[sarex] STS-116 MCC Status Report #26

[Arthur Rowe]

> SUBMITTED BY ARTHUR N1ORC - AMSAT A/C #31468
>
> 9 a.m. CST Friday, Dec. 22, 2006
> Mission Control Center, Houston, Texas
>
>     12.22.06
> STATUS REPORT: STS-116-26
>
> STS-116 MCC Status Report #26
>
> Discovery’s wakeup call said it all. The song was “Home for the 
> Holidays,” sung by Perry Como for the crew, requested by the Mission 
> Control Center.
>
> That 6:18 a.m. CST call began a day that the crew and their support 
> teams on the ground hope will see Discovery return to Earth after a 
> successful flight to the International Space Station. After eight 
> docked days and four spacewalks, the shuttle left the station with a 
> new truss segment, a new crew member and a reconfigured power system.
>
> All three U.S. landing sites will be activated today. Kennedy Space 
> Center in Florida, the preferred shuttle landing site, will be the 
> first opportunity, which would see a landing at 2:56 p.m. On the 
> subsequent orbit the focus will be on Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., 
> and KSC. On the orbit after that Edwards and White Sands Space Harbor 
> in New Mexico would be the centers of attention.
>
> Weather at Kennedy and Edwards is questionable. If the crew does not 
> don its entry suits for the first Kennedy opportunity, a final landing 
> chance of the day at Edwards is available to Discovery. Here are 
> predicted CST times.
>
> Orbit     Site     Deorbit burn     Landing
> 202     Kennedy     1:49 p.m.     2:56 p.m.
> 203     Edwards     3:19 p.m.     4:27 p.m.
>
>     White Sands     3:20 p.m.     4:27 p.m.
>
>     Kennedy     3:26 p.m.     4:32 p.m.
> 204     Edwards     4:54 p.m.     6 p.m.
>
>     White Sands     4:57 p.m.     6:02 p.m.
> 205     Edwards     6:32 p.m.     7:36 p.m.
>
>
>
> A total of seven landing opportunities scattered among the three sites 
> are available Saturday if the shuttle is not able to land today.
>
> For today’s opportunities, Discovery crew members, Commander Mark 
> Polansky, Pilot Bill Oefelein, and mission specialists Bob Curbeam, 
> Nicholas Patrick, Christer Fuglesang, Joan Higginbotham and Thomas 
> Reiter, who is returning home after about six months on the station, 
> will begin deorbit preparations at 9:52 a.m. Payload bay door closing 
> would be at 11:13 a.m. for the first landing opportunity.
>
> Aboard the station, Expedition 14 Commander Mike Lopez-Alegria and 
> Flight Engineers Mikhail Tyurin and Sunita Williams, the new crew 
> member who came up on Discovery, are back to their regular schedule. 
> They got their wakeup tone today at midnight CST (6 a.m. in the GMT 
> kept aboard the orbiting laboratory) and will begin a sleep period at 
> 3:30 p.m.
>
> The next STS-116 status report will be issued Friday afternoon, or 
> earlier if events warrant.
>
> - end -
>
>
>