Shuttle Undock...

[petermcleland]

Shuttle Undock from the ISS is at about 12:55 today (Sunday) I'm watching it live from here:-

http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/live_tv.html

It is best watched in Windows Media Player

[Garry Russell]

Thanks for the HU Peter

Garry

[petermcleland]

I'm still watching today as they make final preps for landing tomorrow...The two pilots have had some sessions on a laptop computer with a shuttle landing simulation and it has been intrigueing to watch them doing that. Right now they are rigging an educational broadcast from shuttle to Saskatchewan in Canada...They are just starting the event now

[Nigel H-J]

Watchin that now, many thanks for the HU Peter.

Nigel.

[petermcleland]

De-orbit burn is this afternoon sometime, with touchdown about 1 hour later. They are very busy at present with preps. I'll be just glued to it till they are down

Edit...De-orbit burn is at about 16:20 BST this afternoon, assuming that they take the first landing opportunity...Main point they are watching is the crosswind at the Kennedy Space Centre. The Shuttle has a 15 knot crosswind component limit. Hurricane Dean's track makes it no longer a problem

NASA TV (see my original link) is live for the whole event.

[jonesey2k]

Is Fairford still the Shuttles alternative? I reckon you'd be able to get one into PAMA though

Tis quite interesting, with a bit of luck Ill be able to catch the re-entry on the webcam. In fact I think I will fire up my 2nd monitor and watch it on that while I have a go of FS reckon its about 2 hours from re-entry.

Sometimes I can actually see the International Space station wizzing along from my back garden!

[petermcleland]

Jonesey...the alternate today is Edwards but they are still going for Kenedy Space centre Florida. The best way to watch it is NASA Live TV with my original link, but using Windows Media Player...When you have Windows Media Player up then minimise it to the Taskbar and then close your original window to my link (otherwise you will hear the sound twice with a second or two between them).

Currently, they are getting near to closing the Cargo Bay doors...prior to this they make an attitude adjustment to get the exact best light to observe this....They have just closed these doors and did see a slight slowness in the latches closing but they are closed properly now...Now manoeuvring the attitude again to the COM attitude (best attitude for Comms).

Edit...I can see some clouds building now over Kennedy...More than forecast I think.

Now 16:25 BST for de-orbit burn, with touchdown just over an hour later...They do have a minor failure at the moment and have tried recyling a circuit-breaker several times, but no joy...They are thinking about it.

[petermcleland]

They are go for the de-orbit burn at 16:25 BST...they burn for 3mins 35secs and that will slow them sufficiently to come out of orbit and commence the most exciting glide available on Earth ...no way back after that burn.

[jonesey2k]

There is a nice bird that keeps flying in front of the external cam. Looks like some sort of Buzzard

[petermcleland]

Yeah...several of them...maybe eagles...glad you are watching Jonesey