Astronauts check Atlantis for damage
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) - February 8, 2008 The shuttle was brimming with birthday presents for the
station's scientific skipper, Peggy Whitson: a $2 billion European
lab that she'll help set up and all kinds of spicy salsas.
Atlantis is due at the space station on Saturday, Whitson's 48th
birthday.
"My present is a new module that we're going to install on
board the station," Whitson, a biochemist, said in a broadcast
interview. She put in a special request for different kinds of
sauces to spice up the space station food. "It gets a little old
after being here for several months," she explained.
Her roommate, Daniel Tani, who turned 47 one week ago, couldn't
wait to get some fresh shirts. He ended up spending two extra
months aboard the orbiting complex after fuel gauge problems
grounded Atlantis, his ride home.
As the shuttle drew closer with every circling of Earth, the
seven-man crew inspected its wings and nose for any sign of launch
damage, using a 100-foot laser-tipped boom. The images were beamed
down to Earth for analysis by engineers; a quick look revealed
nothing amiss.
Some pieces of insulating foam fell off the external tank three
times during liftoff Thursday, but none was big enough to pose any
threat, said John Shannon, chairman of the mission management team.
A small piece may have bounced off Atlantis' belly seven minutes
into the flight, but lacked enough force to do any damage, he said.
The laser inspections have been standard procedure ever since
NASA's space shuttles resumed flying in 2005 following the Columbia
disaster. Also mandatory: shuttle somersaults right before docking,
so the space station crew can photograph every inch of the ship's
thermal shielding.
Shannon said the board in the engineering troubleshooting room
was blank, the first time he's ever seen it that way.
"We have a long way to go on this mission, but I absolutely
could not have asked for a better start to it," he said.
The astronauts' real work begins Sunday. That's when the 23-foot
Columbus lab will be removed from Atlantis' payload bay and
attached to the space station with robotic cranes. Two spacewalkers
will assist in the operation.
Columbus is the European Space Agency's main contribution to the
space station.
Twenty-three years in the making, it was supposed to be launched
in 1992 to coincide with the 500th anniversary of Christopher
Columbus' voyage to the New World. But station redesigns and
stalled construction, as well as shuttle groundings, led to 16
years of delay.
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