After a flawless mission to resupply the International Space Station, the STS-129 crew members now are back at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. They will be honored with a homecoming ceremony at nearby Ellington Field today.
Meanwhile, preparations for space shuttle Endeavour and its crew are ramping up for the STS-130 mission targeted to launch Feb. 4, 2010.
Endeavour is scheduled to roll over from the orbiter processing facility to the Vehicle Assembly Building at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in late December. There, it will be lifted and attached to the waiting external tank and twin solid rocket boosters.
The STS-130 crew members, Commander George Zamka, Pilot Terry Virts Jr., Mission Specialists Nicholas Patrick, Robert Behnken, Stephen Robinson and Kathryn Hire, are rehearsing deorbit procedures today at Johnson.
Endeavour will deliver a third connecting module, the Tranquility node, to the station in addition to the seven-windowed Cupola module, which will be used as a control room for robotics.