Shuttle Atlantis heading home
Houston - Shuttle Atlantis undocked from the International Space Station on Sunday to end a stay in which the Atlantis crew installed a massive new solar power unit to resume station construction after a nearly four-year hiatus.
The shuttle gently backed away from the station docking port and, before flying off, was to circle the half-finished complex, taking photographs for National Aeronautics and Spade Administration engineers to study.
The station now has a new 73m long pair of wings that are the solar panels which will convert sunlight into electricity for the station.
Atlantis arrived at the station two days after its September 9 launch from Florida, carrying a 17.5-ton truss structure with the solar power unit folded up inside.
The truss was attached to the station on Tuesday and the solar panels unfurled on Thursday.
14 more shuttle flights
Atlantis astronauts made three space walks to carry out the installation and other tasks.
The power unit, which is the second on the station, was the first major addition to the station since November 2002.
Construction on the $100bn outpost came to a halt when Nasa grounded the shuttle fleet after the 2003 Columbia disaster.
The U.S. space agency plans at least 14 more shuttle flights to complete the space complex before shuttles are retired in 2010.
After circling the station, Atlantis will fly 128 km away where it will stay until the crew, using sensors and cameras on a robot arm, perform a final inspection of the shuttle heat shield on Monday. It will return to Earth on Wednesday.
The astronauts inspected the heat shield a day after launch, but this time they will be looking for any damage from micrometeoroids that hurtle through space.
The shuttle inspections were developed by Nasa as part of its safety upgrades after the Columbia accident.
Russians close behind
Columbia suffered heat shield damage at launch that went undetected and the spacecraft disintegrated while returning to Earth, killing the seven astronauts on board.
The shuttle's departure makes room for a Russian Soyuz spacecraft that will launch from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan late on Sunday night, Houston, carrying Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Tyurin, US astronaut Michael Lopez-Alegria, and space tourist Anousheh Ansari, an Iranian-born American.
The Soyuz will dock with the space station on Wednesday, a few hours before Atlantis is scheduled to land at Kennedy Space Centre in Florida.
News source: www.news24.co.za
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