Today’s wakeup song was “Fanfare for the Common Man” by Aaron Copland, played at 9:32 p.m. EDT for space shuttle Atlantis Commander Chris Ferguson, with a special message from employees of Kennedy Space Center: “Three … two … one … Good morning, Atlantis! Kennedy salutes you. See you back at wheels stop!”
Atlantis’ astronauts will begin the job of preparing their shuttle for landing at Kennedy Space Center on Thursday. They will begin stowing items no longer needed for their mission, test the flight control surfaces and fire all the thrusters to ensure they will operate correctly for entry back to Earth. Later in the day they will deploy a small 5” X 5” X 10” technology demonstration satellite, called PicoSat, from a canister in Atlantis’ payload bay. The satellite will relay data back to investigators on the performance of solar cells that cover the nanosatellite for analysis and possible use on future space hardware. The crew then will do communications checks with ground stations and field questions from network reporters.