Mission Control Center, Houston, Texas

The astronauts on space shuttle Atlantis woke up this morning with the hatch to the International Space Station closed and only hours left before undocking for the two-day trip back to Earth.

Today's wakeup call came at 5:38 a.m. CDT with "Feelin' Stronger Every Day" by Chicago, played for Pilot Lee Archambault. Expedition 15 Commander Fyodor Yurchikhin and Flight Engineers Oleg Kotov and Clayton Anderson were awakened on board ISS at the same time.

At 7:45 a.m. Archambault and Mission Specialist Patrick Forrester will begin powering on shuttle systems that have been turned off to conserve power during the docked phase of the flight, and at 8:28 Mission Specialists Steven Swanson and Jim Reilly will set up the centerline camera in the orbiter docking system.

At 9:42 a.m. the hooks and latches holding Atlantis and ISS together will release, and springs in the ODS will push the shuttle away. Archambault will fire shuttle thrusters to move 450 feet in front of the station before starting a full flyaround at 10:07 a.m. to get a good look at the reconfigured spacecraft.

At 11:25 a.m. another firing of Atlantis' thrusters will begin the final separation of the two spacecraft for this flight. At a range of 46 miles Archambault, Forrester and Swanson will use the shuttle robot arm to lift the Orbiter Boom Sensor System from the starboard payload bay sill and conduct a late inspection of the thermal protection system on both wings and the orbiter's nose cap.

Today and tomorrow Mission Specialist Suni Williams, in the 192nd day of her spaceflight, will be scheduled for more exercise to help prepare her for Thursday's scheduled landing at the Kennedy Space Center, when her body will feel the pull of gravity for the first time since her launch last December.

The next STS-117 status report will be issued Tuesday evening or earlier if events warrant.

News from Commercial Space Watch