Crew members spend much of their day getting ready to come home STS-131

STS-131 Status Report #28

Space shuttle Discovery crew members spent much of their day getting ready to come home after their successful mission to the International Space Station.

Commander Alan G. Poindexter, Pilot James P. Dutton Jr. and Mission Specialists Dorothy Metcalf-Lindenburger, Rick Mastracchio, Stephanie Wilson, Clayton Anderson and Japanese astronaut Naoko Yamazaki are scheduled to land their spacecraft at Kennedy Space Center Monday, if weather cooperates.

Forecasts for Kennedy were not promising, calling for high overcast and two layers of scattered clouds, as well as a chance of showers in the area. If needed, there are landing opportunities at Kennedy and the backup runway at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif. Tuesday.

This morning, Poindexter, Dutton and Metcalf-Lindenburger powered up Discovery’s flight control system and tested the flaps and rudder that will control the shuttle’s flight once it enters the Earth’s atmosphere. Next they test-fired the reaction control system jets that will control the shuttle’s orientation before it reaches the atmosphere. All seven crew members stowed items in Discovery’s cabin in preparation for re-entry and landing.

The first Kennedy landing opportunity on the mission’s 222nd orbit would see a deorbit burn at 6:43 a.m. CDT for the 7:48 a.m. landing. For the second opportunity on orbit 223 the deorbit burn would be at 8:17 a.m. for a landing at 9:23 a.m.

At about 6:35 a.m. the crew took time out from landing preparations to talk with reporters Mary Blake of WBZ-AM in Boston, Marcia Dunn of the Associated Press and Brandi Smith of KEZI-TV in Portland, Ore.