vittori fired up one of Endeavour's hydraulic power units in a routine pre-entry test of the ship's fight control systems. They also test fired the shuttle's maneuvering thrusters before taking time out to practice landing procedures using a laptop flight simulator.
Kelly, Johnson, Vittori and spacewalkers Michael Fincke, Gregory Chamitoff and Andrew Feustel planned to go to bed at 9:56 a.m. Tuesday and to get back up at 5:56 p.m. to begin landing preparations.
Endeavour's flight has generated widespread interest because of the looming end of the shuttle program and because of the story of Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, Kelly's wife, who was gravely injured in an assassination attempt in January. Recovering in Houston,Giffords flew to Florida to watch Endeavour's launching and underwent successful surgery last week to replace part of her skull.
Kelly told CBS News Monday that it had been difficult being away from his wife and that he looked forward to landing Wednesday.
"Having her there for launch made it particularly important to me, to have her and Claudia and Claire, our two daughters there, it was really a special moment," he said. "After what happened to her Jan. 8, the fact that she was able to recover to the point to walk on the airplane, walk off, make the trip to Florida twice, it was really special.
"Being away from here, to be honest, it's difficult. Fortunately, there's a phone on the space station, there's email, we can communicate and I'm looking forward to getting back there tomorrow."
Updated re-entry timelines for both Wednesday landing opportunities are posted on the Flight Data File page.
With Endeavour's return to Earth, NASA's focus will shift to preparing the shuttle Atlantis for launch July 8 on the program's 135th and final mission. A few hours before Endeavour begins its descent, engineers at the Kennedy Space Center plan to begin hauling Atlantis to launch pad 39A to ready the ship for its final blastoff.
Here is an updated timeline for the final two days of Endeavour's mission (in EDT and mission elapsed time; includes revision M of the NASA television schedule; best viewed with fixed-width font):
- Posted at 11:47 PM EDT, 05/30/11: Astronauts test Endeavour's re-entry systems, prep for landing Wednesday
- Updated at 05:10 AM EDT, 05/31/11: Entry flight director briefing; updated forecast
CBS News
KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FL--The Endeavour astronauts tested the shuttle's re-entry systems overnight Monday and began packing up for landing early Wednesday to close out the orbiter's 25th and final voyage.
"After Endeavour comes to a stop on the runway, hopefully in Florida, it'll head off to a museum," commander Mark Kelly told CBS News in an orbital interview. "It's certainly bittersweet. The space shuttle's been the workhorse of the U.S. space program for better than 30 years now, so it'll be sad to see it retired. But we are looking forward to new spacecraft and new destinations and we're all excited about the future."
 |
| The Endeavour astronauts fielded a final round of questions from reporters Monday. Back row, left to right: Andrew Feustel, pilot Gregory Johnson and flight engineer Roberto Vittori. Front row, left to right: Gregory Chamitoff, commander Mark Kelly and Michael Fincke. (Credit NASA TV) |
Forecasters with the Spaceflight Meteorology Group at the Johnson Space Center in Houston have been concerned about possibly high crosswinds for the past several days. But the latest forecast issued Monday evening called for "go" conditions for both Florida landing opportunities with crosswinds below NASA's 12-knot limit for nighttime landings.
"The weather is looking very promising," entry Flight Director Tony Ceccacci told reporters early Tuesday. "The past few days, the forecasts have been showing crosswinds above our fight rule limits for a nighttime landing. What has happened is, this high that we've had has set up and we were able to get a good trend last night and this evening. We're very confident that trend's going to stay the same for tomorrow.
"Right now, the forecasts are scattered (clouds) at 2,500, we have winds coming out of zero-eight-zero at six (knots) peaking at 10, giving us a crosswind of 10 knots, which is far below what we were predicting a couple of days ago. We're feeling pretty good about where we're going tomorrow."
The forecast for NASA's backup landing site at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., calls for good conditions with high-but-acceptable headwinds. But Endeavour has enough on-board supplies to stay in orbit three days past Wednesday and Ceccacci said NASA will not call up Edwards for the first landing opportunity.
If Endeavour does not get back to Florida on Wednesday, however, NASA will activate Edwards and bring the crew down Thursday on one coast or the other.
"Wednesday morning, we're going to be calling up KSC only," Ceccacci said. "If we did have to wave off, the end-of-mission-plus-one day would be pick 'em day. Even though we have the end-of-mission-plus-three capability, we decided just due to the duration of the mission it would probably be smart to get the crew down at end of mission plus one."
Monday night, Kelly, Johnson and fight engineer Roberto Vittori fired up one of Endeavour's hydraulic power units in a routine pre-entry test of the ship's fight control systems. They also test fired the shuttle's maneuvering thrusters before taking time out to practice landing procedures using a laptop flight simulator.
Kelly, Johnson, Vittori and spacewalkers Michael Fincke, Gregory Chamitoff and Andrew Feustel planned to go to bed at 9:56 a.m. Tuesday and to get back up at 5:56 p.m. to begin landing preparations.
Endeavour's flight has generated widespread interest because of the looming end of the shuttle program and because of the story of Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, Kelly's wife, who was gravely injured in an assassination attempt in January. Recovering in Houston,Giffords flew to Florida to watch Endeavour's launching and underwent successful surgery last week to replace part of her skull.
Kelly told CBS News Monday that it had been difficult being away from his wife and that he looked forward to landing Wednesday.
"Having her there for launch made it particularly important to me, to have her and Claudia and Claire, our two daughters there, it was really a special moment," he said. "After what happened to her Jan. 8, the fact that she was able to recover to the point to walk on the airplane, walk off, make the trip to Florida twice, it was really special.
"Being away from here, to be honest, it's difficult. Fortunately, there's a phone on the space station, there's email, we can communicate and I'm looking forward to getting back there tomorrow."
Updated re-entry timelines for both Wednesday landing opportunities are posted on the Flight Data File page.
With Endeavour's return to Earth, NASA's focus will shift to preparing the shuttle Atlantis for launch July 8 on the program's 135th and final mission. A few hours before Endeavour begins its descent, engineers at the Kennedy Space Center plan to begin hauling Atlantis to launch pad 39A to ready the ship for its final blastoff.
Here is an updated timeline for the final two days of Endeavour's mission (in EDT and mission elapsed time; includes revision M of the NASA television schedule; best viewed with fixed-width font):
DATE/EDT......DD...HH...MM...SS...EVENT
05/30
06:56:00 PM...14...10...00...00...STS crew wakeup
09:06:00 PM...14...12...10...00...CBS News/network interviews
10:01:00 PM...14...13...05...00...Flight control system checkout
11:11:00 PM...14...14...15...00...Reaction control system hotfire
11:26:00 PM...14...14...30...00...PILOT landing simulations
05/31
12:26:00 AM...14...15...30...00...Endeavour tribute downlink
12:56:00 AM...14...16...00...00...Crew meal
02:16:00 AM...14...17...20...00...Deorbit review
02:46:00 AM...14...17...50...00...Cabin stow begins
05:00:00 AM...14...20...04...00...Mission status briefing on NASA TV
05:46:00 AM...14...20...50...00...Ergometer stow
06:16:00 AM...14...21...20...00...Wing leading edge sensor deactivation
06:26:00 AM...14...21...30...00...L-1 comm check
06:30:00 AM...14...21...50...00...B-roll/astronaut Cady Coleman
06:36:00 AM...14...21...40...00...Laptop computer stow (part 1)
06:46:00 AM...14...21...50...00...Ku-band antenna stow
07:00:00 AM...14...22...04...00...Live interviews with Cady Coleman
09:56:00 AM...15...01...00...00...Crew sleep begins
11:00:00 AM...15...02...04...00...Daily video highlights reel on NASA TV
05:56:00 PM...15...09...00...00...Crew wakeup (begin flight day 17)
08:26:00 PM...15...11...30...00...Group B computer powerup
08:41:00 PM...15...11...45...00...Inertial measurement unit alignment
09:06:00 PM...15...12...10...00...Laptop computer stow (part 2)
09:26:00 PM...15...12...30...00...Deorbit timeline begins
10:49:00 PM...15...13...49...00...Payload bay door closing
06/01
01:29:43 AM...15...16...33...15...Deorbit ignition (rev. 248)
02:35:23 AM...15...17...38...55...Landing on runway 15, Kennedy Space Center
03:06:53 AM...15...18...10...25...Deorbit ignition (rev. 249)
04:11:07 AM...15...19...14...39...Landing on runway 15, Kennedy Space Center