At 9:27 a.m. EDT, space shuttle Atlantis began the nine-minute rendezvous pitch maneuver, or “backflip.” With Commander Ken Ham at the controls, Atlantis is rotating 360 degrees backward to enable International Space Station crew members Oleg Kotov, T.J. Creamer, Soichi Noguchi and Tracy Caldwell Dyson to take high resolution pictures of the shuttle’s heat shield.