The six astronauts flying on space shuttle Atlantis’ STS-132 mission are set to arrive this evening at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. They’re expected to touch down on Kennedy’s Shuttle Landing Facility runway at about 7 p.m. and spend the next few days in final prelaunch training.
At Launch Pad 39A, technicians will perform vertical closeouts for Atlantis and its payload, an Integrated Cargo Carrier and a Russian-built Mini Research Module, to be delivered to the International Space Station during the 12-day mission.
Tuesday at 4 p.m., countdown clocks across the launch site will begin ticking away the hours leading to liftoff. The countdown will begin at the T-43 hour mark following the traditional call-to-stations for launch controllers.
Launch remains scheduled for May 14 at 2:20 p.m. EDT.