Endeavour’s Payload Bay Doors Are Closed for Landing

Space shuttle Endeavour’s payload bay doors are closed and everything continues to proceed on schedule for Wednesday morning’s landing attempt.

Weather is forecast and observed “go” and astronaut Rick Sturckow is flying weather reconnaissance at Kennedy Space Center to assess conditions for Endeavour’s landing.

At 10:59 p.m. Mission Control is expected to give a “go” for Endeavour’s computers to begin running the Ops 3 entry software. At 11:29 p.m. a “go” is expected for crew suit up. The “go” for deorbit burn is expected by 1:09 a.m. Wednesday.

The deorbit burn scheduled for 1:29:43 a.m. will lead to a landing at 2:35:23 a.m.

Space shuttle Atlantis now is about half way complete with its move from NASA Kennedy Space Center’s Vehicle Assembly Building to Launch Pad 39A.

Currently, the crawler-transporter (CT) with Atlantis and its mobile launcher platform on top is temporarily stopped to allow technicians to preemptively grease some bearings in the CT that were starting to heat up. The rollout will resume shortly.

Atlantis is expected to be secured on the launch pad about 3:30 a.m. EDT.