The shuttle crew will have a few well-deserved hours of off-duty time before sleep at 4:50 p.m.
This morning, STS-132 Mission Specialists Piers Sellers and Garrett Reisman operated the station’s robotic arm to return the cargo pallet to the shuttle’s payload bay. The integrated cargo carrier brought up the six new batteries astronauts installed during two spacewalks on Wednesday and Friday. The old batteries were placed on the pallet for return to Earth. At 5:50 a.m. EDT, the carrier was stowed in the space shuttle, completing space station robotic operations for the remainder of Atlantis’ mission.
From 7:40 to 8 a.m. the shuttle crew answered questions submitted by video from elementary and middle school students from 12 NASA Explorer Schools. The NASA Explorer Schools project establishes a three-year partnership between NASA and schools in diverse communities to increase awareness of science, technology and mathematics education.