ESA TV coverage of STS-116 mission on landing day – 22 December

On 22 December, ESA TV provides Shuttle mission coverage as follows:

22 December 05:00 – 05:30 GMT Flight Day 13 Highlights of Mission STS-116

The day before landing is packed with activities to prepare the Orbiter for its atmospheric entry: stowage, check-outs, procedure reviews.

22 December 19:00 – 23:00 GMT LIVE: Landing of Shuttle Discovery

NASA will activate three landing sites in the US for the landing: Kennedy Spoace Centre in Florida, Edwards Air Force Base in California and White Sands Air Force Base in New Mexico. Flight rules say the Shuttle must land at the first opportunity where there are acceptable landing conditions, both technically and weather-wise. Weather conditions do not look optimal neither for Florida nor for California. The timeline of events is as follows – covered by a four-hour rebroadcast of NASA-TV:

19:30 GMT (approx) Latest moment to decide not to land at the first possible touchdown at KSC, due to bad weather

20:56 GMT First possible touchdown at KSC

21:00 GMT (approx) Latest moment to make a decision on which of all three landing sites the Orbiter will touch down

22:26 – 22:31 GMT Possible touchdowns at the three landing sites

In case of a landing at White Sands, the amount of live landing coverage is not sure as this site has limited television capabilities.

There are further landing opportunities at approx 00:00 GMT and 01:36 GMT which will however not be covered live. An ESA-TV landing summary will be transmitted on 23 December at 07:00 GMT – a separate mailing will be made in the afternoon of 22 December.

More background information can be found on: http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/

Please note that all NASA-TV programming is subject to last-minute schedule changes.

Please note that the line-up time for these SCPC feeds is 5 minutes.

Downlink parameters for both transmissions:

Eutelsat Atlantic Bird at 12.5 degrees West, Transponder F5, channel D horizontal, F=12.652 MHz, SR=6.1113 Ms/sec, FEC=3/4

For further information and a daily update of the transmission schedule, visit our website at http://television.esa.int. For all enquires, contact Claus Habfast, Tel +31 71 565 3838, Fax +31 71 565 6340, e-mail claus.habfast@esa.int.

With kind regards,

ESA TV Service