NASA STS-117 Status
Report #21
(18 June 2007) Crews aboard the space
shuttle Atlantis and the International Space Station bid farewell to one
another and closed the hatches between their spacecraft at 5:51 p.m. today in
preparation for the shuttle's departure Tuesday morning at 9:42
a.m.
The hatch closing wrapped up eight days of docked
operations.
A demonstration of the station's ability to maintain
attitude control on its own, a checkout on the new Solar Alpha Rotary Joint
(SARJ) and a smooth translation of the Mobile Transporter gave shuttle and
station program managers the confidence needed to approve undocking
tomorrow.
At 9:34 this morning, attitude control was handed over from
the shuttle to the Russian segment's terminal computer for a test of its
ability to fire Russian thrusters and maintain station attitude. Ninety minutes
later, at 11:09 a.m., control was handed back to U.S. computers and the control
moment gyroscopes, which completed the demonstration.
The shuttle
astronauts had the first part of the day off, before completing transfers
between Atlantis and the station. On the station side of the hatches, Atlantis'
crew had left behind more than 19 tons of food, water and equipment. They also
filled the shuttle's middeck with equipment and experiment samples returning to
Earth.
The most important transfer item to the shuttle was Astronaut
Suni Williams who lived aboard the station for 189 days. Remaining aboard the
station was Expedition 15 Flight Engineer Clayton Anderson. Williams topped
fellow Astronaut Shannon Lucid's record of 188 days in space.
With the
activation of SARJ, the station now has four U.S. solar array wings tracking
the sun through each orbit of the Earth.
The next STS-117 status report
will be issued Tuesday morning or earlier if events warrant.
(source:
NASA Johnson Space Center)