Atlantis crew uses space station robot arm to transfer Rafaello supply module. Photo credit/NASA TV
NASA’s final shuttle mission will grow by 24 hours to 13 days, the agency’s Mission Management Team announced Monday.
Since launching on Friday from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, Atlantis and her hard charging crew of four astronauts have worked ahead of schedule to stock the International Space Station with food, spare parts and research gear for the post-shuttle era.
On Monday, one day after Atlantis docked with the orbiting science laboratory, mission managers said the 26-year-old orbiter’s power generating fuel cells were working so efficiently there would be enough electricity to stretch the mission by a day.
NASA Mission Management Team chairman LeRoy Cain. Photo Credit/NASA TV
‘We absolutely wanted to end on a high note,” said NASA’s LeRoy Cain, the mission management team chairman. “I can’t think of a better way to do that.”
The longer flight moves the shuttle’s scheduled descent to Earth to July 21 with a touchdown at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center at 5:56 a.m., EDT.
Earlier in the day, Atlantis commander Chris Ferguson, pilot Doug Hurley and mission specialists Sandy Magnus and Rex Walheim moved the Raffaello Multi-purpose Logistics Module from the shuttle’s cargo bay to the space station.
The 21-foot long module is loaded with 9,400 pounds of supplies – enough to sustain six person station operations through 2012. As the gear is off-loaded, Raffaello will be refilled with nearly 6,000 pounds of trash and no longer needed equipment for return to Earth.
The mission’s only spacewalk is scheduled for Tuesday. Station astronauts Mike Fossum and Rex Walheim will carry out the excursion, starting at 8:44 a.m., EDT. Over 6 ½ hours, the two men will move a robotic refueling experiment from the shuttle to the station. They will transfer a failed station thermal control system pump to the shuttle’s cargo bay for the trip back to Earth as well.
Meanwhile, Atlantis is operating almost trouble free. The spacecraft sustained only minor debris impact damage from Friday’s launching.
Concerns on Sunday that a piece of a Soviet satellite launch in 1970 might pose a collision threat to the space station had faded a day later. NASA announced there would be no need to use the shuttle’s smallest thrusters to push the station out of the way.