Discovery^Òs crew will go to bed tonight shortly after nine and
be awakened tomorrow at 5:17 a.m. to once again begin preparations for
a return trip home.
The next status report will be issued at 7 p.m. today or as events
warrant.
On Sunday, October 22, 2000, 7:00 p.m. CDT, STS-92 MCC Status Report # 24
reports:
Discovery's astronauts prepared for a Monday landing after high
crosswinds at Kennedy Space Center.caused a delay of at least one day
in their return to Earth and the end of their successful mission to
expand the International Space Station and ready it for its first
crew.
Discovery has two landing opportunities Monday at KSC, where the
weather is expected to be questionable, and three at Edwards Air Force
Base in California. The second KSC and first Edwards opportunities are
on the same orbit, six minutes apart. Edwards will be activated for a
possible Monday landing, but weather there is expected to be
marginal. Weather conditions at KSC are not expected to improve over
the next two days, while improvement in California is forecast.
For the first Monday landing opportunity - to KSC - Discovery would
fire its orbital maneuvering system engines at 12:43 p.m. CDT to begin
its descent from orbit, with landing to follow at 1:51 p.m. The
second Florida opportunity is one orbit later with a 2:21 p.m. deorbit
burn resulting in a landing at 3:28 p.m.
The first opportunity to Edwards would see a deorbit burn at 2:15
p.m. CDT with landing at 3:23 p.m. The second would have Discovery's
deorbit burn take place at 3:51 p.m. with landing at 4:58 p.m. and the
final opportunity one orbit later with an engine firing at 5:29
p.m. and landing at 6:35 p.m.
Flight controllers in Houston will work through Monday morning to
develop a landing plan based on conditions at the two sites.
After "deorbit backout" -- undoing their preparation to
come home on Sunday -- the crew spent much of the afternoon relaxing
and communicating with their families via computer. STS-92 Mission
Commander Brian Duffy, Pilot Pam Melroy and Mission Specialists Leroy
Chiao, Bill McArthur, Mike Lopez-Alegria, Jeff Wisoff and Koichi
Wakata, are scheduled to go to bed tonight shortly after 9 p.m. and be
awakened at 5:17 a.m. Monday.
The International Space Station, from which Discovery undocked
Friday, continued to function well. The station flight control room
in the Mission Control Center continued to monitor systems on board.
They watched and commanded heaters on the huge gyroscopes on the newly
installed Z1 truss. The gyros will provide attitude control for the
ISS, and the heaters are designed to protect them from damage by the
cold of space.
The station trails Discovery by 248 statute miles. The distance is
increasing by 5.4 miles each 90-minute orbit of the Earth.
The next status report will be issued at 6 a.m. Monday or as events
warrant.
Go to STS-92 Flight Day 13 Highlights: