No Debris Avoidance Maneuver Needed, Station Crew Prepares for Docking

(NASA) – Managers in mission control decided not to perform a debris avoidance maneuver that would have taken place Saturday a little after 8 p.m. EDT. Flight controllers had been carefully monitoring a piece of orbital debris that had threatened to come near the station Sunday, but updated tracking information showed the object will remain a safe distance away and the maneuver is not needed.

The station crew, Commander Oleg Kotov and Russian Flight Engineers Alexander Skvortsov and Mikhail Kornienko, Soichi Noguchi of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, and NASA Flight Engineers T.J. Creamer and Tracy Caldwell Dyson, are shifting their sleep schedule in preparation for welcoming Atlantis’ astronauts.

The International Space Station is featured in this image photographed by an STS-131 crew member on space shuttle Discovery after the station and shuttle began their post-undocking relative separation. Credit: NASA

Sunday’s docking with the International Space Station is scheduled for 10:27 a.m.

Atlantis launched on time Friday at 2:20 p.m. to the station. The shuttle is delivering the new Russian Mini-Research Module, also known as Rassvet and translated as “Dawn”.

During the 12-day mission, the STS-132 crew members also will work to replace batteries on the station’s truss structure and store a spare dish antenna outside.