2nd Day of Orbit for Atlantis
With the second day in swing for Atlantis’ first full day of orbit, the astronauts of the STS-122 began inspections of the space shuttle’s heat shield, while also preparing for Saturday’s docking with the International Space Station. Preparations began around 9:40 a.m., with the early morning wake-up call beginning with Peter Gabriel’s “Book of Love,” ending at 2:35 p.m. According to the Associated Press’s article by Liz Austin Peterson in, “Astronauts to check shuttle for damage as Atlantis chases international space station.” Apparently, the reason this song was played was because it was a dedication to French Air Force General Leopold Eyharts from his wife and family. His loving response back was, “I know it has been a somehow hard day for them and I want to thank them.”
In the process of the Atlantis inspections, the robotic arm of the space shuttle was used, in addition to an attached boom extension to check the possibly damaged areas–the spacecraft’s underside, nose cap, the leading edges of the wings, and other hard to reach surfaces on the exterior of the shuttle. The reason for this inspection was to check for damage that possibly had occurred during the climb to orbit when launching occurred. Videos taken of the launching on February 7, 2008, at the Kennedy Space Center, Florida, showed several bits of debris coming off. This is just a precaution, as NASA did not worry about anything serious occurring.
Also on Saturday is the 48th birthday for the ISS commander, Peggy Whitson, who is onboard for a six-month tour of duty that began last October 10, 2007, launching on the Soyuz TMA-11 spacecraft which returned to Earth on October 12, 2007. Born in Mt. Ayr, Iowa, with the hometown Beaconsfield, Iowa, she received her bachelor of 1981-science degree in biology/chemistry was from Iowa Wesleyan College, with a 1985 doctorate in biochemistry from Rice University, in Houston, Texas, as a Robert A. Welch Predoctoral Fellow. Also, this is her second long-duration of spaceflight.
General Eyharts will be at the International Space Shuttle for approximately a month, replacing NASA astronaut Daniel Tani, whose mother recently passed away. Professionally trained, Eyharts will help continue setting up and activating the ESA Columbus module, Europe’s primary contribution to the International Space Station. Taking 23 years to complete, the Columbus has continuously been enduring redesigns, slowdowns, cancellations, delays, and two shuttle accidents. But now it is on its way, and hopefully everything will go as planned.
This entry was posted on Friday, February 8th, 2008 at 7:11 pm and is filed under Public Relations, Space Agency News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
