Atlantis Space Shuttle Uncoupled From Iss

MOSCOW. Feb 18 (Interfax-AVN) – The U.S. Atlantis space shuttle carrying seven astronauts uncoupled from the International Space Station (ISS) on Monday.

“The crew will have a two-day autonomous flight. The landing of Atlantis is scheduled for Wednesday evening,” a source at the Russian mission control center told Interfax-AVN.

The Atlantis crew is made up of Steve Frick, Alan Poindexter, Leland Melvin, Rex Walheim, Stanley Love, Hans Schlegel and Daniel Tani, who has spent about six months onboard the ISS.

The shuttle will land at Cape Canaveral in Florida. If the weather is bad, NASA may use a reserve landing strip: the Edwards airbase in California or the White Sands airbase in New Mexico, the source said.

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