Atlantis Scheduled to Land Today

After separating from the International Space Station (ISS) early Wednesday, and spending Thanksgiving in space on Thursday, astronauts aboard the space shuttle Atlantis are currently getting ready to return home. They are scheduled to touch down on Runway 33 at the Kennedy Space Center (KSC), in Cape Canaveral, Florida, at 9:44 am EST (1444 GMT). The seven crew members are already awake, NASA reports, after they were played the song “Home Sweet Home” by Motley Crue. Their wake up time was 1:28 am EST (0628 GMT).

Though it took off with only six astronauts aboard, the shuttle is currently heading home with seven. The extra passenger is former Expedition 20 and 21 ISS flight engineer, Nicole Stott, who has just completed her three-month stay aboard the orbital laboratory. She is currently scheduled to be the last ISS astronauts to return home on a space shuttle. The remaining five flights that the American space agency has planned for its space fleet will deal exclusively with assembling the station, which is currently 86 percent complete. By September 2010, when the shuttles are to be retired, the outpost needs to be 100 percent finished. Crew rotation will be ensured by the Russian space agency.

According to NASA, the weather is looking perfectly fine for a landing at the KSC, and chances of the shuttle needing to divert to the Edwards Air Force Base (EAFB), in California, are slim. The first deorbiting engine burn is scheduled to occur at 8:36 am EST (1336 GMT), STS-129 mission planners say. The descent stage of the mission will begin at the end of orbit 171. Atlantis will thus conclude its 11-day mission. During this time, it delivered more than 15 tons of cargo to the ISS, and its astronauts helped their colleagues already in space to install the new additions on their dedicated compartments, inside and outside the station.

Three spacewalks were conducted in the week that Atlantis spent docked to the outpost. Two new antennas were added, and an oxygen tank replaced. Several new scientific experiments were also installed on the outer hull, including one related to nanomaterials research. Additional maintenance work was performed on several areas of the station, and a number of modules were prepared for the February 2010 arrival of NASA's new contribution to the international effort, the Node 3 module, called Tranquility.