Status Report

NASA STS-130 Report #26 6 p.m. CST Saturday, Feb. 20, 2010

By SpaceRef Editor
February 20, 2010
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NASA STS-130 Report #26  6 p.m. CST Saturday, Feb. 20, 2010
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Mission Control Center, Houston, Texas

HOUSTON Preparations for landing take center stage today as the astronauts on space shuttle Endeavour get set to wrap up a two-week flight that added the last components of the U.S. section of the International Space Station.

Todays wakeup call, at 2:15 p.m., was The Distance by Cake, played for all six astronauts from their flight control team in the Mission Control Center in Houston.

Pilot Terry Virts and Mission Specialist Steven Robinson will berth the shuttles robotic arm before joining Commander George Zamka for the routine pre-landing checkout of Endeavour flight control system and reaction control system. They will manipulate all of the flight control surfaces and then test fire each of the reaction control system jets to make sure both of those systems are in good shape to support entry and landing.

Later in the day those three will join Mission Specialists Kathryn Hire, Nicholas Patrick and Robert Behnken to pack up the crew cabin for the first landing attempt, at 9:16 p.m. Sunday at the Kennedy Space Center, weather permitting.

Tonight at 8:49 p.m. the six Endeavour astronauts will talk about their flight in interviews with CNN, CNN Espanol, and Univision.

On board the International Space Station the crews work day is being shifted to its normal cycle. The next wakeup call for Expedition 22 Commander Jeff Williams and Flight Engineers Max Suraev, Oleg Kotov, Soichi Noguchi and T.J. Creamer is 12:00 a.m. Sunday.

The next status will be issued after the crew work day, or earlier if events warrant.

SpaceRef staff editor.