7 October (Flight Day 1 – Launch) Space Shuttle
Atlantis lifted off from Launch Pad 39B of the
Kennedy Space Center at 19:45:51 GMT through mostly clear blue skies. There were no problems reported during the countdown, and the ascent conformed to the standard timeline (see
Space Shuttle – Mission Profile – Launch). For the first time in Space Shuttle history, a "rocketcam" video camera mounted to the upper part of
Atlantis' external tank returned live video of the flight to NASA flight controllers. The video was near perfect until the two solid rocket boosters were jettisoned. At that point, the exhaust from the separation motors fogged the camera lens and made the rest of the video difficult to see. Later, NASA announced that it was looking into a problem with explosive bolts that failed to fire properly during the launch. Immediately before the twin solid rocket boosters fired into life, only one set of pyrotechnics in ten explosive bolts exploded when commanded to do so. All 10 nuts exploded as planned, but NASA was interested in finding out an explanation for the unexpected anomaly. Arguably the most significant event from this launch was the ET bipod ramp shedding a chunk of foam, estimated to be ~4"x5"x12", that broke away and hit the lower left
SRB-ET Attach Ring near the Integrated Electronics Assembly (IEA) box causing a dent ~4" wide and 3" deep into the solid metal. of further foam strikes. This fateful decision set the stage for the
STS-107 tragedy just two launches later. The
CAIB report did not highlight the significance of video data from this being the first flight with the ET Camera.
8 October (Flight Day 2 – Rendezvous and docking preparations) On Flight Day 2, the STS-112 crew settled into preparations for the next day's rendezvous and docking with the International Space Station. After the wake up call went at 4:46 am CDT, the crew began its first full day on orbit. Pilot Pamela Melroy assisted Mission Specialists David Wolf and Piers Sellers in a checkout of spacewalk suits and equipment. Commander Jeff Ashby worked with the prime robotic arm operator, Mission Specialist Sandy Magnus, to verify the arm's readiness. Ashby and Magnus powered up the arm for a video survey of Atlantis' payload bay. The crew also completed the setting up of the orbiter docking system's centerline camera, extended the orbiter's spring-loaded ring that will make first contact, and checked out rendezvous tools. During the day, the STS-112 crew successfully completed three Orbital Maneuvering System (OMS) burns to boost the shuttle into the station's orbit and refine its approach path to the station. Astronaut Wolf also checked-out the Spatial Heterodyne Imager for Mesospheric Radicals or the SHIMMER experiment sponsored by the Naval Research Lab. The SHIMMER experiment uses an ultraviolet sensing camera to observe the Earth's atmosphere at 40–90 kilometers looking for possible ozone loss. The experiment proved balky, but with help from Mission Control the crew worked out steps to ready the gear for observations during the mission.
9 October (Flight Day 3 – Docking) Space Shuttle
Atlantis docked to the Space Station at 15:17 GMT to begin a week of joint operations for the STS-112 and
Expedition 5 crews. With commander
Jeffrey Ashby at the controls,
Atlantis' docking system engaged the Pressurized Mating Adapter-2 (Destiny Laboratory's forward docking port) in the front of the space station as the two spacecraft sailed 245 miles above central Asia at five miles per second. Crew members of
Atlantis were the first visitors for the Expedition 5 station crew who arrived at the outpost the first week of June 2002. Following pressure checks, station science officer Peggy Whitson asked Commander Ashby if he had brought the salsa that she had asked for. When Ashby replied that he had, Whitson said "OK, we'll let you in". The hatches between
Atlantis and the Space Station were opened at 16:51 GMT and astronaut Ashby floated into the Destiny Module and immediately embraced Whitson. Mission Specialist Sandra Magnus followed next, followed by the rest of
Atlantis' STS-112 crew members. They were greeted by the three member station crew. After a safety briefing from station commander Valery Korzun, the combined crews split up and began preparing for a busy day of work. Astronaut Pamela Melroy, cosmonaut Korzun, and Mission Specialists Dave Wolf, Piers Sellers, and Fyodor Yurchikhin configured the spacesuits for EVA 1. Magnus and Whitson reviewed robotic arm operations for moving the new truss segment into place. Image:Space Station as photographed by a STS-112 crewmember.jpg|Space Station photographed by a STS-112 crew member Image:STS-112 crewmembers in the Zvezda Service Module.jpg|STS-112 crew receives a safety briefing from Station Commander Korzun
10 October (Flight Day 4 – EVA 1) The workday began at 3 am CDT with a musical wakeup call to
Atlantis crew from Mission Control, Houston. Earlier on Flight Day 4 astronauts Whitson and Magnus used the station's Canadarm2 robotic arm to grapple the S1 truss structure, remove it from
Atlantis' payload bay, and move it to the starboard end the S0 section. Four remotely operated motorized bolts locked the two truss segments together at 8:36 am CDT. Simultaneously, Astronauts Dave Wolf and Piers Sellers prepared for the mission's first spacewalk. EVA 1 was the 44th spacewalk staged to support the space station assembly and maintenance. The two astronauts exited the Quest Airlock at about 11:21 am EDT. Wolf's spacesuit had solid red stripes for identification, while Sellers donned an all white spacesuit. As Wolf worked to accomplish to connect power, data and fluid lines between the S0 and the S1 trusses, Sellers, on his first spacewalk, released the locks on three folded-up radiators mounted to the S1, allowing S1's radiators to be oriented for optimal cooling. The spacewalking astronauts worked for seven hours and one minute outside the space station, 31 minutes longer than expected due to a problem with the Canadarm2. The glitch forced Wolf to complete installation of a television camera system on the far end of the truss without the assistance of the robot arm. The only other problem of EVA 1 came near the end of the spacewalk when Wolf reported his helmet earphones appeared to be losing power. Throughout the spacewalk, astronaut Melroy offered guidance and advice to the spacewalkers and keeping them on schedule. Shuttle Commander Jeff Ashby operated the shuttle robotic arm, providing camera views for documentation. Following a tool inventory check and cleanup activities, Wolf and Sellers re-entered Quest. The Airlock was re-pressurized at 5:22 pm CDT to end EVA 1. Image:STS112 Whitson and Magnus operate the controls of Canadarm 2.jpg|Whitson and Magnus works inside the Destiny Lab to remove S1 truss Image:S112 S1 truss is moved from the Payload Bay of Atlantis.jpg|S1 truss is moved from the cargo bay of
Atlantis Image:S112_Piers_Sellers_works_on_the_S1_segment.jpg|Piers Sellers works on the S1 truss Image:S112 Pamela Melroy works on the flight deck of Atlantis during EVA 1.jpg|Pamela Melroy looks over a checklist on the flight deck of
Atlantis 11 October (Flight Day 5 – Off duty and transfers) On Flight Day 5, the combined shuttle and space station crew took several hours of off-duty time. Then they began transfer operations between the vehicles and prepared for mission's second spacewalk. The crew moved a number of scientific experiments back and forth between the shuttle and the ISS to return completed experiments to Earth and deploy new experiments at the ISS. Transfer items included a set of liver cell tissue samples from an experiment studying the function of human liver cells in microgravity, moved from the station onto the shuttle for return to Earth. Payload experiments such as Marshall Space Flight Center's protein crystal growth thermal enclosures for growing high-quality protein crystals in micro-gravity experiments were moved to and from the station. Seven water containers were transferred to the station. Commander Jeff Ashby initiated a
Nitrogen transfer process that moved about 15 pounds of the gas from
Atlantis to the station by the end of the day. STS-112 spacewalkers David Wolf and Piers Sellers, assisted by Pilot Pamela Melroy, readied the EVA equipment They recharged water on the extravehicular mobility unit (EMU), configured their tools and prepared the Quest airlock. The crew also participated in several live media interviews. Astronauts Magnus, Wolf and Sellers discussed about EVA 1 and the first-time experiences in space with CBS Radio Network and Cable News Network (CNN). Speaking to CBS News, Wolf told that manual work Piers and himself did at the end of EVA 1 to install the S1's outboard nadir external camera got their heart rates up to over 170 per minute. The spacewalkers were not able to use the Station's Canadarm 2 as a result of a software glitch. Russian cosmonauts Valery Korzun, Sergei Treschev and Fyodor Yurchikhin participated in several interviews with the Russian press. Shortly before sleep, the crew reviewed procedures for EVA 2.
12 October (Flight Day 6 – EVA 2) 13 October (Flight Day 7) 14 October (Flight Day 8 – EVA 3) 15 October (Flight Day 9) 16 October (Flight Day 10 – Undocking) 17 October (Flight Day 11 – Landing preparations) 18 October (Flight Day 12 – Landing) , 18 October 2002. (left) and Mission Specialist
Sandra Magnus (center) after the landing of
Space Shuttle Atlantis.
Crew seat assignments ==Spacewalks==