STS-79 Mission Control Center
Status Report #18

Tuesday, September 24, 1996 7 p.m. CDT

The six astronauts aboard Atlantis completed a relaxed day of
operations and are in the midst of a 9-hour sleep period before
getting into a busy day readying their spacecraft for landing at the
Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Thursday.

The crew's deorbit preparation day will begin at 9:54 tonight with a
wakeup call from Mission Control. Early Wednesday morning they check
out the shuttle's aerodynamic control surfaces rudder, speed
brake, body flap and elevons that will be needed for Thursday's
re-entry and landing. Later in the day they will tryout a procedure
that will be used on the STS-81 mission next February using small
thrusters on the orbiter to re-boost the Hubble Space Telescope gently
into a higher orbit.

Earlier Tuesday, astronauts Shannon Lucid and Carl Walz used the large
format IMAX camera to record Atlantis undocking and separation from
the Mir space station. Lucid also completed two exercise sessions to
condition herself for returning to Earth's gravity.

At 4:24 a.m. CDT Wednesday astronauts Readdy and Lucid will be
interviewed by USA Network's "Sci-Fi" Channel, and at 6:24 a.m. the
Texas State Radio Network and Aviation Week & Space Technology
magazine will interview astronauts Wilcutt and Lucid.

In Mission Control flight controllers and weather forecasters are
watching weather patterns closely at both the primary KSC landing site
and at the backup landing site at Edwards, California. In a briefing
for reporters early Tuesday, mission manager Lee Briscoe said weather
conditions currently appear favorable and the shuttle is in excellent
condition for Thursday's planned landing.

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