Space shuttle Atlantis to bring back Sunita Williams

After spending six long months in the orbiting space station, Sunita Williams is all set to return home on board space shuttle Atlantis. Her place as space station crew is being taken by NASA astronaut Clayton Anderson. Williams is all set to break the record of Shannon Lucid for longest space flight by a woman with 188 days and 4 hours, three days before her scheduled return to earth on 19th June.

Atlantis, whose departure in March had been cancelled due to damage caused on account of a hail storm, finally took off from Kennedy Space Centre on Friday. NASA officials declared that during the launch the shuttle suffered a 10 cm tear on its thermal blanket and a few pieces of foam also fell off. However, they did not consider the matter worth concern. In light of the Columbia disaster of 2003, in which Indian born astronaut Kalpana Chawla lost her life, astronauts on board Atlantis used the shuttle’s robotic arm and cameras to have a look at the damage caused.

“There's not a great deal of concern over it right now, but there's a lot of work to be done and we'll do that in the coming days” said John Shannon, chairman of NASA's Mission Management Team. Engineers aren’t sure whether stitching on the blanket, which covers a pod of engines near the shuttle’s tail, came loose or whether the blanket was hit by some debris while take off. Photos taken by the astronauts have been sent to Mission Control for analysis.

Around one and a half hour after the space shuttle Atlantis commandeered by Rick Sturckow docked with the Space Station, the hatches were opened. Sunita Williams declared “Atlantis arriving” after the traditional ringing of a bell. Atlantis’ astronauts floated into the orbiting Space Station’s Destiny laboratory and hugged the crew members including Commander Fyodor Yurchikhin and cosmonaut Oleg Kotov. After exchanging greetings, both the crews resumed work.

The crew began preparations for the installments of the Starboards 3 and 4 and the spacewalk. The Starboards which contain a new set of solar arrays are scheduled to be attached to the Station prior to the space walk on Monday by STS Mission Specialists John “Danny” Olivas and Jim Reilly. Both of them are spending the night in the Station’s Quest Airlock before the spacewalk.

Sunita Williams, who completed the Boston Marathon on board the Space Station some 210 miles above Earth, will be returning back after a six month sojourn in space, the longest ever for a woman. She is looking forward to meet her parents Deepak and Bonnie Pandya; husband Michael Williams and her special dog ‘Gorby’.