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Morning News

Hooking Up: Atlantis to Dock With International Station Alpha

Aired February 9, 2001 - 11:03 a.m. ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: In less than an hour from now, Space Shuttle Atlantis is scheduled to hook up with the International Space Station. The crew of Atlantis is delivering a key component to the station.

Our space correspondent Miles O'Brien will be with us throughout the hour to walk us through the dock.

And this is the ultimate adding in addition to the house. Isn't it?

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: You can say that. It's sort of like bringing a modular home up there because it's almost fully outfitted. It's kind of...

KAGAN: Ready to go.

O'BRIEN: ... latching it on, make a few connections and off you go to the races.

Of course, this will eventually be the scientific heart and soul of the International Space Station, a $1.4 billion addition to their home so far away from home. Atlantis carrying it into the cargo bay.

and take a look at these pictures. These are live images. NASA calls thse SSV. And we know you all know what that stands for.

KAGAN: But just in case we don't?

O'BRIEN: Sequential still video.

KAGAN: Oh, that's what I was goign to get at.

O'BRIEN: It's essentially a slide show from the space. When they don't have their full motion, satellite available to them -- Leon knows a lot about this -- they send down the SSVs.

And what you're seeing right now. This is the crosshairs that the commander, Ken Cockrell, will be using to home in on his docking port.

The docking port is right there. That's his target. You can probably see it a little better when you're up there in space. But essentially, this is the International Space Station right here. You are looking at the -- through the docking ring of the space shuttle inside the payload bay.

These are the solar arrays. And they kind of edge on. You see how that is? It's kind of hard to see them. That is deliberate. They put them on that edge-on configuration, so that any of the rocket plumes of the space shuttle Atlantis won't cause any stresses or damage to the solar arrays as it gets closer.

Of coruse, they're firing rockets to adjust their rate of closure. And they are coming in at about a tenth of a foot per second. So give yourself a moment to do the math on that.

KAGAN: Yes, help us on that one.

O'BRIEN: It's about an inch a second. It's slow.

KAGAN: OK.

O'BRIEN: It's very slow.

But what you have to remember is that traveling at 17,500 miles an hour. So this is kidn of the ultimate in formation flying.

Now, Ken Cockrell just a few minutes ago swung Atlantis around, so that it is flying backwards, if you will, in space. And...

KAGAN: So he's backing into the parking space?

O'BRIEN: He's sort of backing into the spot. He's going backwards at 17,500 miles an hour. That's some pretty high-flying maneuvering.

Let's take a look at some animation, which NASA showed us about what's happening, so you can get a big picture of what's going on.

This was, you know, essentially some cartoons, if you will. And you can take a look what we call this a "yaw maneuver" right here. They swing it around. And that's just to -- helps him guide it in a little better.

As you can see, the tail of the shuttle would cause some problems there with that module of the space station. And that's why they're swinging it around that way.

That makes it look a lot easier than it is, of course. We talked to Ken Cockrell before. He laughed about the -- well, the vicissitudes of the space docking, if you will.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KEN COCKRELL, CREWMEMBER, ATLANTIS: Because we have the lab in the back of our payload bay, and the station is flying node one first and we're flying nose first, at some point there, we're going around the world this way.

At some point there, we have to turn around, so that there is room for the lab to come out of the payload bay and be attached to the station. That is called the tail-forward maneuver.

And when I was first presented with this, looking at this flight, I thought, OK, tail-forward maneuver, put in some -- in control inputs and the orbiter swings around.

It turns outs it's more of an art than it is of a science. And it's taken a lot of practice for us to begin the tail-forward maneuver, so they come out of it at the appropriate place and don't require a lot of thrust or firings that use fuel.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

O'BRIEN: ALl right, there's just back to live pictures from space, some 225 miles above us. They're heading out over toward the Pacific.

The docking, we're told, will occur somewhere over New Guinea. It will be nighttime at that time. And we suspect we'll be seeing pictures like these.

But once again, that's the bull's-eye right there. That is what Ken Cockrell is aiming for right now.

And right now, based on where those crosshairs are and where that target is, well, he's proving he has the right stuff, shall we say?

KAGAN: Very good.

You said that it's nighttime. Leon and I had a question from before. What time is it there? How do they decide on the shuttle?

O'BRIEN: Well, in this case, they decided to make it daylight hours at -- in the Eastern time zone. It's a bit arbitrary, though. They do that sort of thing basically so that they could coincide with the awake hours of the crew onboard the International Space Station.

KAGAN: Becasue you don't want to stop by when they are sleeping?

O'BRIEN: No. I mean, that would be rude, wouln't it?

KAGAN: Absolutely.

O'BRIEN: You ring the door bell, and...

KAGAN: Hello?

O'BRIEN: ... they're kind of groggy and so forth. So, yes, that's -- they're basically up during the daylight hours Eastern time. That can vary widely, though. Some missions, they're up all night long. It just depends. It's sort of an arbitrary time, depending on when they meet up with them and when the launch time is.

KAGAN: And this meeting up, I was wondering, it doesn't look like there's a lot of room for error?

O'BRIEN: No, no. We are talking about less-than-an-inch-room- for-error kind of thing.

LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: In fact, since you mention that, I was going to ask you if you could put that picutre -- looking on this shot, can you describe to us exactly the scale of -- we're looking at here? How big is this structure we're looking at?

O'BRIEN: Well, yes, this is -- this is the main Russian service module. It's called Zvezda. And that piece is about 45-feet long. That's a school bus right there, OK?

HARRIS: All right.

O'BRIEN: And this one right here is probably the -- you know, the back end of a box truck, OK? And these solar arrays, they stretch out 300 feet in total. So, that's a football field across there.

The space shuttle itself has inside it another piece the size of that school bus, which is the Destiny lab, about 45 feet long, weighing some 30,000 pound.

So you're right. It's difficult to get a scale.

HARRIS: OK.

KAGAN: But that brings to mind, I mean, how many astronauts are goign to be on board here? That sounds like little cramped quarters?

O'BRIEN: Well, yes. I mean, but, you know, the school bus can be as cramped as you want to make it, depending how many book bags people bring along, of course.

But the -- no, it's -- it's -- it's -- the thing you have to remember is when you are in space, you take advantage of all the space above you.

KAGAN: OK.

O'BRIEN: And so, you know, when you are in three-dimensional space, what seems kind of cramped on the ground is actually a little more spacious up there because we've got people on the ceiling, literally.

KAGAN: Very good. I mean, just really quickly, what's the Baltimore connection to this mission?

O'BRIEN: Well, there's -- there's a disproportionate number of Baltimorians on this particular flight. And one of them, Tom Jones, actually brought a special recipe of sheet crab soup with him.

KAGAN: No.

O'BRIEN: Because that, of course, would be the Baltimore thing to do.

Marsha Ivans, who does hail Baltimore's her hometown, lived there for four days, we're told. But she's still -- she's still... KAGAN: Claiming it.

O'BRIEN: ... claiming Baltimore because, after all, the Ravens won.

HARRIS: Oh, there you go.

KAGAN: Who's not these days, right?

O'BRIEN: Right.

KAGAN: All rgith, Miles, we'll check back with you in just a minute.

O'BRIEN: All rigth.

KAGAN: Thank you very much.

HARRIS: All right, good going.

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