Looks like ISS computers passed the test

Alex Zaharov-Reutt
Monday, 18 June 2007 23:37

Science - Space

As the ISS computers appear to have passed their final test, it looks like the Space Shuttle Atlantis will be able to undock and return to Earth as scheduled on Tuesday morning, with a debrief set for 2pm EDT today.

At around 10.28am EDT this morning, the crew of Atlantis mission STS-117 and ISS astronauts put the German-built Russian computers controlling the ISS to a final test to ensure they work before Atlantis departs on Tuesday morning back to Earth.

The test, according to NASA, was to see if the Russian computers could “handle attitude control of the International Space Station”.

Although NASA has not confirmed that the test actually was 100% successful, indications are the results went well, with the “STS-117 Mission Management Team” set to meet at 2pm EDT today (Monday 18th June) to ‘discuss the results’ and, once the meeting is over, will make a final announcement and decision about Atlantis’ departure time and date.

Although the Shuttle is not due to depart until 10.42am EDT on Tuesday 19, if the test is deemed successful, STS-117 crew members will say their final goodbyes to the remaining ISS crew and will be inside Atlantis by no later than 6.23pm EDT today (Monday), and will close the hatches between Atlantis and the ISS.

Atlantis will also be returning astronaut Suni Williams to Earth after breaking the endurance record for female astronauts in space. Williams has been in space since December and arrived on mission STS-116.

The Atlantis mission helped to install new equipment onto the ISS, with the installation of new solar panels being the likely cause of the original ISS computer crash. In addition, Altantis suffered damage to a thermal blanket which has been sewn back together in the hope that less damage will be suffered upon re-entry into the Earth’s atmosphere.

With the computer glitches on the station, never before has the space program seemed both so advanced and so precarious. Let’s hope that the space program is now accelerated both thanks to additional government interest worldwide, and thanks to strong private sector interest in providing space travel to the wealthy masses of the world.

It’s still years before space tourism, hotels in space, moon colonization and the colonization of planets in our Solar System is an everyday event, but we’re finally closer to that future than we’ve been for years, and for that, the science fiction geek inside of us is very grateful.