Shuttle Crew Prepares to End Mission

The STS-134 crew members were awakened at 4:57 p.m. CDT with the song “Sunrise Number 1,” performed by the band Stormy Mondays. This song was chosen in an online vote of the general public as the winner in the Space Shuttle Program’s Original Song Contest, which attracted 1350 entrants.

The shuttle crew begins deorbit preparations at 8:26 p.m. and should close Endeavour payload bay doors at 9:49 p.m. By 12:19 a.m. Wednesday Entry Flight Director Tony Ceccacci will poll his team for a “go” or “no-go” on the deorbit burn; assuming the decision is “go,” Commander Mark Kelly will fire Endeavour’s engines at 12:29 a.m. to slow the orbiter enough for it to fall out of orbit and begin the last leg of its trip, concluding with a touchdown on runway 15 at the Kennedy Space Center’s Shuttle Landing Facility at 1:35 a.m.

Space shuttle Atlantis will begin its journey to Kennedy Space Center’s Launch Pad 39A at 8 p.m. EDT and the four-member crew of STS-135, the final shuttle mission, will field media questions at 8:30 p.m. Both events will be live on NASA Television and the NASA web at http://www.nasa.gov/ntv.