SPACEPHOTOS

Personnel and equipment converge on the orbiter Atlantis to begin servicing the spacecraft following its landing 4 March 1990, at NASA's then Ames-Dryden Flight Research Facility, Edwards, California. Mission elapsed time for the Department of Defense mission was 4 days, 10 hours, 19 minutes and 15 seconds. Actual landing time was 10:08 a.m. Post-landing servicing by the recovery convoy is carried out after each Space Shuttle landing and includes safety checks for flammable and toxic gases escaping from systems aboard the orbiters, hooking up engine fuel purge and equipment coolant lines, and inspecting the brakes before the vehicle is towed from the runway to the shuttle facility at Dryden where it is prepared for the ferry flight back to the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Up to 24 vehicles and scores of personnel make up the landing recovery convoys at Dryden.