Sunday, June 10, 2007

Flight Day 3....Atlantis to Dock to the ISS

Today my imagery support begins from 1:00pm to about 1:00am. Currently many are evaluating the thermal blanket on the OMS pod by performing engineering assessments and pulling up the history of the part. We are determining the heating and aerodynamic effects that could occur during re-entry on the blanket cavity itself, as well as the surrounding parts. This afternoon I will be going in as Atlantis approaches the International Space Station. The crew on the Space Station will take images of Atlantis's lower surface. We will receive those pictures and begin to look for any discrepancies. Now, I must get ready....


4 comments:

mark_smith said...

Thanks for keeping us informed on what’s happing hope everything goes ok.

Mark

Anonymous said...

Each flight is such a wonderful team effort. It makes me very, very happy to hear that you are a part of the team!

SmaDoc said...

I'm sure this was brought up, and now that its fixed most likely wont be an issue, and I haven't seen how flush the blanket is with the near by tile but is it possible that if the blanket is slightly below the surface of the tile that on re-entry it may create a vortex and pull the blanket back off any way? I'm sure by that point it wouldn't be an issue anyway, and the staples and pins used to fix it with will keep everything in place long enough, just something I though about. I was on a FIRST Robotics team, and when small problems like this come up I enjoy thinking of different things that may happen and how they could be fixed. It's good brain exercise :)

Looking at the picture of the blanket it makes me wonder...is there anyplace to see of the high resolution pictures the astronauts take? Other than the ones posted on the main nasa website? :)
Thanks! I have booked marked your blog to keep up to date with your journey to become an Astronaut! :)

mark_smith said...

are you at the landing on thursday.

Mark