Wed, 20 Jul 2011 16:08:07 GMT

Space shuttle Atlantis’ crew is wrapping up final preparations for its planned landing at 5:56:58 a.m. EDT Thursday at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The crew stowed the Ku-Band antenna, used for high-data rate communications and television from space, at 11:34 a.m. and will go to sleep at 1:29 p.m.

Mission managers have cleared Atlantis’ heat shield for entry after reviewing results of the “late inspection” survey of the shuttle’s reinforced carbon carbon.

Wed, 20 Jul 2011 07:36:26 AM CDT

The STS-135 crew members spent Wednesday getting themselves and space shuttle Atlantis ready for the return home. They practiced landings on a laptop application, performed the flight control system checkout and checked out the reaction control system thrusters. All checked out well.