They also provide active thermal protection to electrical components throughout the space station and allow the connection of platforms to store spare parts.

The SARJ continuously rotates to keep the Solar Array Wings (SAWs) on S4 and S6 (launched on shuttle mission STS‐119 in March 2009) oriented toward the sun as the ISS orbits the Earth.

In addition to the SARJ, the SAWs also are oriented by the Beta Gimbal Assembly (BGA), which can change the pitch of the wings by spinning the solar array.

[15] Following the arrival of the shuttle in the assembly facility, Atlantis was fitted with two bridge cranes that lifted her vertically, to position her for mating to the external fuel tank and solid rocket boosters, already in place atop the mobile launcher platform.

The rest of the pre-launch preparations also continued to proceed according to plans, with the payload canister, containing the S3/S4 Truss and a set of solar arrays, arriving at the launch pad at 02:54 EST on February 12, 2007.

The canister lift began at 05:40 EST the same morning, ready for transfer of the ISS truss segments and other cargo into the Payload Changeout Room on the newly refurbished rotating service structure of pad 39A.

[17] Various problems, including a generator transfer issue to the mobile launcher platform, meant that first movement of the stack was delayed from the scheduled rollout time and did not occur until 08:19 EST.

[18] On February 21, 2007, the STS-117 crew traveled from Houston to the Kennedy Space Center (KSC) to participate in the Terminal Countdown Demonstration Test (TCDT).

NASA announced that it is possible, albeit unlikely, that one of 24 Composite Overwrap Pressure Vessels onboard Atlantis could burst before launch, damaging the orbiter.

Atlantis's eight-and-a-half-minute ride to orbit was mostly uneventful with only one small piece of debris spotted just after solid rocket booster separation two minutes and five seconds after the launch.

[27] Aboard the ISS, cosmonauts Fyodor Yurchikhin, Oleg Kotov and NASA astronaut Sunita Williams watched the launch of Atlantis on a video feed provided by flight controllers in Houston.

Photos taken during the robotic arm checkout showed a 4-inch by 6-inch corner area of insulation blanket on the shuttle's port orbital maneuvering system (OMS) pod pulled away from an adjacent row of heat-shield tiles.

[28] Pilot Lee Archambault and Mission Specialists Patrick Forrester and Steven Swanson used the shuttle's robotic arm and orbiter boom sensor system (OBSS) to inspect the heat shield on Atlantis' wing leading edges and nose cap.

The crew also down-linked Mission Control Houston engineers up-close video of the displaced portion of the blanket on the port orbital maneuvering system pod.

The back flip RPM allowed station crewmembers Fyodor Yurchikhin and Oleg Kotov to photograph heat shield tiles on the shuttle's underside using long-range, high resolution cameras.

Following docking, Pilot Lee Archambault and Mission Specialist Patrick Forrester used the shuttle's Canadarm to grapple the S3/S4 truss, lift it from its berth in the payload bay, and maneuver it for handover to the station's Canadarm2.

Mission Specialists James Reilly and John "Danny" Olivas spent the night in the Quest airlock as part of the overnight "campout" procedure to help them get prepared for next day's spacewalk.

[37] NASA deemed that the torn blanket, while not a flight risk to the shuttle crew during reentry, could lead to some damage to the OMS pod's internal honeycomb-like graphite-epoxy structure.

Commander Sturckow, pilot Archambault and Mission Specialist Jim Reilly worked the early steps of retraction of the 2B solar array wing, on the starboard side of the P6 Truss.

Commander Rick Sturckow, along with Pilot Lee Archambault, Mission Specialist Sunita Williams and Flight Engineer Clayton Anderson, meticulously retracted the solar array blanket another three bays worth of panels.

[47] Flight day 8 was dedicated to mission's third spacewalk (EVA 3) to repair the thermal blanket on Atlantis and assist in folding up a solar array on the space station.

Spacewalkers James Reilly and John Olivas began EVA 3 when the two astronauts switched their spacesuits into internal battery power and exited into space from the Quest airlock.

[48] While Olivas anchored to the end of Atlantis' robot arm was repairing the OMS pod, Reilly installed an external hydrogen vent for the oxygen generating system inside Destiny laboratory.

By using his helmet camera, Olivas beamed down close-up views of the torn insulation and surrounding blankets to help flight controllers assess the system's condition.

Even though the connector was not in use at that time, engineers decided to have Reilly disconnect it to make sure that it was not causing any electrical noise or grounding issues that might have played a role in the computer trouble.

Mission Specialists James Reilly, John Olivas, Steven Swanson and Patrick Forrester spent time working on the U.S. spacesuits.

[59] Swanson and Forrester retrieved a TV camera and its support structure from a stowage platform attached to the Quest Airlock and installed it on the S3 truss.

Pilot Lee Archambault took control of Atlantis shortly after undocking and fired shuttle thrusters to move 450 feet (140 m) in front of the ISS before starting a full fly around at 15:07 UTC.

Sturckow identified them to the mission control in Houston as "little phenolic-looking, kind of tan-looking washers with four slots" that are used to tie down the Multi-Layer Insulation blankets in the payload bay.

As the shuttle descended through 50,000 feet (15,000 m), Commander Sturckow took over manual control and guided Atlantis successfully to land on Runway 22 at Edwards Air Force Base at 19:49:38 UTC.