Set To Return From Her Final Mission Wednesday

Atlantis astronauts stowed spacesuits, wrapped up the standard late inspection of the shuttle's thermal protection system ahead of schedule and enjoyed some time off Monday.

Atlantis Docked At ISS

Commander Ken Ham, Pilot Tony Antonelli and Mission Specialists Garrett Reisman and Piers Sellers began the inspection well ahead of scheduled start. By 4:50 a.m. they had finished their look at the right wing, by 5:52 a.m. the nose cap survey was complete and the left wing survey was finished at 7:17:a.m., about 2.5 hours ahead of the timeline.

The survey was done using the shuttle arm and its 50-foot extension, the orbiter boom sensor system. Early in the mission, a pan-tilt assembly at the boom's end supporting a laser dynamic range imager and an intensified video camera had been partly disabled by a snagged cable.

A secondary system on the boom was used for the day-after-launch survey, and spacewalkers cleared the cable snag on Wednesday. The pan-tilt assembly and its instruments functioned flawlessly today. The results will be analyzed on the ground before Atlantis is formally cleared to land.

Atlantis Landing STS129

Spacewalkers Mike Good and Steve Bowen finished working with the spacesuits and put them away while the survey was being done. After the survey the boom and the arm were stowed on opposite sides of the cargo bay sill, their work done for the mission.

Tuesday crew members stowed items in the cabin and checked out Atlantis' reaction control system and its flight control surfaces. Landing at Kennedy Space Center is scheduled for 0748 Wednesday. 

FMI: www.nasa.gov