[NOTE (added May 22, 2009): The landing has been postponed from Friday to Saturday at least. The astronauts get a day off! In this case that's literally true; they have no tasks to perform so they get to sit back float and look out the windows. Check the links below for more info on when the landing will be scheduled.]
After a highly successful visit with Mr. Hubble’s telescope, the Space Shuttle Atlantis is scheduled to land in Florida at 10:00 a.m. Eastern time (14:00 GMT) on Friday. However, weather is rotten at the Cape, and even the secondary time of 11:39 local (15:39 GMT) is in doubt. Check the NASA shuttle page for updates.
That first touchdown time is at 8:00 a.m. my time, and I have some Clark Kent duties then, so my ability to live-tweet the event has a low probability. The later time is even worse, so don’t count on me for news. If I can I’ll have NASA TV playing at BA HQ, and I’ll post when I can. I do really want to watch them land, and see the end of the mission that treated my ‘scope so well.
May 21st, 2009 at 4:50 pm
Just curious but .. what takes them so long? They released Hubble days ago (well Aussie time, at least one day) & I’ve been waiting for what’s seemed like ages since expecting to hear the news of them landing safely. I’m sure they’ve got good reason for this but I’d imagined they’d be home within a few hours of undocking from the HST. Are they still doing stuff even just like checklists or waiting for the exact orbital positioning and timing or what exactly?
Best wishes for a smooth landing ‘Atlantis’ and my congratulations and thanks for a job very well done.
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PS. Thanks again BA /Discover for finally enabling us to edit here! Much appreciated.
May 21st, 2009 at 4:56 pm
I was watching more Nasa TV on Youtube last night, and it has to do with adjusting their orbit. IIRC, Right now, they’re in a weird elliptical orbit and they need to make several burns in the right places in order to get on a safe re-entry trajectory.
PS, I actually got to see Atlantis launch in 1992 when I was 10. That, and visiting the Kennedy Space Center officially made me a space-geek for life.
May 21st, 2009 at 5:14 pm
Yep, we tend not to think about how much precision is required to adjust orbits in an energy-efficient way (I had many friends insist that the Columnbia incident could have been avoided because the shuttle could just have sashayed over to the space station — but the Columnbia lacked enough fuel to do so — it would have taken an enormous amount of energy to change up the orbits).
For the HST mission, they have to follow a very efficient and precise path to both reach the Hubble orbit and slowly adjust back to an orbit that gets them into optimal envelope for a stable de-orbit/landing maneuver.
May 21st, 2009 at 5:30 pm
What are the chances that they’ll be forced to land in California, and how much notice will we get if that’s the case?
My son would love to see the Shuttle, and I’ll totally drive up to see it if its coming down here.
May 21st, 2009 at 6:19 pm
I would think that the odds are pretty slim for Florida. It’s been raining for a week solid and we aren’t due for a break until at least Saturday. This system has brought high winds, tornadoes, lightning, and a good bit of flooding in the Orlando area – we’re less than an hour from KSC.
-LB
May 21st, 2009 at 7:50 pm
In addition to what Bigfoot wrote about the orbits, remember also that the astronauts we working furiously for several days straight. The day after the release they got a ‘day off’ on orbit. A well deserved rest don’t you think?!
May 21st, 2009 at 9:37 pm
8AM “Daddy duty”, yep, I’m right with ya there! Gotta get ‘em fed & on the school bus.
Matthew: You & your son could see it as it re-enters even if it goes onward to Fla.
Flying Sardines is right! We can edit now! Way kewl!
May 21st, 2009 at 11:27 pm
Ugk, the weather is so awful down here right now. I went to see the launch, and the weather was absolutely gorgeous. Super hot, a few afternoon clouds (per usual down here for afternoon), no problems. Now for the last week we’ve just had constant, awful, torrential rain. It wasn’t as bad today as the past two days, but it was still basically 100% cloud cover. I doubt it’ll be clear for them to land tomorrow, this cloud cover isn’t going to burn off by tomorrow morning.
But that’s just my observations as a Floridian, there are people with fancy-tech stuff like Doppler radars who probably can make a better prediction than I.
May 22nd, 2009 at 3:12 am
From NASA TV just now; de-orbit prep continues, Florida has not been ruled out but there was much discussion of the weather including cross winds at the landing strip. There’s potential breaks in the weather moving in from the south, so the T38 will fly out in a few hours to check it out first hand.
Bob
May 22nd, 2009 at 4:06 am
Well, the first opportunity will not be taken, it has just been waved off. I don’t think they’ll take the second one…. cu tomorrow (I bet)…
@Matthew:
They will land in California tomorrow (or on Sunday) if Florida doesn’t permit a landing. You should check out Nasa TV or some live-tickers (like spaceflightnow.com, e.g.). You will know 90 minutes before landing, and that is the minimum time. Probably they decide it a lot earlier…
May 22nd, 2009 at 4:11 am
…and no mention of Edwards AFB at all, so it’s KSC or nothing chaps…
Bob(slightly diminished)
May 22nd, 2009 at 4:14 am
I can edit?
May 22nd, 2009 at 5:06 am
Have a safe landing!
May 22nd, 2009 at 5:50 am
Landing opportunity 2 also waived off. So no landing today guys.
Bob
May 22nd, 2009 at 7:08 am
saturday is 40% chance of rain in the morning, 30% afternoon. Same for Sunday and Monday. On all days we’re looking at various lightning probabilities and significant winds. Doesn’t look like we’ll get a landing here, so you friends in Cali are probably going to get to see it!
(fine with me, I love piggyback returns)
May 22nd, 2009 at 9:21 am
I’ve got a question about Atlantis’s orientation while orbiting. I noticed that once Hubble had been released and the mission was winding down, Atlantis had adopted a tail down, stern first orientation for quite some time; then while preparing for deorbit, Atlantis appeared to change her attitude in yaw, pitch and roll constantly (but very very slowly natch). Now that there’s no prospect of a landing today, Atlantis is back in her tail down stern first attitude. Why the change?
Bob(Big)
May 22nd, 2009 at 12:43 pm
The stern-first attitude is because the front surface is what is most likely to get hit by space debris and micrometeroids. The main engines are the most expendable and strongest bits, because they don’t need them for landing and they’ll shield the rest of the shuttle. If an engine gets dinged, they’ll just have to replace it before the next flight.
I don’t know about the tail-down attitude; maybe it’s for thermal control or communications. Tail-down means heat shield up, and I would think that collisions would be much more likely to come from above where basically half the universe is throwing stuff at you, than below, where you would be pretty much screened by that big iron and rock object.
May 22nd, 2009 at 2:45 pm
I got a great tour of Endeavour by the front-end lead last September when I was preparing for the first try at this mission. Based on what he said about the sights and sounds, and yes, smells, of the cabin after re-entry, it’s not as much of a vacation up there as it might be. Imagine a locker room that hasn’t been cleaned in a week. Plus extra aromaticity depending on how many people got space sickness at first.
It’s worse on the ground, because the heat radiators are on the insides of the cargo bay doors (which is why they tend to fly with them pointed toward the Earth, or at least away from the sun), so they have no A/C on the ground. The astronauts are out pretty quick once they land, but then the support team has to sit in that smelly place for 8-12 hours at temperatures up to 110 degrees, while they roll it back into the Orbiter Processing Facility. Now there’s dedication to your work. Hey, they should send Mike Rowe out there for an episode of Dirty Jobs.
May 22nd, 2009 at 5:54 pm
Buzz, cheers – Bob
May 26th, 2009 at 10:02 pm
@ 2. freelancer : (May 21st, 2009 at 4:56 pm)
I was watching more Nasa TV on Youtube last night, and it has to do with adjusting their orbit. IIRC, Right now, they’re in a weird elliptical orbit and they need to make several burns in the right places in order to get on a safe re-entry trajectory.
&
3. Bigfoot : (May 21st, 2009 at 5:14 pm)
Yep, we tend not to think about how much precision is required to adjust orbits in an energy-efficient way … For the HST mission, they have to follow a very efficient and precise path to both reach the Hubble orbit and slowly adjust back to an orbit that gets them into optimal envelope for a stable de-orbit/landing maneuver.
Thanks for answering my question. Much appreciated.