ISS Computers Back Online, Atlantis Can Come Back to Earth

Yesterday, a final test performed on the main control computers aboard the ISS showed that they were OK, so the astronauts can now control the outpost's orientation. This means that the Atlantis space shuttle is cleared to disconnect from the station and return to Earth.

It seems that after careful examination of the data, the mission officials decided that the most important components of the computers that control the station's thrusters work properly. So, Atlantis is scheduled to undock Tuesday with a planned return to Cape Canaveral, Fla. on Thursday.

A malfunction caused the shutdown of two key computers that control navigation and oxygen production on the Russian side of the International Space Station. Later, all six main control computers reported a glitch that forced astronauts on Thursday to turn off equipment in the docked shuttle Atlantis to conserve energy.

"Everything looked pretty good," said NASA spokesman Kyle Herring. "There was nothing that would give them any level of concern."

The test involved using the space shuttle's thruster engines taking control of the joined craft so it could change positions to dump waste and water. Then, thrusters from the Russian section of the station successfully took over and accepted commands from the computers before the station's gyroscopes took over control.

"That's a big step in our checkout of the computers to make sure everything is working correctly," flight director Holly Ridings said Monday. "It's one of those things we want to see before we undock."

The computers were brought back to life over the weekend and officials announced yesterday that the four of the six computers were successfully restarted and remained stable overnight, but NASA and Russian managers wanted to make sure Atlantis wasn't needed for another day to give engineers on the ground more time to figure out the problem.

"It has been a challenging mission but a successful one," pilot Lee Archambault radioed Mission Control on Monday.