Expedition 13 Welcomes Atlantis Crew Aboard Station
The six Atlantis astronauts entered the International Space Station for the first time at 8:30 a.m. EDT where they were greeted by the station鈥檚 Expedition 13 crew. Atlantis arrived at 6:48 this morning when Space Shuttle Atlantis linked up with the station.
The two crews are now turning to their attention to beginning STS-115鈥檚 major task at the station, the installation and outfitting of the P3/P4 integrated truss structure and solar arrays. STS-115 is the first station assembly mission since STS-113 in late 2002.
The P3/P4 truss arrived at the station in Atlantis鈥� payload bay. The crews will use the shuttle robotic arm to hand off the truss to the station arm at about 10:45 a.m. After the truss is attached to the station on Tuesday, the STS-115 crew will conduct three spacewalks to outfit and prepare the truss and arrays for operation.
Mission Specialists Joe Tanner and Heidemarie Stefanyshyn-Piper are scheduled to begin a new pre-spacewalk procedure called 鈥渃amping out鈥� when they enter the station鈥檚 Quest Airlock at about 2:40 p.m. They will stay in the Airlock until they start the mission鈥檚 first spacewalk Tuesday morning.
鈥淐amping out鈥� helps the spacewalkers to begin the spacewalk earlier by reducing the amount of time typically required for the pre-breathe exercise and some spacewalk preparations.
Before docking, Commander Brent Jett and Pilot Chris Ferguson commanded Atlantis to do a back flip maneuver, which allowed the Expedition 13 crew to photograph Atlantis' heat shield. Those pictures will be downlinked to engineers on the ground for analysis.
Source: NASA
