Atlantis crew to make first spacewalk after docking with ISS

RUSSIAN MISSION CONTROL (Moscow Region), June 11 (RIA Novosti) -Russian specialists monitoring the current Atlantis mission to the International Space Station said the U.S. space shuttle's crew were preparing for their first spacewalk Monday, a day after docking with the orbital station, run jointly by Russia's Federal Space Agency and NASA.

Astronauts Rick Sturckow, Lee Archambault, Patrick Forrester, James Reilly, Danny Olivas, Steven Swanson, and Clayton Anderson will make three scheduled spacewalks and possibly a fourth, unplanned one during their week-long stay on the ISS. Their main task will be to fit out the orbital station with a new solar array, capable of generating an additional 14 kilowatts of power.

NASA engineers on the ground will meanwhile be trying to evaluate the potential danger for the Atlantis shuttle of a loosened thermal blanket discovered on its surface during a checkup Saturday.

A similar heat shield damage led to the disintegration of a Columbia shuttle, with seven astronauts on board, during re-entry into Earth's atmosphere in 2003.

All but one members of the Atlantis crew, who began their mission last Friday, are to return to Earth next week. Anderson will remain on the ISS through October, replacing Sunita Williams as a flight engineer of the station's Expedition 15, which also includes Russia's Fyodr Yurchikhin and Oleg Kotov.