Saturday started with astronaut Sunita Williams breaking a record - in her sleep! Williams, who was a member of Expedition 15 on the ISS, broke Shannon Lucid’s worldwide female spaceflight endurance record of 188 days overnight. She switched places with Clay Anderson on Atlantis, and will be coming home this Thursday. Congratulations, Suni! NASA reports:
Mission Control Clears Shuttle Heat Shield; Williams Sets Spaceflight Record
The Mission Control Center in Houston told the STS-117 crew today that space shuttle Atlantis’ thermal protection system is cleared for re-entry. The astronauts got the good news about 11:20 a.m. EDT while they were transferring cargo between Atlantis and the International Space Station.
The heat shield was cleared after STS-117 Mission Specialist Danny Olivas repaired a protruding thermal blanket on one of Atlantis’ orbital maneuvering system pods during Friday’s spacewalk. Atlantis is scheduled to leave the station on Tuesday and land Thursday.
Early this morning, Mission Specialist Suni Williams set the record for the longest-duration single spaceflight by a woman. Williams passed the previous record of 188 days, 4 hours at 1:47 a.m. as STS-117 and Expedition 15 crew members slept aboard Atlantis and the station.
Williams began her spaceflight in December when she traveled to the station with STS-116. She served six months as a space station crew member. The previous record was set by Shannon Lucid on a mission to the Russian Mir space station in 1996.
In addition to cargo transfers, today’s schedule includes spacewalk preparations and a news conference. The crews will get ready for STS-117’s fourth spacewalk by preparing tools and spacesuits that will be used by Mission Specialists Patrick Forrester and Steven Swanson.
They will also review procedures for the spacewalk, which was added to the schedule after STS-117 arrived at the station. The excursion is set to begin at 12:53 p.m. Sunday.
The traditional joint news conference is scheduled to begin at 7:43 tonight and will air live on NASA TV.
The Station’s computer problems are getting better as well. NASA reports:
Russian Flight Controllers Send Commands to Computers
Efforts to bring the Russian navigation computers back to full operation will continue today. Friday, Russian flight controllers and the station crew were able to power-up two lanes of the Russian central computer and two lanes of the terminal computer by using a jumper cable to bypass a faulty secondary power switch.
Flight controllers began sending commands overnight to restart some systems. The central computer is now communicating with the U.S. command and control computer, and the terminal computer is communicating with U.S. navigation computers. The plan calls for more system restarts today.
The Russian navigation computers provide backup attitude control and orbital altitude adjustments. For now, the station’s control moment gyroscopes are handling attitude control, with the shuttle’s propulsion system providing backup.
MSNBC photo gallery here. Check the links at right for play-by-play and NASA TV.