Frick Credit - www.spacefacts.de

Personal: Male, married. Born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA. US Navy US Navy

Astronaut Career

Astronaut Group: NASA Group 16 - 1996. Active Entered space service: 1 May 1996. Number of Flights: 2.00. Total Time: 23.59 days.

NAME: Stephen N. Frick (Lieutenant Commander, USN)

NASA Astronaut Candidate (Pilot)

PERSONAL DATA:

Born September 30, 1964, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Single. He enjoys skiing, biking, hiking,and camping.

EDUCATION:

Graduated from Richland High School, Gibsonia, Pennsylvania in 1982; received a bachelor of science degree in aerospace engineering from the US Naval Academy in 1986; master of science degree in aeronautical engineering from the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School in 1994.

ORGANIZATIONS:

Society of Experimental Test Pilots, Association of Naval Aviators, U.S. Naval Academy Alumni Association.

SPECIAL HONORS:

Air Medal with 2 Strike-Flight awards; 3 Navy Commendation Medals, one with Combat V; Navy Unit Commendation; National Defense Service Medal; Sea Service Deployment Ribbon, 2 Southwest Asia Service Medals; and various other service awards.

EXPERIENCE:

Frick was commissioned upon graduation from the U.S. Naval Academy in May 1986. After being designated as a Naval Aviator in February 1988, he reported to Strike Fighter Squadron 106 at Naval Air Station Cecil Field, Florida, for transition to the F/A-18 Hornet. Upon completion of training, he reported to Strike Fighter Squadron 83 also at Cecil Field, and deployed to the Mediterranean Sea and Red Sea onboard the USS Saratoga (CV-60). During the 8 month deployment, he participated in Operation Desert Shield and Desert Storm, flying 26 combat missions from the Red Sea to targets in Iraq and Kuwait. He was also designated an airwing qualified landing signals officer. After leaving Strike Fighter Squadron 83 in December 1991, Frick participated in a cooperative program consisting of 15 months at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California, and 1 year with the Naval Test Pilot School at Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Maryland. Upon graduation in June 1994, he was assigned as a project officer and test pilot to the Carrier Suitability Department of the Strike Aircraft Test Squadron also located at Patuxent River. While there, he conducted shore-based and shipboard testing of the F/A-18 Hornet. Frick was assigned to Strike Fighter Squadron 125 in Lemoore, California, preparing for return to a deployed F/A-18 squadron when selected for the astronaut program in April 1996.

Frick Has logged over 1,800 flight hours in 27 different aircraft, and has over 370 carrier landings.

NASA EXPERIENCE:

Selected by NASA in April 1996, Frick reported to the Johnson Space Center in August 1996 to begin two years of training and evaluation. Successful completion of initial training will qualify him for various technical assignments leading to selection as a pilot on a Space Shuttle flight crew.

• 8 April 2002 Flight: STS-110. Flight Up: STS-110. Flight Back: STS-110. Flight Time: 10.82 days.

• 7 February 2008 Flight: STS-122. Flight Up: STS-122. Flight Back: STS-122. Flight Time: 12.77 days.

5 December 1983 - NASA Astronaut Training Group 16 selected.. The group was selected to provide pilot, engineer, and scientist astronauts for space shuttle flights.. Qualifications: Pilots: Bachelor's degree in engineering, biological science, physical science or mathematics. Advanced degree desirable. At least 1,000 flight-hours of pilot-in-command time. Flight test experience desirable. Excellent health. Vision minimum 20/50 uncorrected, correctable to 20/20 vision; maximum sitting blood pressure 140/90. Height between 163 and 193 cm.

Mission Specialists: Bachelor's degree in engineering, biological science, physical science or mathematics and minimum three years of related experience or an advanced degree. Vision minimum 20/150 uncorrected, correctable to 20/20. Maximum sitting blood pressure of 140/90. Height between 150 and 193 cm.. 10 pilots and 25 mission specialists selected from over 2,400 applicants. 9 additional international astronauts.

• Bay 1-2: Orbiter Docking System - 1800 kg + 3 EMU spacesuits - 360 kg
• Bay 4-13: S0 Truss - 12623 kg. The S0 truss, built by Boeing/Huntington Beach, was 13.4 m long and 4.6 m in diameter. The main truss had a hexagonal cross section. One face carried fluid, power and data cables, while another face carried the rails for the Mobile Transporter. The S0 contained avionics, GPS antennae, and a radiation dose monitor. The S0 would be attached to the LCA (Lab Cradle Assembly) which was attached to the top of the Destiny lab module in 2001. Attached to S0 were:
  • 4 x MTS (Module to Truss Structure) struts. These were used to connect it to the Destiny module
  • Airlock Spur. This was a 4.2 m beam that hinged out to connect to the Quest module and had handrails for spacewalkers
  • Mobile Transporter (MT). This was made by TRW Astro Aerospace in Carpinteria and was an 885 kg, 2.7 m long truck which moved on the S0 rails to transfer heavy cargo along the truss.
• Sill: RMS arm - 410 kg
• Total: 15193 kg

Commander Mike Bloomfield, Pilot Steve Frick, Flight Engineer Ellen Ochoa and spacewalkers Steve Smith, Rex Walheim, Jerry Ross and Lee Morin rocketed away from Launch Pad 39-B at the Kennedy Space Center at 3:44 p.m. Central time as the ISS orbited over the Atlantic Ocean due east of the northeastern United States at an altitude of 240 statute miles.

Launch occurred with only 12 seconds left in the 5-minute launch window due to a brief delay caused by a momentary ground launch system software glitch at the Launch Control Center at the Florida spaceport which paused the countdown at the T-minus 5-minute mark. Once the problem was solved, the countdown resumed.

Atlantis' launch marked a milestone as Ross became the first human to fly in space seven times, breaking a record of six flights previously held by Ross and fellow American astronauts John Young, Story Musgrave, Franklin Chang-Diaz and Curt Brown. No Russian cosmonaut has flown in space more than five times.

Now in their fifth month in orbit, Expedition Four Commander Yury Onufrienko and Flight Engineers Carl Walz and Dan Bursch were able to watch Atlantis' launch through a video uplink from flight controllers in Houston. Atlantis' arrival will mark the first visitors for the Expedition Four crewmembers since their launch back in December.

Less than nine minutes later, Atlantis and its crewmembers settled into orbit as work began to prepare the shuttle for its planned 11-day mission and for a series of rendezvous maneuvers to reach the station on Wednesday morning. Atlantis will actually have to lap the ISS as a result of those maneuvers before its scheduled docking with the outpost Wednesday.

After Atlantis' payload bay doors are opened and approval is given for the start of orbital operations, the seven crewmembers will unstow computers and other gear required for the mission.

If all goes as planned, Atlantis will link up to the station Wednesday just after 11 a.m. Central time, setting the stage for the installation of the S0 (S-Zero) Truss on Thursday morning on the Destiny Laboratory and the first of four spacewalks to mate and activate the new component to Destiny. The S-Zero Truss will serve as a platform upon which other trusses will be attached and additional solar arrays will be mounted in future assembly flights to form a structure longer than the length of a football field. The new truss will also serve as a primary electrical switching station to route power from the stations' arrays to various modules and components.

The shuttle crew will begin its first sleep period at 8:44 p.m. Central time and will be awakened at 4:44 Tuesday morning to begin its first full day in orbit, designed to test the ship's robot arm, spacesuits and rendezvous equipment which will be used over the next few days.

The crew will spend today testing and preparing shuttle equipment that will be used to rendezvous and dock with the complex and to install the first and central station truss segment delivered by Atlantis. The crew will power up and test the shuttle's robotic arm, check spacesuits, set up television cameras for the rendezvous activities and prepare the shuttle docking mechanism for contact with the station at 11:06 a.m. Wednesday. Atlantis' mission is to install the 44-foot-long S-Zero (S0) truss on the station, a central girder segment that is one of the most complex pieces of the International Space Station ever launched. The segment is filled with electrical, computer and cooling connections as well as navigation and robotics equipment, including a space railway.

Commander Mike Bloomfield, Pilot Steve Frick, and mission specialists Ellen Ochoa, Steve Smith, Rex Walheim, Jerry Ross and Lee Morin were awakened at 4:44 a.m. to the song "The Best Years of Our Lives" performed by the Baha Men.

Ochoa and Ross, who has now flown in space more times - seven - than any other astronaut, will take a break from the their work onboard Atlantis about 10:44 a.m. CDT for interviews by two Indianapolis, IN, television stations and the Associated Press. Ross is an Indiana native. Late this afternoon, Atlantis' orbital maneuvering system engines will be fired to adjust the rate at which the shuttle is closing in on the station and maintain its course toward a Wednesday morning docking.

With docking scheduled at 11:06 a.m. Central time (1606 GMT) tomorrow, Commander Mike Bloomfield, Pilot Steve Frick and Mission Specialists Rex Walheim, Ellen Ochoa, Lee Morin, Jerry Ross and Steve Smith verified all of Atlantis' equipment, setting the stage for the orbiter's linkup to a docking port at the forward end of the station's Destiny Laboratory.

Docking is planned over south central China, southwest of Shanghai. The crew will be up early Wednesday to complete preparations and to execute a number of engine firings to draw Atlantis close to the ISS for its eventual docking.

Expedition Four Commander Yury Onufrienko and Flight Engineers Carl Walz and Dan Bursch tidied up their orbital home and completed routine maintenance on the eve of the arrival of their first visitors since they were launched to the ISS back in December. After docking and hatch opening tomorrow, the two crews will run through a dress rehearsal of procedures which will be used on Thursday to maneuver the large S0 (S-Zero) Truss structure from Atlantis' cargo bay for mating to a capture device at the top of Destiny.

Four spacewalks will be conducted by two teams of spacewalkers to electrically and structurally connect the new truss to the ISS. The 13 and a half-ton S-Zero is the mainframe for a series of trusses to follow which will expand the station to a length of a football field.

Late today, Bloomfield and Frick executed a rendezvous maneuver by firing Atlantis' reaction control system jets to refine the shuttle's path to the space station. Several larger engine firings will be conducted Wednesday morning to slow Atlantis' approach to the station, setting up its final path for linkup to the ISS.

With all of its systems functioning in excellent shape, Atlantis orbits the Earth at an altitude of around 220 statute miles. The crew began an eight-hour sleep period at 7:44 Central time this evening and will be awakened at 3:44 Wednesday morning.

Commander Mike Bloomfield guided Atlantis to a linkup with the forward docking port of the station's Destiny Laboratory at 11:05 a.m. Central time as the two vehicles sailed at an altitude of 240 statute miles. The docking culminated a textbook rendezvous executed by Bloomfield and Pilot Steve Frick. As Atlantis docked, Expedition Four Flight Engineer Dan Bursch, a Navy Captain, rang the ISS ship's bell to greet the arriving shuttle crew.

About two hours later, at 1:07 p.m. Central time as the two craft flew over New Zealand, hatches swung open between Atlantis and the station, and the ten crew members greeted one another inside Destiny, marking the arrival of the first visitors for Expedition Four Commander Yury Onufrienko, Flight Engineer Carl Walz and Bursch since they entered the ISS in December for the start of their six-month mission.

After a safety briefing for the shuttle astronauts by Onufrienko, the two crews began to transfer gear for the first spacewalk tomorrow by Steve Smith and Rex Walheim as well as experiments to be housed in Destiny.

Ellen Ochoa joined Bursch to brush up on procedures for the use of the station's Canadarm2 robotic arm tomorrow which will be employed to grapple and unberth the 13 1/2 ton S0 (S-Zero) Truss from Atlantis' cargo bay for mating to a capture device at the top of Destiny. Smith, Walheim, Jerry Ross and Lee Morin will conduct four spacewalks to electrically and structurally mate the S-Zero to Destiny over the next week. Ochoa maneuvered the arm and verified it is in good working order to support the S-Zero operations on Thursday.

Smith and Walheim set up all the equipment in the Quest Airlock on the ISS from which they will mount the first of the four spacewalks to deploy two of the four mounting struts to Destiny and to bring power to the new truss from the U.S. Laboratory. Ochoa is scheduled to grapple the S-Zero around 5 a.m. Central time with the first spacewalk set to get underway around 10 a.m.

Atlantis and the ISS are in excellent shape, orbiting the Earth every ninety minutes in an orbit inclined 51.6 degrees to either side of the Equator.

The two crews began an eight-hour sleep period at 7:44 Central time this evening and will be awakened at 3:44 Thursday morning for the fourth day of the mission.

On Friday, April 12, NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe will deliver an address on future agency policy entitled, "Pioneering the Future", originating from Syracuse University. The address will be seen on NASA Television beginning at 1 p.m. Central time.

On board the station, the Expedition 4 crew, Commander Yury Onufrienko and flight engineers Carl Walz and Dan Bursch, also awoke at 3:44 a.m. to an alarm-clock-like tone. They have synchronized their sleep schedule to match that of the Atlantis crew to prepare for docked operations.

About two hours after Atlantis docks to the station, the hatches between the two spacecraft will open and Onufrienko, Bursch and Walz will greet their first visitors since beginning their stay aboard the orbiting laboratory last December. After a welcome and safety briefing, all 10 astronauts and cosmonauts will begin transferring equipment and supplies between the two vehicles.

Both crews will jointly review plans for installation of the S-Zero (S0) Truss, including procedures for Thursday's scheduled spacewalk, the first of four during this mission. Ochoa and Bursh will maneuver the station's robotic arm, Canadarm2, through a rehearsal of the motions it will use Thursday to pluck the 44-foot, 27,000 pound truss segment from the shuttle's cargo bay and install it atop the station's U.S. laboratory Destiny.

Major systems aboard Atlantis and the space station continue to function well.

During the S-Zero installation, Atlantis Commander Mike Bloomfield and Pilot Steve Frick operated the shuttle's robotic arm to provide additional camera views to Ochoa and Bursch, who were working in the Destiny Lab at one of the robotic workstations. The truss will serve as the backbone for future station expansion to the length of a football field. S-Zero contains navigational devices, computers, cooling and power systems necessary to attach additional laboratories to the complex.

Within minutes after the new truss was temporarily latched to the Destiny Lab, mission specialists Rex Walheim and Steve Smith left the station's Quest Airlock at 9:36 a.m. Central time to begin the first of four spacewalks of the mission to electrically and structurally mate S-Zero to the station.

Smith and Walheim first unfurled and firmly attached two of four mounting struts on the truss to Destiny before deploying trays of avionics equipment and cables on the truss which include power, data and fluid lines connecting Destiny to the S-Zero. They also attached an umbilical system from the truss to the Mobile Transporter housed on the forward face of the huge girder. The umbilical will enable the Transporter, which is the first railcar in space, to move up and down the length of the station to position the ISS robotic arm for future assembly work. Two other struts on the truss will be mated to Destiny Saturday during the second spacewalk, permanently bolting the truss to the Laboratory.

Working deliberately to connect all of the critical power connections, Walheim spent the day working at the end of the station's Canadarm2, the first time the large arm has been used as a form of cherry picker to maneuver astronauts during assembly work at the ISS. Smith operated as a so-called "free-floater", tethered to the station and to various work sites around the truss itself. Atlantis astronaut Jerry Ross and ISS Flight Engineer Carl Walz took turns choreographing the spacewalk from the aft flight deck of the shuttle.

With all but two tasks successfully completed, Smith and Walheim returned to Quest late this afternoon and ended their spacewalk at 5:24 p.m. Central time, completing a 7 hour, 48 minute excursion. It was the 35th spacewalk devoted to station assembly and the 10th staged from the station itself. As Smith and Walheim wrapped up their work, flight controllers reported that the activation of the S-Zero Truss had begun and that all of the initial systems appear to be in excellent shape.

Time ran out before Smith and Walheim could install two circuit breakers on the truss, but that task will be picked up on a subsequent spacewalk.

After a long and tedious day, the shuttle and station crew members were scheduled to begin an eight-hour sleep period at 7:44 p.m. Central time and will be awakened just before 4 a.m. Friday.

The Atlantis crew - Commander Mike Bloomfield, Pilot Steve Frick and mission specialists Rex Walheim, Ellen Ochoa, Lee Morin, Jerry Ross and Steve Smith - was awakened at 3:44 a.m. by the University of California-Berkeley fight song performed by the school band and "All Right Now," performed by the Stanford University band. Ochoa requested the songs be played for crewmates Walheim and Smith who attended the rival schools.

On board the station, the Expedition 4 crew, Commander Yury Onufrienko and flight engineers Carl Walz and Dan Bursch, also awoke at 3:44 a.m. to an alarm-clock-like tone. Both crews are ready to support the addition of the new segment to the station.

Ochoa, assisted by Bursch, will command the space station robotic arm, Canadarm2, to grapple S0 about 5 a.m. Canadarm2 will lift the truss segment out and away from Atlantis' cargo bay and temporarily install it on the U.S. laboratory Destiny. The Lab Cradle Assembly will provide a semi-rigid structural hold until the truss segment is permanently attached during four spacewalks this week.

The first spacewalk is set to begin about 10 a.m. today as Smith, wearing the suit with solid red stripes, and Walheim, in a solid white suit, float out of the station's Quest airlock. After initial setup procedures, their tasks during the 6½ hour venture include attaching two of four S0 mounting struts to Destiny, as well as an avionics tray that contains power, data and fluid cables and an umbilical system connected to the Mobile Transporter. If time permits, Smith will remove a launch support beam and also go inside the truss to install two circuit breakers.

Ochoa and Bursch will move Walheim on Canadarm2 to worksites throughout the spacewalk. Bloomfield and Frick will use the shuttle's robotic arm cameras to take video of the spacewalkers while Ross guides them through the outlined procedures.

The Atlantis crew - Commander Mike Bloomfield, Pilot Steve Frick, and mission specialists Ellen Ochoa, Rex Walheim, Lee Morin, Jerry Ross and Steve Smith - was awakened at 3:44 a.m. Central time by the song "Testify to Love," by Wynonna Judd played for Bloomfield from his family. On board the station, the Expedition 4 crew, Commander Yury Onufrienko and flight engineers Carl Walz and Dan Bursch, awoke about 30 minutes later.

Morin and Ross will move an experimental plant growth chamber to a rack inside the station's Destiny lab. This experiment will replace a protein crystal growth experiment that will return to Earth on board Atlantis. Walheim and Ochoa will install a freezer in the lab for future crystal samples.

Oxygen and nitrogen will be transferred from Atlantis to the station to refill the airlock high-pressure tanks with the gasses breathed by spacewalkers. The crew will also prepare for and review the procedures for the next two spacewalks, on Saturday and Sunday, to continue hookup of the S0 Truss.

Systems on the S0 Truss are functioning well after its installation Thursday. Friday, ground controllers will activate the Global Positioning System and the Rate Gyro Assembly located on S0 that will begin providing navigation and attitude data for the station.

Crewmembers will take a break to talk with reporters from MSNBC, CBS Radio Network and WWJ-TV in Detroit at 11:28 a.m. At 1 p.m. NASA television will switch to live coverage of NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe's address on "Pioneering the Future." The address will be replayed on NASA TV at 3 p.m.

After two hours of time off during the afternoon, both crews are scheduled to begin their sleep period at 7:44 p.m.

Atlantis Commander Mike Bloomfield, Pilot Steve Frick, and Mission Specialists Ellen Ochoa, Rex Walheim, Lee Morin, Jerry Ross and Steve Smith - and the Expedition Four crew - Commander Yury Onufrienko and Flight Engineers Carl Walz and Dan Bursch - spent their day transferring equipment and science experiments between the shuttle and the station. They also transferred oxygen from the shuttle to one of four high-pressure gas tanks on the Quest Airlock. The tanks are used to repressurize the airlock at the end of each spacewalk staged from the module.

Station flight controllers reported that four new computers on the S-Zero truss were tested successfully, as were new devices to determine the station's orientation relative to the Earth, Global Positioning System navigational antennas and the Thermal Control System for the 13 ½ ton girder, which will be the backbone for other trusses and solar array towers to be mounted on the station in the next year.

The two crews transferred a number of experiments from Atlantis to the station's Destiny Laboratory and reviewed plans for the second and third spacewalks of the mission Saturday and Sunday to continue the outfitting of the new truss.

Saturday's spacewalk by Ross and Morin is scheduled to begin around 9:30 a.m. Central time. The two spacewalkers will complete the bolting of two aft struts on the truss to Destiny, forming a secure structural mate between S-Zero and the Laboratory. Ross and Morin will also attach a second umbilical system to the truss' Mobile Transporter, a form of rail car that will eventually move the station's robotic arm some 350 feet up and down the entire length of the completed truss.

The two crews enjoyed some off duty time this afternoon and are scheduled to begin their sleep period at 7:44 p.m. Both crews will be awakened Saturday at 3:44 a.m.

The Atlantis crew - Commander Mike Bloomfield, Pilot Steve Frick, and mission specialists Ellen Ochoa, Rex Walheim, Steve Smith, Morin and Ross - was awakened at 3:44 a.m. by the song "Voodoo Chile," by Jimi Hendrix. It was played for Morin, who will be making his first spacewalk, at the request of his wife. On board the station, the Expedition 4 crew, Commander Yury Onufrienko and flight engineers Carl Walz and Dan Bursch, also were awakened at 3:44 a.m.

During their 6½-hour spacewalk Ross, wearing a spacesuit with broken red stripes, and Morin, wearing a spacesuit with diagonal broken stripes, will complete the structural attachment of S0's remaining two struts to the station's Destiny laboratory. With all four of the struts attached to Destiny, S0 will be able to support its design loads, including the solar arrays that will be on the ends of the truss at assembly complete.

After attaching the struts, Ross and Morin will remove the large metal rods used to support S0 during launch and store them on the truss. The pair will also attach a second cable system to the Mobile Transporter, which will eventually enable the space station's robotic arm, Canadarm2, to ride a railway along the truss structure.

For today's spacewalk Morin will be working from a platform at the end of the Canadarm2, operated by Ochoa. Using the shuttle robotic arm cameras, Bloomfield and Frick will take photographs and video of the spacewalkers. Walheim will coordinate the spacewalk from inside.

Both crews are scheduled to begin their eight-hour sleep period at 7:44 p.m.

Dubbed the "Silver Team" by their colleagues because of their age, 54-year old Jerry Ross and 49-year old Lee Morin of Atlantis' crew had little trouble extending and bolting the final two struts of the new S-Zero (S0) truss to the Destiny Laboratory, insuring that the centerpiece for the future expansion of the station would be permanently secured to accept additional trusses and solar array towers over the next year. The station will ultimately span some 350 feet from end to end, the length of a football field.

The first two struts of the truss were mated to Destiny on Thursday by the other Atlantis spacewalking team, Steve Smith and Rex Walheim, who will venture back outside Sunday to continue the outfitting of the truss and to reroute electrical power to the station's 58-foot long robotic arm.

Morin worked at the end of the ISS' Canadarm 2 throughout the day during his first spacewalk, while Ross, America's most experienced spacewalker and the most flown space traveler in history, remained tethered to the station to provide "free-floating" support during the eighth spacewalk of his career.

Smith, Walheim and Expedition Four Flight Engineer Dan Bursch helped choreograph the spacewalk from Atlantis' aft flight deck, while shuttle crew member Ellen Ochoa and station Flight Engineer Carl Walz took turns maneuvering Morin as they operated Canadarm2 from a robotic work station inside Destiny.

Shuttle and station Commanders Mike Bloomfield and Yury Onufrienko and shuttle Pilot Steve Frick provided photographic and television support for the spacewalk, the 36th devoted to ISS assembly over the past 3 ½ years.

After the truss struts were bolted in space, Ross and Morin removed a series of panels and clamps that provided structural support for the truss during its launch in Atlantis' cargo bay.

The spacewalkers then began work to install a backup device containing an umbilical reel for the Mobile Transporter railcar on the truss that will provide redundancy to a similar device mounted on the truss Thursday. The two sets of umbilicals for the Mobile Transporter, which is designed to move the robotic arm up and down the length of the completed station truss, provide power, data and video capability for the system, which will be tested for the first time in orbit Monday.

Ross tried to remove a restraining bolt on the mechanism which, if required, can cut the umbilical cable should it snag during its operation, but the bolt proved to be a bit balky and did not back out of its socket as planned. Flight controllers decided not to spend additional time troubleshooting the stubborn bolt today after engineers determined that the cable cutter cannot inadvertently fire in its current configuration. The backup umbilical system is operating normally and the stubborn bolt will be dealt with on one of the mission's two remaining spacewalks. The primary umbilical system installed Thursday is also operating normally.

The spacewalk, which was conducted out of the station's Quest Airlock, began at 9:09 a.m. Central time and concluded at 4:39 p.m. as Ross and Morin repressurized the outer compartment of the two-chamber module.

Late today, Frick fired Atlantis' steering jets in a one-hour procedure to slowly reboost the space station by about 2 statute miles. It was the first of three scheduled reboost maneuvers to eventually raise the orbit of the ISS by about 6 statute miles before Atlantis departs the station on Wednesday.

The ten shuttle and station crew members are scheduled to begin their eight-hour sleep period at 7:44 p.m. and will awaken Sunday just before 4 a.m. to begin preparations for the third spacewalk of the flight.

The stage is now set for the inaugural run Monday of the so-called Mobile Transporter, a flatcar designed to transport the space station's robotic arm up and down an integrated truss system that will span the length of a football field.

Within minutes after starting their spacewalk at 8:48 a.m. Central time, Steve Smith and Rex Walheim released a claw-like device on the top of the Destiny Laboratory to which the new 13 ½ ton S-Zero (S0) truss was initially attached on Thursday. With the truss' four large struts now securely bolted to Destiny, the claw was no longer needed.

Smith and Walheim then reconfigured a number of connectors providing electricity to the 58-foot-long Canadarm2 robotic arm on the station so it can be powered from the S-Zero truss rather than Destiny. The arm has two sets, or "strings" of avionics equipment for its operation. As Smith and Walheim worked deliberately, one set of avionics was rewired and tested, followed by a separate set of redundant avionics.

Smith spent most of the day riding at the end of the shuttle's robotic arm, which was operated by Pilot Steve Frick during the rewiring of its companion station arm. Walheim was the so-called "free-floating" astronaut, tethered to the station to assist Smith. It was the seventh spacewalk of Smith's career. He is the second most experienced U.S. spacewalker behind crewmate Jerry Ross, who helped choreograph today's excursion from inside Atlantis with the help of Lee Morin. It was Walheim's second spacewalk.

With Canadarm2 successfully rewired and both of its electrical, data and video circuit sets checked out, Smith and Walheim pressed ahead to release clamps which secured the Mobile Transporter to the S-Zero truss during its launch last week. The railcar, which weighs about 1900 pounds, will be commanded Monday by ground controllers to move about 32 feet up and down the truss at a glacial speed of a little less than one inch per second in the first test of its computers, drive motors, suspension unit, video and data umbilicals and the first section of rails on the S-Zero.

The railcar, and an associated Mobile Base System device to be installed on the transporter in early June on the next shuttle assembly flight to the ISS, will ultimately enable the robotic arm to travel to various worksites on the expanding trusses of the station for future construction. The Mobile Base System will be the platform upon which the Canadarm2 will attach itself to be driven up and down the length of the ISS.

The only task not completed today was the attachment of a 14-foot ladder called the Airlock Spur from the S-Zero truss to the Quest Airlock designed to simplify the path for future spacewalkers moving back and forth from the truss to the airlock itself.

As the spacewalk neared its completion, final diagnostic tests of the newly wired station arm were taking longer than planned, and because the Canadarm2 is required for the airlock ladder to be pivoted away from the truss to Quest, flight controllers decided to defer its installation until the final spacewalk on Tuesday.

Smith and Walheim finally returned to Quest and completed their spacewalk at 3:15 p.m. Central time with the repressurization of the airlock.

Atlantis astronaut Ellen Ochoa and ISS Expedition Four crew member Dan Bursch backed up Frick in the operation of the shuttle's robot arm during today's spacewalk, the 37th devoted to space station assembly. Commander Mike Bloomfield documented the spacewalk from Atlantis' aft flight deck while Expedition Four Commander Yury Onufrienko and Flight Engineer Carl Walz continued to transfer supplies from the shuttle to the station for future use.

Late today, Frick conducted an hour-long reboost of the ISS, using Atlantis' steering jets to move the station higher by about two statute miles. It was the second of three planned maneuvers to raise the station's altitude and the second in as many days.

The ten crew members are scheduled to begin an eight-hour sleep period at 7:44 p.m. Central time tonight and will be awakened just before 4 a.m. to prepare for the testing of the new Mobile Transporter.

They are scheduled to step out of the station's Quest airlock at 9:34 a.m. Their first task is to release a claw atop the lab that temporarily secured the truss to it during the initial installation. Walheim, wearing a solid white spacesuit, will release the latch as Smith, wearing a spacesuit with red stripes, begins making connections to route power, data, and video through the truss for later operation of the space station robotic arm, Canadarm2. During the 6½-hour spacewalk, Smith will be working from a platform on the station arm, operated by Mission Specialist Ellen Ochoa and Flight Engineer Dan Bursch.

Walheim will install circuit breakers in the truss, a task left over from the first spacewalk, which lasted 7½ hours. Together they will then turn their attention to the Mobile Transporter, spending about 45 minutes releasing its many launch restraints and removing a small thermal cover from a radiator on the railcar. Then they return to work on the electrical connections for about another hour and a half.

After transferring tools and testing sensors on the side of S0, the last task will be to install the Airlock Spur. The 14-foot beam, fitted with handrails, will stretch from Quest to the forward side of S0, helping future spacewalkers work more efficiently.

Inside the shuttle/station complex, Mission Specialists Lee Morin and Jerry Ross will coach the spacewalkers through the outlined tasks. Shuttle Commander Mike Bloomfield and Pilot Steve Frick will provide photographic and video support during the spacewalk, using Atlantis' robotic arm.

Atlantis' crew was awakened about 3:52 a.m. by the song "All Star," performed by Smash Mouth from the Shrek movie soundtrack. The song was played for Walheim by his family.

Onboard the space station, Expedition Four Commander Yury Onufrienko, Flight Engineer Carl Walz and Bursch were awakened at 3:44 a.m. Both crews are scheduled to begin their sleep period at 7:44 p.m.

Expedition Four Flight Engineer Carl Walz sent commands from a laptop computer to the Mobile Transporter to move off of its launch position on the forward face of the new S-Zero (S0) truss, and at 7:22 a.m., the flatcar began its slow trek to an initial worksite 17 feet down a rail which spans the entire 44 feet of the girder.

It took only a half hour to traverse the distance, but sensitive software in the transporter prevented an automatic latching of the railcar to the worksite. Ground controllers accomplished the latching through a methodical series of commands.

Engineers believe that the subtle effects of weightlessness are causing the railcar to "lift" off its tracks by a microscopic distance, thus interfering with magnetic sensors that tell the transporter its position relative to each worksite. The effect is that the sensors are losing contact with magnetic positioning strips on the truss rail, preventing an automatic latching of the transporter. Manual commanding of the latching is working however, and the system is said to be in excellent working order.

The Mobile Transporter software controls about 20 motors, directing it to travel from one point to another, latch itself down to the truss, and plug itself into a power source. The transporter must latch with about three tons of force to insure a stable platform for the eventual mounting of the Canadarm2 robotic arm. On the next shuttle assembly flight to the ISS in June, a platform called the Mobile Base System will be mounted to the transporter upon which Canadarm 2 will eventually be attached so it can travel the length of a football field to support future assembly of station components.

Late today, the transporter traveled to a second worksite where manual latching commands were again required, then inched back to the first worksite, where the railcar was parked at 5:40 p.m. Central time and manually latched in place for a final time to await the arrival of the Mobile Base System component on the STS-111 mission. In all, the transporter traveled 72 feet from worksite to worksite at a glacial pace of about one inch per second.

Engineers believe a minor software modification may restore the transporter's ability to automatically latch itself to any worksite. All other transporter systems functioned perfectly throughout its initial test.

Atlantis Commander Mike Bloomfield, Pilot Steve Frick, Mission Specialists Ellen Ochoa, Rex Walheim, Lee Morin, Jerry Ross and Steve Smith, and Expedition Four Commander Yury Onufrienko and Flight Engineers Walz and Dan Bursch spent the day monitoring the transporter tests and continued the transfer of equipment and supplies from Atlantis to the station.

In addition, about 100 pounds of oxygen and 30 pounds of nitrogen have been transferred from Atlantis to the tanks on the Quest Airlock to support future spacewalk activity.

The fourth and final spacewalk of the flight will be conducted on Tuesday by Ross and Morin beginning around 9:30 a.m. Central time. At the start of the planned 6 ½ hour excursion, Ross and Morin will pivot a 14-foot ladder away from the S-Zero truss for attachment to Quest to act as a pathway for future spacewalkers. They will also install external lights on the Unity module, test microswitches on the sides of the S-Zero truss which will be used to confirm the attachment of future truss segments, troubleshoot a balky bolt on a cable cutting system on the Mobile Transporter and tie down a portion of insulation on one of four navigational antennas on the S-Zero.

The ten Shuttle and Station crew members are scheduled to begin an eight-hour sleep period at 7:44 p.m. Central time and will be awakened shortly before 4 a.m. Tuesday to prepare for the final spacewalk of the mission.

Ground controllers in mission control will command the Mobile Transporter to move up and down the truss three times, testing its computers, drive motors, suspension unit, video and data umbilicals, and the railway itself. The railcar will travel a total of about 71 feet at speeds of 1, 0.4 and 0.1 of an inch per second, stopping at future worksites to test its ability to latch and unlatch itself to the railway.

This is the first time that a software-controlled movable robot has been used on an orbiting vehicle. The Mobile Transporter software controls about 20 motors, directing it to travel from one point to another, latch itself down to the truss, and plug itself into a power source. The Mobile Transporter ultimately will move the station's robotic arm, Canadarm2, along the orbiting laboratory's 356-foot Integrated Truss.

The Atlantis crew - Commander Mike Bloomfield, Pilot Steve Frick, Mission Specialists Ellen Ochoa, Rex Walheim, Lee Morin, Jerry Ross and Steve Smith - was awakened at 3:48 a.m. to "Magic Carpet Ride" by Steppenwolf, dedicated to Smith. The station crew - Commander Yury Onufrienko, Flight Engineers Carl Walz and Dan Bursch - was awakened at 4:14 a.m.

The crews will continue to transfer equipment between the two spacecraft and will review procedures for the fourth and final spacewalk of the mission, scheduled for Tuesday.

The 10 crewmembers will participate in a news conference with media representatives at NASA centers in Florida and Houston and at Mission Control- Moscow. The event will be carried live on NASA television beginning at 11:47 a.m. CDT. Afterwards, the crews will have a few hours off. Both crews are scheduled to begin their eight-hour sleep period at 7:44 p.m.

Work during the 6½-hour spacewalk includes installation a 14-foot beam extending from Quest to the newly installed S-Zero (S0) Truss to help spacewalkers maneuver around the station more efficiently. They will install halogen work lights on the Unity module and the U.S. laboratory, Destiny -- the 40-watt lamps are five times more powerful than standard 40-watt lamps and will shine a 9- by 7-foot elliptical beam of light 20 feet away. The spacewalkers will setup and partially assemble a work platform.

Ross, working from the station's robotic arm, also will install shock absorbers to either side of the Mobile Transporter to provide a barrier and attach point between the railcar and future hand-propelled carts that will be used by spacewalkers.

Morin will deploy an instrument to measure and characterize the radiation environment outside the station. He also will troubleshoot a balky bolt on a redundant cable cutting system on the Mobile Transporter. A successful test run of that railcar concluded late Monday when ground controllers commanded it to latch onto the railway and plug into a power source. The railcar is ready to receive the Mobile Base System during the next shuttle mission, STS-111, giving the station's Canadarm2 points of attachment on the rail-car base capable of moving along the station's Integrated Truss.

Additional tasks include installing handrails on S0, relocating tools for STS-111 spacewalks, adjusting a thermal blanket partly obstructing a GPS antenna on S0, performing photo and video documentation of station components and checking out a gauge that is designed to detect minute amounts of gas in the environment of space.

The Atlantis crew - Commander Mike Bloomfield, Pilot Steve Frick, Mission Specialists Ellen Ochoa, Rex Walheim, Steve Smith, Morin, and Ross- was awakened at 3:44 a.m. to "I Am an American," performed by the Purdue University Marching band. It was dedicated to Purdue graduate Ross. The station crew - Commander Yury Onufrienko, Flight Engineers Carl Walz and Dan Bursch - was also awakened at 3:44 a.m.

Ross and Morin began the fourth and final spacewalk of the STS-110 mission and the 38th devoted to space station construction at 9:29 a.m. Central time, first pivoting a 14-foot beam called the Airlock Spur from the S-Zero truss to the Quest Airlock to provide a quick pathway for future spacewalkers working on truss assembly.

Ross then conducted tests of switches on both sides of the 44-foot long truss to insure they will work properly later this year in confirming the attachment of additional truss segments to the S-Zero. The main truss of the ISS will eventually stretch more than 350 feet, longer than a football field.

The two spacewalking grandfathers pressed ahead to install floodlights on the station's Unity connecting module and the Destiny Laboratory which will provide illumination for future spacewalkers as they move around the expanding outpost.

Ross and Morin then affixed a work platform on the station for future construction work, installed electrical converters and circuit breakers, dressed up a piece of insulation around one of the four navigational antennas on the truss and attached shock absorbers to the new Mobile Transporter railcar. The shock absorbers will prevent vibrations to the station's robotic arm from the future use of carts on the truss which will be used to move spacewalkers from one end of the station to another.

The only tasks not accomplished were the removal of a balky bolt from a backup cable cutting device on one of two umbilical systems for the Mobile Transporter, which was successfully tested on Monday and the installation of a gas analyzer on the truss which proved to be faulty.

The bolt will have no impact on the operation of the flatcar, upon which a Mobile Base System platform will be mounted in June as the ultimate base for the transport of the station's robotic arm up and down the length of the ISS. The gas analyzer was considered the lowest priority of the flight.

With all of their major work completed, Ross and Morin returned to the Quest Airlock and concluded the spacewalk at 4:06 p.m. Central time.

Atlantis Mission Specialist Ellen Ochoa and Expedition Four Flight Engineer Dan Bursch operated the station's Canadarm2 robotic arm to move Ross around the ISS during the spacewalk while Morin operated as the "free-floating" spacewalker, tethered to the station to assist Ross in the final tasks of the mission. For Ross, America's most experienced spacewalker, it was his ninth excursion to conduct work in the void of space during his career, totaling 58 hours and 18 minutes of spacewalking time. Only Russian cosmonaut Anatoly Solovyev has performed more spacewalks in human spaceflight history. Today's spacewalk was the second for Morin. Rex Walheim and Expedition Four crew members Carl Walz helped choreograph the spacewalk from Atlantis' aft flight deck.

While the spacewalkers went about their work, Shuttle and Station Commanders Mike Bloomfield and Yury Onufrienko, Pilot Steve Frick, and Steve Smith continued their transfer of equipment to and from both Atlantis and the ISS and provided photographic and television support to Ross and Morin.

With all of the objectives having been successfully accomplished for the mating and outfitting of the S-Zero truss to the ISS, the stage is set for Wednesday's final farewells between the two crews and undocking of Atlantis from the station at 1:31 p.m. Central time as the two craft sail some 244 statute miles above the north Atlantic due west of Ireland. Atlantis is scheduled to land at the Kennedy Space Center early Friday afternoon.

The shuttle crewmembers will begin an eight-hour sleep period tonight at 7:14 p.m. Central time followed thirty minutes later by the station crew. Atlantis' crew will be awakened at 3:14 a.m. Wednesday to prepare for undocking. The station crew will be awakened an hour later.

After more than a week of joint operations between the shuttle and station crews, Pilot Steve Frick backed Atlantis away to a distance of about 400 feet in front of the outpost, where he began a 1 1/4 lap flyaround of the ISS, newly equipped with the 27,000 pound S-Zero truss, the first segment of a truss structure which will ultimately expand the station to the length of a football field. Aboard the station, Flight Engineer Dan Bursch rang a ship's bell in the Unity module to mark Atlantis' departure in what has become a tradition.

Finally, at 3:15 p.m., as Atlantis flew directly above the station, Frick fired the shuttle's jets one more time in a separation maneuver to depart the station for good.

Left behind on the ISS are Expedition Four Commander Yury Onufrienko and Flight Engineers Carl Walz and Bursch, now in their 133rd day in space and their 131st day on board the outpost.

Also left behind on the station were more than a ton of supplies, almost 200 pounds of oxygen and nitrogen for the station's Quest Airlock, 1,463 pounds of water and the new truss, which will serve as a backbone for future station construction and a power switching station for new solar arrays to be delivered to the ISS next year. Atlantis's week-long visit to the ISS was the 13th shuttle mission devoted to station assembly and resupply.

Earlier today, Commander Mike Bloomfield, Frick and Mission Specialists Rex Walheim, Ellen Ochoa, Steve Smith, Lee Morin and Jerry Ross completed final transfers of logistical supplies to the station and bid farewell to their station counterparts in the Destiny Laboratory. Hatches between the station and the shuttle swung shut at 11:04 a.m. Central time and leak checks were performed to insure that all was in order for the undocking.

As Atlantis' crew turns its attention to preparations for landing at the Kennedy Space Center Friday afternoon, the Expedition Four crew will prepare to button up the ISS temporarily and enter its Soyuz return craft early Saturday for a brief flyover from one docking port to another.

With Onufrienko at the controls, the Soyuz will undock from the station's Zarya nadir docking port at around 4 a.m. Central time Saturday, back out to a distance of about 250 feet and redock to the Pirs Docking Compartment 35 minutes later. That will clear the Zarya docking port for the arrival of a new Soyuz return vehicle and a three-man taxi crew on April 27 for a week-long visit.

Both Atlantis and the International Space Station are in excellent shape following their joint mission. Atlantis' astronauts are scheduled to begin an eight-hour sleep period at 6:44 p.m. Central time and will be awakened just before 3 a.m. Thursday for what is expected to be their final full day in orbit.

Farewells and closing of the hatches between the spacecraft is set to begin about 10:30 a.m. About 1:30 p.m., Atlantis astronaut Jerry Ross will send commands to release the docking mechanism. The initial separation will be provided by springs that will gently push the shuttle away from the station. When Atlantis is about two feet away from the station and the docking devices are clear of one another, Pilot Steve Frick will fire Atlantis' steering jets to begin slowly moving away.

About 45 minutes after undocking, when Atlantis is 450 feet away, Frick will fly the shuttle around the station 1¼ times. The flyaround is set to begin at 2:16 p.m. and will last about an hour. Atlantis will move directly over the station, then behind it, underneath it, and back in front, where the flyaround began. The last quarter-circle brings the shuttle directly above the station. Finally, Frick will fire Atlantis' jets to move away from the station about 3:15 p.m. Atlantis is scheduled to land at the Kennedy Space Center at 11:26 a.m. CDT Friday.

Atlantis leaves behind the newly installed S-Zero (S0) Truss, the first part of the main truss that will support cooling and power systems essential for the addition of future international laboratories to the station. All of the S0 systems have been operating well since its attachment to the station's U.S. laboratory Destiny on Thursday.

The shuttle also delivered additional supplies and science experiments for the station crew to work with during its final weeks on the station. The Expedition Four crew - Commander Yury Onufrienko and Flight Engineers Carl Walz and Dan Bursch - is scheduled to return to Earth aboard the space shuttle Endeavour in June.

The Atlantis crew - Commander Mike Bloomfield, Frick, Mission Specialists Ellen Ochoa, Rex Walheim, Steve Smith, Lee Morin, and Ross- was awakened at 3:44 a.m. to "Noah," performed by Frick when he was a teen-ager. The station crew was awakened at 4:14 a.m.

Commander Mike Bloomfield, Pilot Steve Frick and Flight Engineer Ellen Ochoa activated one of three hydraulic power units on Atlantis and tested all of the shuttle's aerosurfaces to ensure that Atlantis will have full controllability during its high-speed return to Earth Friday. Bloomfield and Frick then test-fired Atlantis' steering jets, which were declared ready to support entry and landing.

Bloomfield, Frick and Ochoa joined crewmates Rex Walheim, Lee Morin, Jerry Ross and Steve Smith to stow all of the equipment they have used over the past 10 days and parked the shuttle's KU-band dish antenna in preparation for the closing of Atlantis' cargo bay doors early Friday morning.

Atlantis has two landing opportunities at the Kennedy Space Center on Friday. The first begins with the firing of Atlantis' braking rockets at 10:20 a.m. Central time, enabling the shuttle to drop out of orbit for its hour-long descent back to Earth and a touchdown on the 3-mile long Shuttle Landing Facility at KSC at 11:26 a.m. Central time. In the unlikely event weather prevents a landing on the first opportunity, a second opportunity is available for a Florida landing, beginning with the deorbit burn of the orbital maneuvering system engines on Atlantis at 11:59 a.m. Central time, resulting in a landing at KSC at 1:03 p.m. Central time.

The weather forecast calls for very favorable conditions for landing at the Florida spaceport Friday, with only scattered clouds and light winds expected. As a result, the backup landing site at California's Edwards Air Force Base was not called up for support Friday. Atlantis has enough consumables to stay in orbit, if necessary, until Monday.

Meanwhile, on board the ISS, Expedition Four Commander Yury Onufrienko and Flight Engineers Carl Walz and Dan Bursch spent a relatively quiet day in the wake of a week of joint operations with Atlantis' crew to install and activate the S-Zero (S0) truss and the Mobile Transporter railcar on the complex. Both of the new components continue to be checked out and are said to be in excellent shape.

Onufrienko, Walz and Bursch will spend part of the day Friday deactivating some of the ISS systems as they prepare to board their Soyuz return vehicle early Saturday for a brief flyover from its current docking location at the nadir port of the Zarya module to the Pirs Docking compartment. The relocation of the Soyuz, which is expected to take about 35 minutes, will begin with undocking Saturday at 4:02 a.m. Central time (902 GMT). Coverage of the operation on NASA Television begins at 3 a.m. Central time (800 GMT).

The movement of the Soyuz 3 vehicle from Zarya to Pirs opens the Zarya port for the arrival of a new Soyuz 4 craft on April 27 by a three-man "taxi" crew comprised of Commander Yuri Gidzenko, formerly of the Expedition One crew, Flight Engineer Roberto Vittori of the European Space Agency and South African spaceflight participant Mark Shuttleworth. They will be launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on April 25 and will spend about a week in joint operations with the Expedition Four crew before departing from Pirs in the Soyuz 3 craft on the night of May 4.

The crew of Atlantis was scheduled to begin a scheduled eight-hour sleep period at 6:14 p.m. today, and will be awakened just after 2 a.m. Friday to prepare for entry and landing. All shuttle and ISS systems are operating normally.

If Atlantis lands on Friday, the STS-110 astronauts will return home to Ellington Field in Houston near the Johnson Space Center at around 1 p.m. Central time Saturday.

The crew - Commander Mike Bloomfield, Pilot Steve Frick, Mission Specialists Ellen Ochoa, Rex Walheim, Lee Morin, Jerry Ross and Steve Smith - was awakened at 2:44 a.m. to "Somewhere Over the Rainbow," performed by Bloomfield's daughter.

Bloomfield, Frick and Ochoa will test fire the reaction control system jets and flight control surfaces that will be used to guide Atlantis through the atmosphere on Friday morning. Atlantis is scheduled to return to the Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 11:26 a.m. CDT Friday where preliminary weather forecasts for landing are favorable.

Crewmembers will take a break from their on orbit work today to talk with media representatives from CNN, WDIV-TV in Detroit and the Fox News Network this morning in an interview beginning at 9:14

Atlantis' orbital maneuvering jets will be fired twice today. Once will be for scientists to look at the exhaust's effects on radar echoes and effects of orbital kinetic energy on the ionosphere. The other firing will reduce the cross range for Friday's backup landing opportunity in Florida. Walheim, Morin, Ross and Smith will continue to pack away equipment and supplies onboard the shuttle and prepare the cabin for landing.

On board the International Space Station the Expedition 4 crew - Commander Yury Onufrienko and Flight Engineers Dan Bursch and Carl Walz - was awakened at 3 a.m. They are preparing for their next visitors, a Soyuz taxi crew slated to arrive April 27. Onufrienko, Walz and Bursch, will board the current Soyuz spacecraft and move it from its location on the Zarya docking port to the Pirs docking compartment on Saturday to make room for the replacement Soyuz.

The crew of Atlantis will begin a scheduled eight-hour sleep period at 6:14 p.m. today, waking just after 2 a.m. Friday to prepare for reentry and landing of Atlantis concluding a successful mission to the station.

Atlantis has two landing opportunities at KSC today. The first begins with the firing of Atlantis' braking rockets at 10:20 a.m. and a landing at 11:26 a.m. CDT. A second opportunity for a Florida landing would see the deorbit burn at 11:59 a.m. and a landing at KSC at 1:03 p.m. CDT. Forecasts call for favorable weather for landing in Florida Friday, with only scattered clouds expected. The backup-landing site at California's Edwards Air Force Base was not called up today. Atlantis has enough consumables to stay in orbit until Monday.

The crew of Atlantis - Commander Mike Bloomfield, Pilot Steve Frick, and Mission Specialists Ellen Ochoa, Rex Walheim, Lee Morin, Jerry Ross and Steve Smith - was awakened at 2:21 a.m. by the song "Message in a Bottle," performed by The Police.

Meanwhile, aboard the ISS, Expedition 4 Commander Yury Onufrienko and Flight Engineers Carl Walz and Dan Bursch monitored station systems this morning during another reboost of the orbiting laboratory. The Progress cargo ship's jets were fired to raise the station's altitude a little more than half a mile. During the STS-110 mission, Atlantis did three station reboosts, totaling about six miles.

The station crew also will deactivate some ISS systems today to prepare to board the Soyuz return vehicle early Saturday for its 35-minute move from the nadir port of the Zarya module to the Pirs Docking compartment. The relocation of the Soyuz will begin with undocking Saturday at 4:02 a.m. Coverage on NASA Television begins at 3 a.m.

The move frees the Zarya port for the arrival of a new Soyuz 4 craft on April 27 with a three-man "taxi" crew comprised of Commander Yuri Gidzenko, Flight Engineer Roberto Vittori of the European Space Agency and South African spaceflight participant Mark Shuttleworth. They will be launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on April 25 and will spend about a week aboard the station before departing in the Soyuz 3 craft May 4.

Commander Mike Bloomfield eased Atlantis to a textbook landing on runway 3-3 at the Florida spaceport at 11:27 a.m. Central time under clear skies and light winds. Bloomfield, Pilot Steve Frick and Mission Specialists Rex Walheim, Ellen Ochoa, Lee Morin, Jerry Ross and Steve Smith completed an 11-day flight in which four spacewalks were conducted to deliver and activate the new S-Zero (S0) girder to the ISS, which will serve as the centerpiece for a truss that will eventually span the length of a football field. Solar arrays will be mounted on the truss as well as new station modules. The S-Zero component will also serve as a switching station for electricity from the station's solar arrays to ISS elements. In addition, the truss is a base for the first rail system in space through the use of its Mobile Transporter and the upcoming Mobile Base System to be delivered to the ISS in June on which the station's robotic arm will be affixed to move up and down the length of the outpost.

The shuttle crewmembers were scheduled to depart Atlantis about an hour after landing to be driven back to the crew quarters at KSC for medical tests and reunions with their families.

The STS-110 astronauts will return home to Hangar 990 at Ellington Field in Houston near the Johnson Space Center at around 1 p.m. Central time Saturday for a welcome home ceremony. The public is invited to attend.

Meanwhile, aboard the ISS, Expedition Four Commander Yury Onufrienko and Flight Engineers Carl Walz and Dan Bursch spent the day configuring station systems for the temporary closure of the complex early Saturday in advance of a short departure in their Soyuz return vehicle and a relocation of the craft to another docking port.

Onufrienko, Walz and Bursch will board their Soyuz return vehicle early Saturday for a brief flyover from its current docking location at the nadir port of the Zarya module to the Pirs Docking compartment. The relocation of the Soyuz, which is expected to take about 35 minutes, will begin with undocking Saturday at 4:02 a.m. Central time (902 GMT). Coverage of the operation on NASA Television begins at 3 a.m. Central time (800 GMT).

The movement of the Soyuz 3 vehicle from Zarya to Pirs opens the Zarya port for the arrival of a new Soyuz 4 craft on April 27 by a three-man "taxi" crew comprised of Commander Yuri Gidzenko, who served on the first resident crew of the ISS, Flight Engineer Roberto Vittori of the European Space Agency and South African spaceflight participant Mark Shuttleworth. They will be launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on April 25 and will spend about a week in joint operations with the Expedition Four crew before departing from Pirs in the Soyuz 3 craft on the night of May 4.

Major systems aboard the ISS continue to function well as the station orbits at an average altitude of about 247 statute miles.

Yest kasaniye! Progress M-63 (28P), approaching from below the station, docked flawlessly at the DC1 Docking Compartment nadir port at 9:38am EST, followed by docking probe retraction and hook closure ('sborka') after motion damp-out, while the ISS was in LVLH (local vertical/local horizontal) attitude. All Progress systems operated nominally from Automated Rendezvous start. (Launched on 2/5 (8:02am EST), the 28P resupply drone delivered about 2.5 tons of cargo for the ISS crews, including propellants for the Russian thrusters, fresh water, oxygen, food, spare parts, repair gear, life support and science experiment hardware.)

Additional Details: ISS On-Orbit Status 02/07/08.

Atlantis lifted off from the Kennedy Space Center on mission STS-122 at 1:45 p.m. CST. Aboard the shuttle are Commander Steve Frick, Pilot Alan Poindexter and Mission Specialists Leland Melvin, Rex Walheim, Stanley Love, Hans Schlegel and Leopold Eyharts. Schlegel and Eyharts are European astronauts.

Atlantis is in excellent condition. The shuttle is scheduled to dock with the International Space Station on Saturday. On Friday, the crew will use the shuttle's robotic arm to inspect Atlantis' heat shield on the wing leading edges and nose. They also will check the spacesuits that will be used for three spacewalks during the mission.

After Atlantis arrives at the station, Eyharts will become a member of the Expedition 16 crew, joining Commander Peggy Whitson and Flight Engineer Yuri Malenchenko. Flight Engineer Dan Tani, who has been aboard the station since October 2007, will return to Earth on Atlantis.

The launch of Atlantis is the 121st space shuttle launch and the 29th flight of Atlantis. The Columbus module is Europe's primary contribution to the space station. Columbus will host experiments in life, physical and earth sciences.

The shuttle crew will begin a sleep period at 7:45 p.m. CST and awaken at 3:45 a.m. CST Friday to begin their first full day in space.<

Commander Steve Frick and his crewmates, Pilot Alan Poindexter and Mission Specialists Leland Melvin, Rex Walheim, Stanley Love, Hans Schlegel and Leopold Eyharts, today completed a five-hour inspection of Atlantis' heat shield using the shuttle's robotic arm and the Orbiter Boom Sensor System. Imagery analysts and engineers on the ground will add today's three-dimensional sensor images to imagery and accelerometer data collected at launch and during the climb to orbit and continue their analysis of the shuttle's heat shield.

Also today, the crew checked out the tools that will be used during tomorrow's rendezvous and docking to the station, installed the centerline camera that will be used during docking and extended the outer ring of the Orbiter Docking System.

Spacewalkers Walheim, Schlegel and Love checked out the spacesuits that they will wear during the mission's three spacewalks. At 2:02 p.m. Walheim reported that the suits had been fully prepared for transfer to the space station.

On board the space station, Commander Peggy Whitson and Flight Engineers Yuri Malenchenko and Dan Tani readied the station for the arrival of Atlantis' crew by conducting a leak check of Pressurized Mating Adapter-2, Atlantis' docking point.

Tomorrow, Frick will perform the rendezvous pitch maneuver, an orbiter back-flip 600 feet below the space station that will allow Whitson and Malenchenko to take hundreds of detailed images of the orbiter's underside. With the pitch maneuver complete, Frick will fly the shuttle ahead of the station and slowly ease the orbiter back to a docking with the space station.

Tomorrow also marks Whitson's 48th birthday. She commented today that she was looking forward to Atlantis' arrival as her birthday present.

The STS-122 crew is on an 11-day mission that will deliver a new research module to the International Space Station, the European Space Agency's Columbus laboratory. Columbus will be Europe's largest contribution to the construction of the station, adding 2,648 cubic feet of pressurized volume, four science experiment racks and one storage rack to the orbiting complex.

Atlantis' crew is scheduled to go to sleep at 7:45 p.m. and will awaken at 3:45 a.m.

Installing the laboratory, named for Christopher Columbus, is the primary goal of this 121st space shuttle mission. It will add 2,648 cubic feet of pressurized volume, four science experiment racks and one storage rack to the space station.

This morning's wakeup song, 'The Book of Love,' performed by Peter Gabriel, was played for European Space Agency astronaut Leopold Eyharts at 3:45 a.m. CST. Eyharts will become a member of the Expedition 16 crew, replacing Flight Engineer Dan Tani, after Atlantis arrives at the space station Saturday.

Today Atlantis Commander Steve Frick and his crewmates, Pilot Alan Poindexter and Mission Specialists Leland Melvin, Rex Walheim, Stanley Love, Hans Schlegel and Eyharts will perform an inspection of Atlantis' heat shield using the shuttle's robotic arm and the Orbiter Boom Sensor System. They'll also check out the tools they need for Saturday's rendezvous and docking to the station and install a centerline camera in the shuttle's orbiter docking system.

Spacewalkers Walheim, Schlegel and Love will prepare spacesuits that they will wear during the mission's three spacewalks; two by Walheim and Schlegel and one by Walheim and Love.

The International Space Station's Expedition 16 Commander Peggy Whitson and Flight Engineers Yuri Malenchenko and Tani started their day at 4 a.m. CST. Today they will conduct a leak check of the Pressurized Mating Adapter 2 where Atlantis will dock to the station Saturday morning at 11:25 a.m. CST.

aturday = Docking Day. Happy Birthday, Peggy Whitson!

STS-122/Atlantis docked smoothly at the PMA-2 (Pressurized Mating Adapter-2) port at 12:17pm EST, eight minutes ahead of time, after successfully completing the RPM (R-Bar Pitch Maneuver) at 11:32am. The station now hosts ten occupants again as Mission 1E is underway. (The combined crew is comprised of ISS CDR Peggy Whitson, FE-1 Yuri Malenchenko, FE-2 Dan Tani, STS CDR Steve Frick, PLT Alan Poindexter, MS1 Leland Melvin, MS2 Rex Walheim, MS3 Hans Schlegel, MS4 Stanley Love, and MS5 LĂ(c)opold Eyharts who replaces Dan Tani as FE-2, while the latter returns on the Atlantis as MS-5.)

Additional Details: ISS On-Orbit Status 02/09/08.

Space shuttle Atlantis will deliver the new module and a new crew member to the station when it docks at 11:25 a.m. CST to begin 6 days of docked operations.

Today's wakeup song, played for Commander Steve Frick, at 3:45 a.m. CST was the theme song from Garrison Keillor's radio variety show 'A Prairie Home Companion.' The song is the Spencer Williams composition "Tishomingo Blues," but with lyrics written especially for the show.

Frick and his shuttle crewmates begin rendezvous operations at 5:30 a.m. CST. At 10:23 a.m., at a range of 600 feet below the station, Frick will command Atlantis to perform a back flip so ISS Commander Peggy Whitson and Flight Engineer Yuri Malenchenko can photograph the thermal tiles on the shuttle's underside. Those digital images will be sent to Mission Control for analysis.

With the pitch maneuver complete, Frick will then fly the shuttle ahead of the station and slowly ease the orbiter back to a docking with the space station.

After hatch opening, the crew members will begin moving spacewalking equipment into the Quest airlock to prepare for the first excursion on Sunday. Mission Specialists Rex Walheim and Hans Schlegel will go outside to prepare the Columbus module to be grappled by the station's robotic arm, lifted from Atlantis' payload bay, and installed on the starboard side of Harmony.

The official exchange of Atlantis crewmember LĂ(c)opold Eyharts with space station Flight Engineer Dan Tani, who arrived at the station in October, is planned for 6 a.m. CST Sunday. The transfer becomes official with the installation of Eyharts' customized seat liner in the Soyuz.

The STS-122 crew is on an 11-day mission to install and activate Columbus. The new laboratory is Europe's largest contribution to the construction of the station, adding 2,648 cubic feet of pressurized volume, four science experiment racks and one storage rack to the orbiting complex.

What wasn't delayed, however, was the official crew rotation of ESA Astronaut Leopold Eyharts and Expedition 16 Flight Engineer Dan Tani, which was completed at 5:20 p.m. Eyharts now is a member of Expedition 16 and Tani is an STS-122 mission specialist.

Expedition 16 Commander Peggy Whitson and Flight Engineers Yuri Malenchenko and Tani welcomed the seven-man Atlantis crew into the space station at 12:40 p.m., following an 11:17 a.m. docking, following a flawless rendezvous throughout the morning.

They'll have 24 extra hours to finish preparing for the mission's next major milestone, however, due to a crew medical issue. The mission's first spacewalk originally was scheduled for Sunday, but has been postponed until Monday. Mission Specialist Rex Walheim will be joined for the spacewalk by Mission Specialist Stanley Love, rather than Mission Specialist Hans Schlegel, as originally planned.

Space Shuttle Program Deputy Manager John Shannon said ground teams are currently reworking the mission timeline and there should be no impact to the completion of the mission's objectives, despite being shifted one day later.

To make up for the delay, Shannon said the crew will conserve enough power to spend an additional day in space. Atlantis went into orbit with the option of adding one day to its mission, which was to be used for additional work commissioning the new Columbus module. By adding a second day, the crew could shift their activities by one day and still have time for more Columbus work after the module is installed.

Before docking, Commander Steve Frick flew the shuttle through a backflip to allow the space station crew a good view of Atlantis' heat shield. Whitson and Malenchenko took about 300 photos of the shuttle's thermal protection system and sent them down to teams on the ground for analysis.

The teams also are paying close attention to photos sent down by the crew Friday of minor damage to a thermal blanket over the shuttle's right Orbital Maneuvering System pod. A similar condition occurred on the left pod last year on STS-117 and was repaired during a spacewalk.

Shannon said this case does not seem to be as much of a concern, because this particular blanket location does not experience as much heat during the shuttle's reentry.

Docking went smoothly with the exception of a hiccup with one of the station's five general purpose computers. After experiencing some problems with guidance and navigation software on the computer, the crew opted to use other computers for the shuttle's rendezvous with the station. Only one computer is needed to perform the rendezvous, with one computer required for backup. Mission Control will review the computer's software to ensure its health.

Ahead: Week 17 of Increment 16.

Mission 1E replanning by MCC-Houston, driven by the one-day delay of the first spacewalk, was completed last night, as follows:

Approved mission extension by one day (i.e., 12+0+2 instead of 11+0+2), resulting in 2/19 (Tuesday) as return date for Atlantis;
Limiting resource being oxygen (O2), under further discussion is the option to either extend by one more docked day or transfer the unexpended O2 to the ISS (current O2 margins are estimated to be 11+1+2 plus an additional 20-25 hours. These are still being refined given the insertion of the new FD4);
All FD 4 activities moved to FD 5. EVA-1 will be conducted by Stanley Love and Rex Walheim tomorrow, with Campout of the two tonight;
Today (FD 4) was replanned and includes 1.5 hrs of focused inspection (FI) of the starboard OMS (Orbital Maneuvering System) pod blanket that has a corner slightly peeled back (the FI, starting at ~ 2:15 pm EST, is planned for 90 min, with additional FI time available on FD 06 if needed);
Transfer status: 22% of transfer complete, 6 hours of transfer scheduled for FD 4, expect 35/40 lbs N2 transfer today, 3 CWCs filled.
Wakeup time for the ISS crew remains at 4:45am EST, with sleep time tonight 8:45pm. Same times for the Shuttle crew.

Additional Details: ISS On-Orbit Status 02/10/08.

Mission 1E's EVA-1 was completed successfully by Stanley Love & Rex Walheim in 7hr 58min, accomplishing all its objectives.
(During the spacewalk, Walheim (EV1) & Love (EV2) prepared Columbus for unberthing and installation, hooking up electric cables, removing protective covers from the module's docking mechanism and equipping Columbus with the PDGF (Power & Data Grapple Fixture) required for grappling. They also started preparing the NTA (Nitrogen Tank Assembly) for removal, preparatory to replacement with a new NTA on EVA-2 (disconnecting electric cables and two ammonia flex hoses was deferred to Wednesday, but Walheim unfastened two of the four bolts holding down the NTA). Official start time of the spacewalk was 9:13am EST, about 25 minutes ahead of the timeline, and it ended at 5:11pm. Total EVA duration (PET = Phase Elapsed Time) was 7h 58min. It was the 102nd spacewalk for ISS assembly & maintenance and the 74th from the station (28 from Shuttle, 52 from Quest, 22 from Pirs) totaling 451h 11min, and the 6th for Expedition 16 (totaling 43h 19min.) After today's EVA, a total of 125 spacewalkers (94 NASA astronauts, 21 Russians, and ten astronauts representing Japan-1, Canada-4, France-1, Germany-1 and Sweden-3) have logged a total of 639h 33min outside the station on building, outfitting and servicing. It was also the 124th spacewalk by U.S. astronauts.)

Additional Details: ISS On-Orbit Status 02/11/08.

At ~9:15am EST, the European Columbus laboratory was opened and entered by crewmembers for the first time. (Columbus is permanently attached at the starboard port of Node-2.)

Crew sleep cycle remains at 4:45am - 8:15pm for both crews.

Before breakfast, FE-2 Dan Tani completed his daily access of the SLEEP experiment (Sleep-Wake Actigraphy & Light Exposure during Spaceflight) software for data logging and filling in questionnaire entries in the experiment's laptop session file on the HRF-1 laptop for downlink. (To monitor the crewmember's sleep/wake patterns and light exposure, Dan wears a special Actiwatch device which measures the light levels encountered by him as well as his patterns of sleep and activity throughout the Expedition. The log entries are done within 15 minutes of final awakening for seven consecutive days, as part of the crew's discretionary 'job jar' task list.)

CDR Peggy Whitson and FE-2-16 Leo Eyharts continued their IMMUNO (Integrated Immune Assessment) experiment, begun on 2/9, with liquid saliva collections, first thing after wake-up and prior to breakfast, drinking and teeth-brushing. All samples were stored at ambient temperature. Dan Tani's IMMUNO liquid saliva collection starts tomorrow morning. (IMMUNO (Integrated Immune Assessment)is a 24-hr. test of human immune system changes, with the objective to investigate immune neuro-endocrine reactions in the space environment by studying samples of saliva, blood and urine using collection kits and the biomedical (MBI) protection kit, to develop and validate an immune monitoring strategy consistent with operational flight requirements and constraints. The strategy uses both long and short duration crewmembers as study subjects. The saliva is collected in two forms, dry and liquid. The dry samples are collected at intervals during the collection day using a specialized book that contains filter paper. The liquid saliva collections require that the crewmember soak a piece of cotton inside their mouth and place it in a salivette bag; there are four of the liquid collections during docked operations. The on-orbit blood samples are collected right before undocking and returned on the Shuttle so that analysis can occur with 48 hours of the sampling. This allows assays that quantify the function of different types white blood cells and other active components of the immune system. For cold storage, samples are secured in the MELFI (Minus-Eighty Laboratory Freezer for ISS). Also included are entries in a fluid/medications intact log, and a stress-test questionnaire to be filled out by the subject at begin and end. Urine is collected during a 24-hour period, conventionally divided into two twelve-hour phases: morning-evening and evening-morning.)

Additional Details: ISS On-Orbit Status 02/12/08.

Atlantis' crew started its day at 3:45 a.m. CST. The wakeup song, 'Dream Come True' by Jim Brickman, was played for Mission Specialist Rex Walheim.

The main activity of the day will be getting the International Space Station's newest international module ready for business. The crew will begin outfitting the station's newest science module at 6:40 a.m.

During a partial ingress of the module at 7:50 a.m., European Space Agency astronaut Leopold Eyharts will start ventilation between Columbus and the rest of the station. Then the rest of the shuttle and station crew members are scheduled to take their first steps into Columbus at 1:55 p.m. Soon afterward, the Columbus Control Center in Oberpfaffenhofen, Germany, will take over command of the module.

Between Columbus work and transfer operations, some members of the shuttle crew will take time out to talk with reporters. At 7:53 a.m., Commander Steve Frick and Mission Specialists Leland Melvin, Stanley Love and Walheim will talk with FOX News' Fox and Friends, KGO-TV in San Francisco and The Tavis Smiley Show on PBS. And at 3:35 p.m., Frick, along with Pilot Alan Poindexter and Mission Specialist Hans Schlegel, will be interviewed by CBS News and Pittsburgh television stations KDKA-TV and WPXI-TV.

Crew sleep cycle remains at 4:45am EST - 8:15pm for both crews.

Mission 1E's EVA-2 was completed successfully by Rex Walheim & Hans Schlegel in 6h 45m, accomplishing all its objectives and get-aheads.
(During the spacewalk, Walheim (EV1) & Schlegel (EV2) removed the new NTA (Nitrogen Tank Assembly) from the Shuttle PLB (Payload Bay), 'flew' it to the CETA (Crew & Equipment Translation Aid) cart for transfer to the P1 truss, installed it in place of the failed NTA, which they returned via CETA for stowage in the PLB, and performed Get-Aheads, viz.: Clean up Lab MMOD (Micrometeoroid/Orbital Debris Shield) & install Columbus Trunnion Covers.) Official start time of the spacewalk was 9:27am EST, about 8 min ahead of the timeline, and it ended at 4:12pm. Total EVA duration (PET = Phase Elapsed Time) was 6h 45min. It was the 103rd spacewalk for ISS assembly & maintenance and the 75th from the station (28 from Shuttle, 53 from Quest, 22 from Pirs) totaling 457h 56min, and the 7th for Expedition 16 (totaling 50h 04min). After today's EVA, a total of 127 spacewalkers (95 NASA astronauts, 21 Russians, and 11 astronauts representing Japan-1, Canada-4, France-1, Germany-2 and Sweden-3) have logged a total of 646h 18min outside the station on building, outfitting and servicing. It was also the 125th spacewalk involving U.S. astronauts.)

Additional Details: ISS On-Orbit Status 02/13/08.

This morning, Shuttle Commander Steve Frick and Mission Specialists Hans Schlegel and Daniel Tani, station Commander Peggy Whitson and Flight Engineers Yuri Malenchenko and Leopold Eyharts spoke with German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Also participating were European Space Agency Director General Jean-Jacques Dordain and former astronaut Thomas Reiter of the German Space Agency.

The astronauts then spoke with NBC News, WOI-TV and WBBM radio. WOI-TV is in Des Moines, Iowa, capital of Whitson's home state. WBBM is in Chicago, near Tani's hometown of Lombard, Ill.

Tonight, Mission Specialists Stanley Love and Rex Walheim will camp out inside the Quest airlock. This will purge the nitrogen from their bodies in advance of tomorrow's spacewalk.

During the 6.5-hour spacewalk that is scheduled to start at 7:40 a.m. CST, Love and Walheim will install two experiment platforms on the outside of the Columbus module. If time allows, they also will take a closer look at some damage to a handrail on the Quest airlock. The astronauts have built a special tool that will be used during the inspection, which comprises an overglove material wrapped around a socket. They will run the tool over the damaged handrail to see if there are any edges sharp enough to cut the material.

The shuttle crew woke up at 2:45 a.m. to 'Consider Yourself at Home.' The song, which is from the musical 'Oliver!', was played for Mission Specialist Stanley Love.

The first major event of the day will begin at 8:55 a.m., when shuttle Commander Steve Frick, Mission Specialists Hans Schlegel and Daniel Tani, station Commander Peggy Whitson and Flight Engineers Yuri Malenchenko and Leopold Eyharts speak with Angela Merkel, the Chancellor of Germany. Schlegel, a European Space Agency astronaut, is from Germany.

Tani, Whitson and Malenchenko will then speak with reporters from NBC News, WOI-TV and WBBM radio at 10:10 a.m. WOI-TV is in Des Moines, Iowa, capital of Whitson's home state. WBBM will be calling from Chicago, near Tani's hometown of Lombard, Ill.

Before the day is over, the crews will also go over the plan for the mission's third and final spacewalk. Love and Mission Specialist Rex Walheim will be installing experiment platforms on the outside of the new Columbus laboratory and storing a failed control moment gyroscope in the shuttle's cargo bay. They will also take a closer look at some damage to a handrail on the Quest Airlock that may be the cause of cuts to spacesuit gloves on recent missions.

Part of today's preparations will involve building a tool that will be used in the inspection. Astronauts will wrap an overglove around a socket, then run the tool over the damaged handrail to see if there are any edges sharp enough to cut the material.

ISS crew goes to sleep one hour earlier than yesterday: 3:45am - 6:15pm, Shuttle crew half an hour later. 3:45am - 6:45pm.

Mission 1E's EVA-3 was completed successfully by Rex Walheim & Stan Love in 7h 25m, accomplishing all its objectives and get-aheads.
(During the spacewalk, Walheim (EV1) & Love (EV3) transferred the European SOLAR (Solar Monitoring Observatory) and the EuTEF (European Technology Exposure Facility) to the COL EPF (Columbus Orbital Laboratory External Payload Facility), retrieved the failed CMG (Control Moment Gyro) for stowage in the Shuttle PLB for return, installed COL worksite interface fixtures and handrails, inspected a suspected sharp-edged MMOD impact site on an Airlock (A/L) handrail (#508), and inspected, photographed and took samples from the failed starboard SARJ (Solar Alpha Rotary Joint) race ring and covers not yet inspected before. Official start time of the spacewalk was 8:07am EST, about 28 min ahead of timeline, and it ended at 3:32pm. Total EVA duration (PET = Phase Elapsed Time) was 7h 25min. It was the 104th spacewalk for ISS assembly & maintenance and the 76th from the station (28 from Shuttle, 54 from Quest, 22 from Pirs) totaling 465h 21min, and the 8th for Expedition 16 (totaling 57h 29min). After today's EVA, a total of 129 spacewalkers (97 NASA astronauts, 21 Russians, and 11 astronauts representing Japan-1, Canada-4, France-1, Germany-2 and Sweden-3) have logged a total of 653h 43min outside the station on building, outfitting and servicing. It was also the 126th spacewalk involving U.S. astronauts.)

Additional Details: ISS On-Orbit Status 02/15/08.

Wake/sleep cycle shifted back again to prepare for 2/18 undocking: 3:15am - 5:15pm EST, Shuttle crew: 3:15am - 5:45pm.

More crewtime was applied to COL (Columbus Orbital Laboratory) rack configuration, activation & operation, led by CDR Peggy Whitson and FE-2-16 Leo Eyharts. (In particular, Whitson focused on readying the EDR (European Drawer Rack), gathering equipment, outfitting the rack, installing PCDF EU (Protein Crystalization Diagnostic Facility Electronic Unit) coolant water and data connections, setting up the laptop, verifying its software load & activating it, checking out the EDR RFI (Rack Fire Indicator), and checking out the functionalities of the rack's various subsystems.)

Additional Details: ISS On-Orbit Status 02/16/08.

Earlier in the day, space shuttle Atlantis' propulsion system was used to reboost the station's altitude by about 1.4 miles (2.2 kilometers) -the first reboost of the station using shuttle thrusters since 2002.

The altitude adjustment lasted 36 minutes and used four of the shuttle's vernier jets that produced about 28 pounds of thrust each to gently raise the orbit. The increased altitude will allow the station to be in the proper orbit for next month's arrival of Endeavour on the STS-123 mission.

Early Saturday, all 10 members of the shuttle and station crews held their traditional news conference with media in the United States and Europe. Today set the stage for the final transfer of cargo between the shuttle and station early on Sunday. The crews will bid farewell to one another and close the hatches between the shuttle and station shortly after 11 a.m. Sunday. Atlantis' departure remains scheduled for early Monday.

Dan Tani's 118th day in space (116 aboard ISS). Ahead: Week 18 of Increment 16.

Wake/sleep cycle shifted further back to prepare for 2/18 undocking: 1:45am - 4:15pm EST (incl. Eyharts), Shuttle crew: 1:45am - 4:45pm (incl. Tani).

CDR Peggy Whitson performed her final INTEGRATED IMMUNE blood collection, assisted by MS1 Leland Melvin, right before hatch closure. FE-2 Dan Tani will continue his saliva collections, both liquid and dry, and blood collections aboard the Atlantis all the way home FE-2-16 Leo Eyharts transferred his and Peggy's saliva return pouches and blood sleeves as well as Dan's saliva collection kit to the Shuttle for return. (Background: IMMUNE assessment, integrated with the Russian IMMUNO, is a 24-hr. test of human immune system changes, with the objective to investigate immune neuro-endocrine reactions in the space environment by studying samples of saliva, blood and urine using collection kits and the biomedical (MBI) protection kit, to develop and validate an immune monitoring strategy consistent with operational flight requirements and constraints. The strategy uses both long and short duration crewmembers as study subjects. The saliva is collected in two forms, dry and liquid. The dry samples are collected at intervals during the collection day using a specialized book that contains filter paper. The liquid saliva collections require that the crewmember soak a piece of cotton inside their mouth and place it in a salivette bag; there are four of the liquid collections during docked operations. The on-orbit blood samples are collected right before undocking and returned on the Shuttle so that analysis can occur with 48 hours of the sampling. This allows assays that quantify the function of different types white blood cells and other active components of the immune system. For cold storage, samples are secured in the MELFI (Minus-Eighty Laboratory Freezer for ISS). Also included are entries in a fluid/medications intact log, and a stress-test questionnaire to be filled out by the subject at begin and end. Urine is collected during a 24-hour period, conventionally divided into two twelve-hour phases: morning-evening and evening-morning.)

Additional Details: ISS On-Orbit Status 02/17/08.

The crew's 11:45 p.m. CST Monday wake-up call was the Spamalot rendition of 'Always Look on the Bright Side' played for STS-122 Commander Steve Frick.

The crew is expected to begin routine de-orbit preparations and cabin stowage at 2:45 a.m. Then, at 4:10 a.m., Frick, Pilot Alan Poindexter and Mission Specialist Rex Walheim will power up an auxiliary power unit to check out the orbiter's flight control surfaces. At 5:20 a.m. they will start a test firing of each of the shuttle's reaction control system jets.

Late Monday afternoon, the heaters on Atlantis' four aft vernier engines, part of the reaction control system, failed. Those jets, located near the Orbiter Maneuvering System pods, are the small attitude control jets used to tweak a shuttle's position in orbit and are not used during de-orbit maneuvers.

The shuttle astronauts will take a break from packing at 7:35 a.m. to talk about the flight with ABC News, CNN and WRIC-TV in Richmond, Va., near the home of Mission Specialist Leland Melvin.

At 12:15 p.m. Walheim and returning Expedition 16 Flight Engineer Dan Tani will set up a recumbent seat on the middeck for Tani to use during entry and landing. Melvin and Mission Specialist Hans Schlegel will stow the Ku-band communications antenna at 12:35 p.m.

The International Space Station's crew is enjoying a day off-duty before starting a heavy schedule. They are preparing for the delivery of the first section of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency's Kibo laboratory and the Canadian Space Agency's multi-armed dexterous robotic system, Dextre, on the STS-123 mission targeted for launch March 11.

Atlantis is scheduled to land at the Kennedy Space Center Wednesday at 8:07 a.m. The weather forecast is favorable. Today the crew is scheduled to go to sleep at 3:45 p.m. and awaken at 11:45 p.m.

Atlantis is planned to land at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 8:07 a.m. CST with the forecast of near perfect weather at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The shuttle would fire its engines to begin a descent to Florida at 7 a.m.

Atlantis has three additional opportunities to land Wednesday if needed. A second opportunity to land in Florida would begin with an engine firing at 8:35 a.m. leading to touchdown at 9:42 a.m.

Opportunities also are available to land at Edwards Air Force Base, California. The first opportunity to land at Edwards would begin with an engine firing at 10:05 a.m. leading to an 11:12 a.m. touchdown. A second opportunity to land in California would begin with an engine firing at 11:41 a.m. leading to a 12:47 p.m. touchdown.

Atlantis crew -Commander Steve Frick, Pilot Alan Poindexter and Mission Specialists Leland Melvin, Rex Walheim, Stan Love, Hans Schlegel and Dan Tani -began a sleep period at 3:45 p.m. and will awaken at 11:45 p.m. Tani is returning home after a four-month stay aboard the International Space Station.

The wakeup song, 'Hail to the Spirit of Liberty' by John Philip Sousa, was played at 11:55 p.m. Tuesday for Pilot Alan Poindexter.

Deorbit preparations begin at 3:05 a.m. Then the crew will ready their seats and should get the okay to close the payload bay doors at 4:19 a.m. If the near perfect weather continues, Commander Steve Frick will conduct the deorbit burn at 6:59 a.m. That will slow Atlantis enough to fall out of orbit to begin its descent toward a landing at the Kennedy Space Center's Shuttle Landing Facility at 8:07 a.m.

Atlantis has three additional opportunities to land today if needed. A second opportunity to land in Florida would begin with an engine firing at 8:35 a.m. leading to touchdown at 9:42 a.m.

Opportunities also are available to land at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif. The first opportunity to land at Edwards would begin with an engine firing at 10:05 a.m. leading to an 11:12 a.m. touchdown. A second opportunity to land in California would begin with an engine firing at 11:41 a.m. leading to a 12:47 p.m. touchdown.

Atlantis' crew -Commander Steve Frick, Pilot Alan Poindexter and Mission Specialists Leland Melvin, Rex Walheim, Stan Love, Hans Schlegel and Dan Tani -installed Columbus Feb. 11 and conducted three spacewalks to prepare the lab for its scientific work. They also replaced an expended nitrogen tank on the station's P1 truss and retrieved a failed control moment gyroscope for return to Earth.

The next STS-122 status report will be issued following landing.<

wn at 8:07:20 a.m. Wheels stop occurred at 8:08:08 a.m.

During 202 orbits of Earth, the crew of Atlantis, which includes Commander Steve Frick, Pilot Alan Poindexter and Mission Specialists Leland Melvin, Rex Walheim, Hans Schlegel, Stan Love and Dan Tani, installed the European Space Agency's Columbus laboratory on the International Space Station. Columbus, Europe's largest contribution to the station, adds more than 2,600 cubic feet to the station and a wide variety of experiments and research.

The astronauts conducted three spacewalks to install and set up Columbus. They also removed a spent nitrogen tank assembly and a failed gyroscope, both of which were returned to Earth. During the final spacewalk, the astronauts examined an area outside of the station's air lock, where a small divot was discovered. The astronauts used an improvised tool comprising some material from an unused overglove to see if this area could be causing cuts and abrasions on the astronauts' gloves. Engineers in Houston will examine the results.

Atlantis delivered European Space Agency astronaut Leopold Eyharts to the station, replacing Tani as a flight engineer aboard the complex. Tani spent 107 days in space as a resident of the station. He launched on Oct. 23, 2007, aboard space shuttle Discovery on the STS-120 mission.

Atlantis will be towed to its orbiter processing facility this afternoon, where it will begin preparations for its next mission, STS-125, which is targeted to launch Aug. 28 to service the Hubble Space Telescope for the final time.

As Atlantis landed, the astronauts saw out their left window space shuttle Endeavour standing ready at launch pad 39-A. Endeavour's launch on mission STS-123 is scheduled for March 11. The crew of Atlantis is scheduled to return to Houston on Thursday. An arrival ceremony is planned for about 4 p.m. at NASA Hangar 276 at Ellington Field.<