When Atlantis is about 600 feet from the station, Ferguson will guide the shuttle through a backflip rotation to expose the heat shield to station crew members who will snap high resolution digital photographs. Flight Engineers Sergei Volkov, Mike Fossum and Satoshi Furukawa will use cameras with 1,000 mm, 800 mm and 400 mm lenses, respectively, to photograph Atlantis’ upper and lower surfaces through windows in the Zvezda Service Module. The photos will be transmitted to Mission Control in Houston for evaluation by imagery experts and mission managers to determine whether the heat shield sustained any damage during launch.
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