Saturday, September 09, 2006

Way to go Atlantis


From NASA here:
The STS-115 astronauts entered their sleep period at 5:15 p.m. EDT Saturday for a well-deserved rest after the successful launch of Space Shuttle Atlantis. They will begin their first full day in space at 1:15 a.m. Sunday with a wake-up call from the Mission Control Center in Houston. Sunday's activities will focus on shuttle heat shield inspections and preparations for STS-115's arrival at the International Space Station.

During a post-launch briefing on Saturday, Space Shuttle Program Manager Wayne Hale said Atlantis appears to have come through launch in good shape and unscathed. Hale's announcement follows analysis of imagery of the shuttle's climb into space provided by cameras on the ground around Kennedy Space Center and mounted onboard the vehicle. Hale even went so far as to apologize for bringing no images to the news conference. "There's just nothing to look at," said an obviously pleased Hale.

Hale did acknowledge that five objects believed to be foam and ice harmlessly released from the space shuttle beginning at approximately four minutes into Atlantis' flight. He added that due to the thinness of the atmosphere and other factors the debris didn't have anywhere near the velocity needed to cause damage to the orbiter.

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