posted 08-18-2007 12:01 PM               

Hurricane Dean as seen from the International Space Station.

Overnight, NASA decided to shorten STS-118's fourth spacewalk, currently on-going, from the originally planned 6.5 hours to 4.5 hours so that the crew can close hatches between the station and shuttle at the end of the day today.

That preserves the option to have Endeavour undock from the station on Sunday and prepare for a one day early landing on Tuesday in the event Hurricane Dean threatens the Houston area. It could allow an opportunity for the shuttle to land before Mission Control would be shut down in preparation for a storm.

posted 08-18-2007 04:36 PM               

The primary factor that Hurricane Dean might play on the landing is whether NASA proceeds with the nominal plan — where typically the shuttle will try for a touchdown at Kennedy Space Center on the first day and then, as needed, the secondary landing sites at Edwards Air Force Base and White Sands will be called up on subsequent days — or, if the storm is directly threatening the Houston area, then all three sites will be active on Tuesday and the shuttle will land on Tuesday.

If Dean is directly threatening Houston and if, for some reason, Endeavour cannot land on Tuesday, then the contingency plans to send mission control personnel to Florida will go into effect.

posted 08-18-2007 05:40 PM               

Deorbit Timeline for the first KSC Landing Opportunity (if Tuesday landing)
All times are CDT.

posted 08-19-2007 07:20 AM               

"Physical separation, Houston," confirmed pilot Charles "Scorch" Hobaugh.

"MCC Houston, MCC Huntsville, MCC Moscow, Endeavor from ISS, Endeavour departing," radioed ISS 15 commander Fyodor Yurchikhin, as he rang the space station's bell.

"Thanks for everything Scott, Endeavour crew. Godspeed. I was proud to be a part of STS-118," said ISS 15 flight engineer Clay Anderson, who originally had been slated to fly to the station with Endeavour.

"And Endeavour, have a good landing," said Oleg Kotov, flight engineer on the ISS 15 crew.

"Thank you very much Scott and all Endeavour's crew and have a good trip, too," added Yurchikhin. "And say hello at home everybody from Moscow."

"And to the ISS crew, we couldn't have gotten everything accomplished without you guys. We thank you very much. We look forward to seeing you back on planet Earth," replied STS-118 commander Scott Kelly.

Undocking was moved up a day in preparation for landing on Tuesday. After backing 400 feet away from the station, the STS-118 crew will fire Endeavour’s engines for the separation engine burn at about 8:25 a.m.

posted 08-19-2007 11:32 AM               

quote:

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Originally posted by Robert Pearlman:
"MCC Houston, MCC Huntsville, MCC Moscow, Endeavor from ISS, Endeavour departing," radioed ISS 15 commander Fyodor Yurchikhin, as he rang the space station's bell.

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posted 08-19-2007 03:33 PM               

As such, NASA has decided to only call up the Kennedy Space Center and Edwards Air Force Base opportunities for a landing on Tuesday. The White Sands approaches identified earlier in this thread will not be used for the Aug. 21 attempts.

posted 08-19-2007 10:45 PM               

In my own case, I have been pondering what might happen if Endeavour did come back to Edwards. As wet as it is in Texas and Oklahoma from all the rain (TS Erin not helping), the dice roll might again bring Offutt AFB into the picture for the cross country fuel stop. Really wishful thinking I know, but I had a fun time last month shooting pictures of Atlantis during its 1 day layover at Offutt AFB.