NASA STS-134 Report #32 Tuesday, May 31, 2011 – 6:00 p.m. CDT

Mission Control Center, Houston, Texas

HOUSTON – Space Shuttle Endeavour is just hours away from its last landing and a wrap-up to its 25th space flight.

The STS-134 crew members were awakened at 4:57 p.m. CDT with the song Sunrise Number 1000 performed by the band Stormy Mondays. This song was chosen in an online vote of the general public as the winner in the Space Shuttle Program’s Original Song Contest, which attracted 1350 entrants.

The shuttle crew begins deorbit preparations at 8:26 p.m. and should close Endeavour payload bay doors at 9:49 p.m. By 12:19 a.m. Wednesday Entry Flight Director Tony Ceccacci will poll his team for a go 0/00 or no-go 0/00 on the deorbit burn; assuming the decision is go, 0/00 Commander Mark Kelly will fire Endeavour’s engines at 12:29 a.m. to slow the orbiter enough for it to fall out of orbit and begin the last leg of its trip, concluding with a touchdown on runway 15 at the Kennedy Space Center’s Shuttle Landing Facility at 1:35 a.m.

There is a second landing opportunity at Kennedy Space Center today, which would call for a deorbit burn at 2:06 a.m. and a landing at 3:11 a.m.

While Endeavour’s crew is preparing to come home, the orbiter that will fly the final space shuttle mission will be heading to Launch Pad 39A. Atlantis starts its rollout from the Vehicle Assembly Building at 8:00 p.m. EDT. The STS-135 crew members~Commander Chris Ferguson, Pilot Doug Hurley, and Mission Specialists Sandy Magnus and Rex Walheim~will be on hand outside the KSC News Center at 8:30 p.m. EDT to take questions from reporters.

The next status report will be issued after landing or earlier if events warrant.