Welcome Aboard!

ANN REALTIME UPDATE 06.10.07 1725 EDT: The hatches are open... and moments ago, the crews of space shuttle Atlantis and Expedition 15 shook hands onboard the International Space Station, to begin their first day of joint operations.

The space shuttle's airlock hatch opened at 1704 EDT, as Atlantis and the ISS flew 213 miles above Australia. Twenty minutes later, Expedition 15 Commander Fyodor Yurchikhin, and Flight Engineers Oleg Kotov and Sunita Williams greeted the STS-117 crewmembers with smiles, hugs -- and cameras.

After a round of greetings, the crews will get work. On the agenda for today is the transfer of the S3/S4 truss segment from the shuttle's payload bay, to the Canadarm 2 robotic arm onboard the station. As the crews exchanged greetings, the shuttle's Canadarm 1 robotic arm was uncradled from its stowage bay, and connected to the truss.

Following a complex robotic "handoff" of the truss, the segment will be installed Monday.

Original Report

1610 EDT: At 1536 EDT Sunday -- two minutes earlier than scheduled -- space shuttle Atlantis and the STS-117 crew arrived at the International Space Station, delivering a new truss segment and crew member to the orbital outpost.

STS-117 astronauts and the station’s Expedition 15 crew are now conducting pressure and leak checks before the hatches between the spacecraft open. After the crews greet each other, they will begin joint operations.

One of the first major tasks is the station crew rotation. STS-117 Mission Specialist Clayton Anderson will switch places with Expedition 15 Flight Engineer Suni Williams, who will be wrapping up a six-month tour of duty on the station. Anderson is scheduled to stay on the station until he returns to Earth with STS-120 later this year.

Anderson will officially become a member of Expedition 15 when his custom-made seat liner is swapped out with Williams’ in the Soyuz spacecraft docked to the station.

The crews will prepare for Monday’s installation of the Starboard 3 and 4 (S3/S4) truss segment and the first of three scheduled STS-117 spacewalks. The crews will use the shuttle robotic arm to lift the S3/S4 out of Atlantis’ payload bay and hand it off to the station arm.

The S3/S4, which contains a new set of solar arrays, is scheduled to be attached to the station at 11:08 am Monday. Then, STS-117 Mission Specialists John “Danny” Olivas and Jim Reilly will make connections between the station and the new truss segment during the spacewalk, which is set to kick off at 2:53 p.m.

About an hour before docking, Sturckow and Archambault guided the shuttle through a back-flip maneuver that allowed the Expedition 15 crew to photograph the shuttle’s protective heat-resistant tiles. The imagery will be sent to engineers on Earth for analysis.

STS-117 is the 21st shuttle mission to visit the station. Atlantis scheduled to undock June 17, and return to Earth on June 19.

(Images courtesy of NASA TV)

FMI: www.nasa.gov/shuttle