Discovery and the Lunar Eclipse

December 21, 2010

Image Credit: NASA/Kim Shiflett
Space shuttle Discovery waits to roll back from Launch Pad 39A to the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida in the early morning hours of Dec 21, 2010, with the beginning of the total lunar eclipse clearly in view.

Once inside the VAB, Discovery's external fuel tank will be examined and foam reapplied where 89 sensors were installed on the tank's aluminum skin for an instrumented tanking test on Dec. 17.

The sensors were used to measure changes in the tank as super-cold propellants were pumped in and drained out.

Data and analysis from the test will be used to determine what caused the tops of two, 21-foot-long support beams, called stringers, on the outside of the intertank to crack during fueling on Nov. 5.

Discovery's next launch opportunity is no earlier than Feb. 3, 2011.

Space Shuttle Launch STS-131 Time-Lapse

Space Shuttle Discovery Being Rolled Out For The Last Time

September 21, 2010

Space shuttle Discovery rolling out for it's final mission.


The space shuttle Discovery rolled out to its launch pad for what is scheduled to be its final mission. Discovery left the Vehicle Assembly Building at 7:23 pm EDT (2323 GMT), arriving at pad 39A about six and a half hours later. Discovery is scheduled to lift off on November 1 on STS-133, the final scheduled mission for the orbiter. On that 11-day mission, the next to last currently scheduled for the shuttle fleet, Discovery will take the Permanent Multipurpose Module packed with supplies and critical spare parts, as well as Robonaut 2 to the International Space Station.


The winged orbiter, the oldest of NASA's space shuttle fleet, emerged from its maintenance hangar for the last time to journey to the nearby Vehicle Assembly Building. Once inside the cavernous 52-story building, Discovery will be attached to the twin solid rocket boosters and external fuel tank that will help launch it to the International Space Station.

Discovery's upcoming STS-133 mission will mark the shuttle's 39th flight to space and NASA's 133rd shuttle flight since the fleet began space launches in 1981. It is NASAs second-to-last space shuttle mission before the fleet retires next year.

The shuttle Endeavours STS-134 mission in late February 2011 is scheduled to be the final flight, though an extra mission on the orbiter Atlantis is under consideration. NASA is retiring its shuttle fleet to make way for a new plan to send astronauts to visit an asteroid by 2025.

Discovery's quarter-mile trip between its maintenance hangar and Vehicle Assembly Building was the 41st rollover in 26 years for Discovery, also known by its orbiter designation OV-103.

Discovery has more rollovers than actual space missions because the shuttle had to repeat the trip on two occasions: once for its maiden flight, STS-41D, in 1984 and again in 1991 before the STS-39 mission. In both cases, the re-rollover was due to Discovery needing repair before it could fly.

Discovery's last journey was made atop the same 36-wheeled transport trailer that has moved Discovery and all of NASAs orbiters before each mission.

The trip between a shuttle hangar and the Vehicle Assembly Building typically takes about a half-hour to complete, but NASA parked Discovery outside its hangar for several hours to allow its employees those who worked on the shuttle to pose with spacecraft for one last set of photos.

Once mated to its boosters and fuel tank an hours-long procedure assisted by a crane that is expected to be completed Friday morning Discovery will embark on a different type of roll.

The completely assembled shuttle stack will ride a massive Apollo-era crawler transporter to the 3.4-mile (5.4-km) trip to Launch Pad 39A. At the pad, Discovery will be readied for its November launch and loaded with its payload.

Keep Space Shuttle Atlantis as Museum Piece

May 31, 2010 Aviation Week “Correspondence”

Jeremiah Farmer’s suggestion to have Atlantis docked to the Itnernational Space Station (ISS) for use as a space vehicle or for storage is not practical (AW&ST May 20, p. 8; April 26, p. 16)

The problems include a substantial increase in drag to the ISS assembly, potential damage to the orbiter thermal tiles from debris and the need to maintain a ground staff and communication links to support flights from ISS.

Any flights from ISS would require retanking of propellants. Neither ISS nor the orbiter are equipped for such propellant transfers in-orbit, nor is access for doing this available to space-suited actronauts even if they were so trained.

Propellant resupply would be much different than the semi-autonamous transfer from Progress vehicles to ISS. Also, there is no capability to replenish the oxygen tanks the oribiter uses for life support and fuel cell power generation. Lastly, the payload bay is not pressurized, so storage will be limited. Atlantis would serve better as a promienent ground display.

Gordon Dressler

Space Shuttle Atlantis' Final Landing 5-26-10 (FULL NASAtelevision)

TS-132 Commander Ken Ham and his five crewmates: Pilot Tony Antonelli and Mission Specialists Garrett Reisman, Steve Bowen, Mike Good and Piers Sellers are safely back on Earth after space shuttle Atlantis glided to a picture-perfect landing at NASA's Kennedy Space Center, Fla. on Wednesday morning, May 26. It was Atlantis' 32nd and final flight, traveling a total of more than 120 million miles. The 12-day, STS-132 mission delivered the Russian Mini Research Module-1, Rassvet ("dawn") to the International Space Station. (NASAtelevision) 5-26-10

STS-132 HD Flight day 11 Highlights!!

bsolutely stunning views!! -- The crew of space shuttle Atlantis awoke on flight day 11 and after a couple of hours of personal time, begun the late inspection of the shuttles wing leading edges and nose cap. The crew worked through the time line and finished the scans about two and a half hours ahead of schedule. By 5:50 a.m. EDT they had finished their look at the right wing, by 6:52 a.m. EDT the nose cap survey was complete and the left wing survey was finished at 7:17 a.m. EDT. The TPS survey was done using the shuttle arm and its OBSS extension. While the scans were going on, some of the crew was stowing items that were no longer needed or were transferred right before undocking. Spacewalkers Mike Good and Steve Bowen cleaned up and stowed their spacesuits for landing. The latter part of the crews day was spent with some off duty time.

( Yan and Justin )

New Looks at Atlantis Launch

Highlights of the launch of space shuttle Atlantis from NASAs Kennedy Space Center, Fla. on May 14, 2010 to begin the STS-132 mission to the International Space Station. Video includes views of the liftoff from multiple cameras in and around launch pad 39A.

Obama's Rocket

When U.S. President Barack Obama spoke to Florida space workers to reveal his plan for America’s future in space, he called for development of an “advanced” heavy-lift launch vehicle. This signaled a challenge to NASA to embrace a new paradigm for launch vehicle design, capitalizing on everything that has been learned in the previous 60 years. No more massaging of old designs. No more wishful reversions to Saturn 5 or other relic rockets. “Advanced” heavy-lifter means something new — new in design, new in manufacturing processes, new in operations.

It seems appropriate to address several issues and opportunities that are certain to shape an emerging course of events. Building a heavy-lift rocket is a serious undertaking. Engineering should be based on at least one firm mission, and reflect keen insight into the ability to perform an array of other missions, for at least the next 50 years.

A heavy-lift vehicle will allow America to do big things in space. The Apollo program demonstrated it. A heavy-lifter was needed to get humans to the Moon. However, most of America’s achievements in space were launched by rockets limited to payloads weighing less than 25,000 kilograms to low Earth orbit. Yes, we built one big thing, the international space station (ISS), but at tremendous cost and with a prolonged build schedule. Piecemeal construction of spacecraft can cost dearly.
Although there has been much discussion regarding a return to the Moon and a manned Mars journey, there has been nothing comparable to President John F. Kennedy’s solid commitment to send men to the Moon in the ’60s. A firm mission can be readily identified, and it turns out to be neither of the above. The key lies in realization that end of life for the ISS is just a few years from now. No one is proposing a replacement, and it is doubtful that another ISS will be built. If we wait until the day it is shut down without doing anything, it is certain there will be a many-year hiatus before Americans work in space again.

Fortunately, NASA already pointed the way for the future in the 1970s post-Apollo project, the Skylab orbital workshop. Though beset with loss of insulation, loss of half its power source and other problems, the mission was a resounding success for what was deemed at the time as somewhat of a shoestring operation. Astronauts occupied the station in three stays of 28, 59 and 84 days. The Skylab experience taught that modest-size, turnkey space stations are the wave of the future.

Planning should begin now to orbit the first one soon after the ISS is out of business, ensuring a seamless transition into a new way of operation in space. Turnkey stations can fulfill manifold purposes, covering research, manufacturing and even tourist hotels. This can be big business for the U.S. space industry, providing for station needs of many nations and attending to their servicing over their respective duty cycles. Turnkey stations will weigh between 75 and 100 tons. This defines the primary mission for a heavy lifter and establishes its size.

In light of current international concerns regarding climate change and degradation of the environment due to human activity, NASA and the Department of Defense (DoD) should be in the forefront of converting their energy consumers to green sources. DoD is already taking steps in this direction, experimenting with and promoting the use of biofuels for powering aircraft.
In rocketry, perchlorates, long used in solid rocket motors and resulting in disposal of the chemical during processing, have entered ground water and are widely dispersed, impossible to reverse. Perchlorates are suspected carcinogens, although human susceptibility is as yet undetermined. But arguments for continued proliferation of the chemical are weak, considering that clean-burning, better-performing propellants are available. Future designs by NASA should ban the use of such chemicals. NASA’s tentative plan for heavy-lifters involves development of a million-pound-thrust, kerosene-fueled engine. This foretells the transfer of huge tonnages of carbon dioxide to the upper atmosphere. Except for violent volcanoes, there are no natural processes that do this. It is not known whether it will be harmful, but it must be considered a consequential event and avoided if possible. There is an alternative — hydrogen-fueled engines, which release only water.

For a future heavy-lifter, fueled by liquid hydrogen, the cost of development of a rocket engine would be virtually eliminated. Suitable engines, new by any measure, are already available in the Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne RS-68 and RS-68A. The RS-68 has been employed on only a few flights on the Delta rocket. The RS-68A, a better performer, is far along in development. Rather than undertake development of a new high-thrust engine, work should continue on succeeding generations of this engine, following the excellent progression that has taken place with the hydrogen-fueled RL10 engine over many years.
It will be difficult to achieve meaningful cost savings with clustered, multistage designs. There is little about such configurations that can be considered “advanced,” should NASA insist on following this approach. The new paradigm should act on the realization that multiple stages involve multiple management structures, multiple industrial entities, multiple support services, etc. Each can do some things to reduce cost, but the composite result will be disappointing. The new paradigm calls for doing heavy lift with a large single-stage-to-orbit rocket.
A hydrogen-fueled heavy-lifter is big, ranging in diameter from 18 to 27 meters. Building it is straightforward. All technology needed is available. It is strictly an engineering and manufacturing task to bring it to fruition. Its sheer size should faze no one. Hundreds of tanks for containing methane on liquid natural gas ships, 36 meters in diameter, have been built and are being built.

Its size, however, removes any thought of building it in a factory and shipping it to a launch site, as is the current practice. The new paradigm calls for locating the factory at the launch site, and shipping only materials, components and subsystems to the factory.

This is not a frightening concept. At some levels it has already been done. For example, during the 1980s, the launch crew at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California accomplished all design modifications on the Atlas E and F ICBMs to ready them for flight, and then launched them. Manufacture of parts elsewhere would alleviate any geopolitical concerns about concentrating a high-dollar effort in one area of the country.

Modest-size payloads will continue to be launched far into the future. The Obama administration is taking the correct position in deciding to allow what is now a mature industry to compete for the spacecraft launch business, open to established companies and newcomers alike. Within this mandate should appear a modest-size returnable passenger vehicle. A return to X-33, on which over a billion dollars has been spent, with more practical engineering, is one idea. Powered by a row of advanced RL10 engines, this could be a long-term, useful system. Here is where NASA’s proposed million-pound-thrust, kerosene-fueled engine, if throttleable, could be applied — a recoverable stub booster for X-33.

The compelling challenges ahead in space exploration and exploitation are what NASA should be about. Obama’s rocket will usher in a new era in space exploration. It will launch payloads at one-twentieth of the cost per pound as the space shuttle. With a firm mission, orbiting turnkey space stations like Skylab, America will have launch capability for undertaking other missions, such as manned journeys to the Moon, robust robotic exploration of Mars, manned journeys to Mars, aggressive solar system exploration, and advanced work on solar power stations for beaming electrical power to Earth.


Edward Hujsak is a career rocket engineer and the author of two books on rockets, “The Future of U.S. Rocketry” and “All About Rocket Engines.”
Space News

STS-132 Atlantis HD Flight Day 9 Highlights!

Atlantis' crew woke at 12:50 a.m. EDT, to "These are the Days by 10,000 Maniacs. It was played for Pilot Tony Antonelli, who will control Atlantis as it flies around the International Space Station after undocking. Earlier in the mission, he choreographed the activities and coordinated communications between the spacewalkers and Mission Control in Houston during the mission's three spacewalks.

At 6:25 a.m., all 12 crew members aboard Atlantis and the space station will hold a news conference with media representatives. Reporters will ask questions in person from NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston and from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. A portion of the news conference will be set aside for Japanese reporters.

( Yan and Justin )

STS-132 Atlantis HD Flight Day 8 Highlights!!

This morning, Piers Sellers and Garrett Reisman operated the station's robotic arm to return the cargo pallet to the shuttle's payload bay. The integrated cargo carrier brought up the six new batteries astronauts installed during two spacewalks on Wednesday and Friday. The old batteries were placed on the pallet for return to Earth. At 5:50 a.m. EDT, the carrier was stowed in the space shuttle, completing space station robotic operations for the remainder of Atlantis' mission.

From 7:40 to 8 a.m., shuttle and International Space Station astronauts will answer elementary and middle school students' questions from orbit. Students from 12 NASA Explorer Schools submitted their questions earlier by video. Space shuttle Commander Ken Ham, Pilot Tony Antonelli, Mission Specialists Garret Reisman, Michael Good, Steve Bowen, Piers Sellers, and Expedition 23 Flight Engineer Tracy Caldwell Dyson will give answers live on NASA Television.

( Yan and Justin )

ATK Employees Interviewed on CNN

CNN's John Zarrella reports on the people who will be affected by the end of the space shuttle program. Watch this segment, which aired April 14 on the Wolf Blitzer show. The full segment will air this fall.

STS-132 Atlantis HD Flight Day 6 Highlights!

After almost 25 years and more than 115 million miles, space shuttle Atlantis is down to just one final mission but it will be going out on a high note.

STS-132 will deliver to the International Space Station the Russian Rassvet Mini-Research Module-1, only the second Russian module to ever be carried into space by a space shuttle. Its a fitting final payload for the orbiter that not only launched the first into space, but also was the first shuttle to dock to the Russian Space Station Mir in fact, Atlantis was the shuttle behind seven of the 11 shuttle missions to Mir.

"Atlantis has a history of being the shuttle that did the most international things," said Emily Nelson, lead space station flight director for the mission. "Its the orbiter that the Russians have known best, because its one that came to their space station most often, and its one that we used to deliver a module for them in the past."

Whether or not they recognize it by name, many people are likely familiar with Atlantis work. Besides the visits to Mir, Atlantis carried the Magellan Spacecraft into orbit, sending it on its way to Venus, where it mapped 98 percent of the planet from orbit. The same year 1989 it also deployed the Galileo Spacecraft to Jupiter, where it collected data on the planet and its moons for eight years.

Closer to home, Atlantis has visited the International Space Station 10 times STS-132 will be its 11th trip delivering among other pieces of hardware, the United States Destiny Laboratory and Europes Columbus. And just last year it made the final flight to the Hubble Space Telescope, bringing upgrades that should allow the telescope to see further into the universe than ever for years to come.

"Atlantis has clearly been a work horse of the space shuttle fleet over the years," said Mike Sarafin, lead STS-132 shuttle flight director. "The shuttle program history is pretty complicated, but I think it will show that Atlantis is a remarkable vehicle."

But Atlantis is not finished making history just yet there are still a few firsts in store.

For instance, the installation of Rassvet. Normally when a new piece of the space station is installed, all the work is done (the hooks are engaged and the latches latched to attach the new module to the rest of the station) from the space station side of the equation. Thats true for all of the international partners involved in the station except for Russia. Until now, the Russian modules have all been launched into space on their own, not carried up by a space shuttle, and the Russian system makes use of that by relying on the momentum of the new module as it approaches to force the latches.

That wont be possible this time around. Instead, the STS-132 crew will use the space stations robotic arm to attach it. The arm will be extended to just about its full 58 feet to reach Rassvets home on the Zarya module, which will make it difficult to push with much force. In addition, the commands to the module to work those latches and hooks will have to take a long circuitous route from the robotic arm controls inside the Cupola, through the United States segment of the station to the Russian segment, then back to the United States segment and out through the robotic arm to the Rassvet.

"Installing that module is going to be an interesting day," STS-132 Commander Ken Ham said. "If anything goes wrong in this delicate plan, we have to get it to work right. We think, based on the analyses, that were going to be just fine. However, were prepared for all sorts of problems that could arise getting that thing in there."

If the team is lucky, some of Atlantis good luck will rub off on the module while its in the shuttles cargo bay, and the installation will go off without a hitch Atlantis tends to be the member of the shuttle fleet with the fewest problems in flight, so it wouldnt be out of character.

"Like any home or any car that youve had over the years, the shuttles have their nuances," Sarafin said. "Atlantis tends to behave very well when its flying. Thats a nice luxury to have."

( Yan and Justin )

STS-132 Atlantis HD Flight Day 5 Highlights!!

Thursdays activities include the initial hatch opening of the Mini Research Module-1, named Rassvet. Crew members will put in a filter to cleanse the air.

Atlantis crew members Commander Ken Ham, Pilot Tony Antonelli, Mission Specialist Piers Sellers and International Space Station Expedition 23 Flight Engineer Tracy Caldwell Dyson will participate in an interview with the Associated Press, Fox News Radio and CBS.

The crew then will have the remainder of the day off, until Mission Specialists Michael Good and Garrett Reisman begin preparations for the mission's final spacewalk.

Space shuttle Atlantis astronauts Steve Bowen and Michael Good changed out four of the six 375-pound batteries on the International Space Stations port 6 truss during a 7-hour, 9-minute spacewalk Wednesday, getting a leg up on a major mission priority.

Plans called for three of the batteries to be replaced Wednesday, and mission managers hoped the fourth could be changed out. Remaining batteries are to be swapped during a Friday spacewalk by Good and Garrett Reisman.

The spacewalk, the fifth for Bowen and the third for Good, got under way at 6:38 a.m. EDT, more than 25 minutes ahead of the scheduled start that already had been moved up 30 minutes. One reason for the early scheduled start was the addition of a task to remove a cable snag in the orbiter boom sensor systems pan and tilt mechanism. Bowen accomplished that task in less than 30 minutes, while Good began work with the batteries.

After the battery work and cleanup of the area, the spacewalkers moved on to the new backup Ku band antenna on the Z1 truss. They tightened bolts holding its dish to its boom, closing a gap left there after Mondays spacewalk. They removed launch latches, leaving the antenna ready to operate.

The spacewalk officially ended at 1:47 p.m., when Quest repressurization began.

STS-132
(132nd space shuttle flight)
Launch Window:
10 minutes
Launch Pad:
39A
Mission Duration:
12 days
Landing Site:
KSC
Inclination/Altitude:
51.6 degrees/122 nautical miles
Primary Payload:
34th station flight (ULF4), Integrated Cargo Carrier (ICC), Mini Research Module (MRM1)

( Yan and Justin )

No Time To Retire Shuttle

The United States will retire the space shuttle, the most robust and capable space vehicle the world has ever seen, simply because our government has decided to do that. We have no vehicle to replace the space shuttle, and we will have no replacement for an unspecified amount of time.

This is an enormous strategic mistake that requires serious reconsideration from all levels of government. Anything less will result in the U.S. surrendering its leadership role in human spaceflight for the foreseeable future. Unique, valuable skills, experience and knowledge will be lost as the work force has no other choice but to disperse.

Ironically, the international space station, our $100 billion investment a quarter of a century in the making, is just nearing completion, and President Barack Obama is proposing to extend its mission until at least 2020. With the impending cancellation of the space shuttle program, there is little foresight and even less of a concrete plan on how we can fully utilize the space station to ensure it becomes everything that it can be and was promised to be. The fact is the space station was designed and always intended to be supported by the space shuttle in addition to unmanned cargo vehicles supplied by Russia, Europe and Japan. These cargo vehicles cannot completely replace the unique capabilities of the space shuttle and were always intended to act as a supplement.

With the shuttle gone, the United States will be reliant on a foreign power, Russia, and its Soyuz spacecraft for an unspecified amount of time to transport astronauts to the space station, so heavily funded by the American people. For this service, Russia will be charging the United States approximately $50 million per seat. Per the space station agreement with our international partners, the United States transports European, Japanese and Canadian astronauts to the station on the space shuttle, since they have no crew capability of their own. Of course retirement of the shuttle does not nullify that agreement, and the American taxpayer will now also be paying Russia for the transport of our European, Japanese and Canadian partners as well.

Compounding this problem is the fact Russia has signaled the price per seat will likely continue to increase as time goes forward. The United States will have no choice but to pay whatever Russia decides to charge, because, after all, we will have given Russia a monopoly and with that surrendered a part of our national sovereignty.

There has been much discussion and debate about commercial providers’ taking over the role that the space shuttle was always intended to perform. This is a worthy goal that I support for many reasons, but these vehicles do not exist and are not operational today. However, if the United States allows the international space station to degrade or not realize its full potential, the business case for these commercial providers degrades as well. An extension of the space shuttle program prevents this. Once commercial providers are operational and have verified their performance, that would be — and should be — the trigger for space shuttle retirement.

If we turn our back on spaceflight without any near- or long-term plan and outsource our immediate needs to other nations, it will be a sad day for the United States — perhaps an indicator that this great nation truly is in decline. I understand the economic climate in which we live today. However, we must look at this as an investment, one that costs this nation approximately one-half of 1 percent of the federal budget for all of NASA yet returns so much to the economy as a whole. The space shuttle program is a fraction of that amount and can be made even more economically efficient while still protecting the safety of our astronauts. In a time when there is so much uncertainty about jobs and the role of the United States in the world, this is a small price to maintain American leadership at the space station and in spaceflight.

Mike Snyder - Aerospace Engineer on the Space Shuttle Program in Houston

Final Flight Space Shuttle Atlantis

The shuttle Atlantis is poised for its final scheduled mission – the delivery of a compact Russian docking and laboratory module to the International Space station.

Liftoff from Kennedy Space Center is set for May 14 at 2:20pm EDT initiating a 12-day flight.

The spacecraft’s six-man crew has trained to deliver Rassvet or “Dawn”, a 23-ft.-long compartment that will open a fourth docking port on the orbiting lab for the Russian Soyuz and Progress capsules that will continue to come and go long after Atlantis, then orbiters Discovery and finally Endeavor, complete their final flights by year-end.

Last Shuttle Flights

The last space shuttle flights have been rescheduled. If you are one of the thousands of space fans planning to view one of these final flights, take note! STS-133 has been postponed from September 16 to November 1, 2010 with a liftoff planned for 4:33 PM EDT.

What may be the final flight of a space shuttle, has been postponed until February 26, 2011, with liftoff at 4:19 PM. This flight of Endeavour is the last flight currently planned and funded.

Some members of Congress are pushing for at least one more flight after that: of Space Shuttle Atlantis in the June timeframe. Atlantis is being kept on standby in case one of the other flights has significant tile or other damage, requiring the crew to be rescued. Two Soyuz are docked at the station, each capable of returning 3 crewmembers. But those are needed to evacuate the resident crew of the station in the event of an emergency (such as a debris strike or fire), so are not available to return a stranded shuttle crew.

If Atlantis is not needed for a rescue, but is ready to fly, members of Congress have suggested that it be used to take up more spares and supplies before mothballing it for a museum. A decision from Congress is expected by the end of the summer.

The STS-133 flight of Discovery was delayed to allow more time to prepare spares that will be taken aloft inside a multi-purpose carrier: including a pump package, a heat exchanger, and "Robonaut," a robotic human-shaped upper torso that may eventually be used in a spacewalk support role.

Steve Lindsey will command the crew for STS-133. The pilot is Eric Boe. The crew includes two spacewalkers: Alvin Drew and Timothy Kopra, and Mission Specialists Michael Barratt and Nicole Stott. If STS-134 is indeed the last shuttle flight, because it has an all-male crew, Nicole Stott (onthis flight) will be the last woman to fly on a space shuttle.

STS-134 was originally planend for this month, and STS-133 would have been the final flight before shuttle retirement. But the payload, the Alpha Magnetic Sectrometer, was not ready. A late-November or December launch were not an option because of conflicts with other launches and also temperature constraints caused by the high sun angle that time of year.

Those of us planning to view or otherwise commemorate the final shuttle flight, will just have to stay flexible!

One Last Blast: Final Firing for Space Shuttle Solid Rocket Ground Tests

The final space shuttle solid rocket booster ground test fires on Thursday, Feb. 25, 2010 in Promontory, Utah. (collectSPACE)

The final space shuttle solid rocket booster ground test fires on Thursday, Feb. 25, 2010 in Promontory, Utah. (collectSPACE)

February 25, 2010 — The thunderous roar from a space shuttle solid rocket booster reverberating and rebounding off the mountains of northern Utah was heard for the final time Thursday, as NASA and Alliant Techsystems (ATK) ignited their last ground test after three decades of static firings.

The 52nd reusable solid rocket motor (RSRM) ground test since the first was fired July 18, 1977, the two minute and three second horizontal "launch" was performed in support of NASA's remaining four shuttle missions before the fleet is retired later this year.

"That was probably the safest solid rocket motor ever test fired here," commented Steve Cash, NASA's manager for the shuttle propulsion office. "I have a lot of comfort about this coming next [four] launches because of the test firing today."

"This is really the celebration of 33 years," added David Beaman, NASA's manager for the RSRM office. "We have been testing since July 1977 here. This was the 52nd test and the reason we test is to make sure we are safe."


Video of the test fire beginning five seconds before ignition.

A total of 43 design objectives were measured during the test, including ensuring that the final shuttle motors were safe to launch astronauts and qualifying the performance of minor upgrades to materials, according to ATK, NASA's prime contractor for the solid rocket boosters.

"I would like to report that initial test data is looking really good," Charlie Precourt, ATK's vice president and general manager for space launch systems, told the media soon after the test was completed.

The data collected from the four-segment booster test will also aid in the continued development of the five-segment booster that was to fly as the first stage for Ares, NASA's planned replacement for the shuttle. Despite being called for cancellation by President Obama earlier this month as part of the space agency's Constellation program to return astronauts to the Moon, the second five-segment Ares I ground test is still scheduled for September.

Foggy firing

Thursday's final shuttle test attracted an estimated 5,000 public spectators, more than twice the audience for earlier firings. In addition to children from local schools, the test also drew in officials from across NASA's shuttle program, including a handful of former and current astronauts who rode the solid rocket boosters to space.

"Riding on [the space shuttle] is fun, it's exciting," shared Kent Rominger, a five-flight shuttle commander who now serves as ATK Space Systems Group's vice president for test and research operations. "When you watch a shuttle launch, to me it's always been an emotional experience."


Kent Rominger, former astronaut and ATK Space Systems Group's vice president for test and research operations.

"
'Cause hopefully nothing goes into the air other than the exhaust plume..." — Kent Rominger. (collectSPACE)

"Here it is different, 'cause hopefully nothing goes into the air other than the exhaust plume but you're actually closer to it," he told collectSPACE. "You get to see it, then hear it, so you get a sense what the speed of sound does for you and then the noise is obviously very pronounced and again it's an exciting, kind of a 'gee whiz' sort of moment. So that's a pretty amazing three million pounds of thrust we watch for a couple of minutes."

For most of the morning, it appeared as though the view Rominger described would remain mostly hidden behind a dense fog that rolled in over the snow-covered mountains surrounding the test area in Promontory, Utah. By 11:50 a.m. MST, when the countdown reached zero however most of the fog had lifted, giving the spectators a show.

A bittersweet end

"This is a little bit bittersweet," reflected Beaman referring to the test, "but sometimes the celebration in completing something, in flying out a mission, that is really something we don't appreciate or understand until we are near the end of the program."


The solid rocket motor measures more than 126 feet in length and 12 feet in diameter. FSM-17 was built from cases earlier launched on 38 shuttle missions and fired on eight prior static tests.


Before and after: Flight Support Motor-17 (FSM-17) as it was seen before and after the test firing. (collectSPACE)

Since being redesigned after the Challenger accident and returning the shuttle to flight for the first time in 1988, 210 solid motors have flown with 105 shuttles. Thirty-four (34) ground tests were conducted in the same period, enabling ATK to optimize the RSRM before integrating the changes with flight hardware.

"A lot of us went through Challenger, we made changes there," said Cash. "We continued to improve the safety of this solid rocket motor over the last 30 years, and seeing that culminate in this final test was a happy time and also a little bit of a sad time."

I am not going to kid you. I walked away saying 'Boy, I'm sure going to miss this testing,'" he admitted during the post-test press conference.

The loss of space shuttle Columbia in 2003 resulted in the decision to retire the shuttle system after completing the International Space Station (ISS) in 2010.

"People have dedicated their entire lives to this program. There's a lot of people who have in essence grown up and grown old in this program. It is bittersweet. It's nice to be able to say that we've gotten to a point where we are going to complete something," reflected Beaman.

"It is bittersweet thinking about the program ending."


Flight Support Motor-17 (FSM-17) as it appeared prior to the test through a mid-morning layer of fog at ATK's test facility.

FSM-17 Case History

The final space shuttle solid rocket motor ground test, referred to as Flight Support Motor-17 (FSM-17), was built from cases launched on 38 shuttle missions and eight prior static tests.


Here is FSM-17's case history, from top to bottom:

Forward Dome:
STS-113

Cylinder:
STS-5, STS-51C, TEM-10

Capture Feature Cylinder:
STS-57, 71, 82, 96, 113, 123

Cylinder:
TEM-9, STS-72, 90, 104, 124

Capture Feature Cylinder:
STS-110, 120

Cylinder:
TEM-6, STS-51, 69, 94, 101, FVM-1, STS-124

Capture Feature Cylinder:
STS-33, 45, 59, 81, 96, 113, FSM-11, STS-124

Capture Feature Cylinder:
STS-33, 45, 59, 81, 96, 113, FSM-11, STS-124

ET Attach:
TEM-4, STS-37, 54, 67, 82, 97

Stiffener:
STS-35, 47, 68, 79, 99, FVM-2

Stiffener:
NEW

Aft Dome:
STS-7, STS-51D, TEM-5, STS-44, 58, 77, 95, 109, 124

QM - Qualification Motor
TEM - Technical Evaluation Motor

Shuttle Fleet's Home Counts Down to an Uncertain Future

Thew Newsroom
Fri Apr 2, 2:34 pm ET

(This report is the first in a series on the shutdown of the space shuttle program.)

TITUSVILLE, Fla. — They call it Space City, U.S.A.

Drive along Highway 50 into Titusville, just across the Indian River from NASA's Kennedy Space Center, and you’ll pass a Space Shuttle Inn, Shuttle Car Wash, and Space Coast Pawn & Jewelry. One of the town's two high schools is called Astronaut High. There's an elementary school called Apollo.

Shuttle technician Dan Quinn can't go shopping at the local Walmart without running into co-workers from Kennedy, by far the town's largest employer. His kids used to play a game: Guess how many friends Dad's going to see. Five? Six? Quinn would buy the winner a candy bar.

Shuttle technician Dan Quinn stands in front of the engine of the space shuttle Atlantis. Photographed at Kennedy Space Center, Cape Canaveral, Fla.











Like Hollywood and the movies, Detroit and its cars, Titusville's fortunes have long been tied to aerospace. Prospering during the Apollo heyday, declining when the program was halted. Expanding with the shuttle program, taking a hit with the disasters of Challenger and Columbia.

Now, as NASA prepares to ground its shuttle fleet permanently — just four more launches are planned, including one early Monday — Titusville's 45,000 residents are left to wonder what's next.

The late 1960s and early 1970s were when the Apollo spaceflight program reached its height, putting men on the moon. More than 24,000 people moved to Titusville, eager to work at the new Kennedy Space Center and help the country win the space race.

Quinn's dad, an electrical engineer, was part of the team that built Apollo's lunar module. The family lived in New Mexico at the time, but "my father always brought us out to Kennedy for the open houses and to see the launch area," said Quinn, 56. They watched every blastoff together. It seemed then that the whole nation's — the whole world's — eyes were fixed on the cosmos. That sense of collective awe helped inspire him to follow his father into aerospace, ultimately moving to Titusville to work at Kennedy Space Center more than two decades ago.

Reusable tiles are seen on Atlantis. Over 24,000 tiles, each 6 inches square with individual serial numbers, are hand-glued to the shuttle. The darker tiles are new, and the green tape indicates a tile that needs to be reviewed. Photographed at Kennedy Space Center, Cape Canaveral, Fla.





But Titusville suffered when Apollo's missions to the moon abruptly ended in 1972. The town's growth, once exponential, ground to a halt. Al Koller, a longtime resident (Titusville High class of 1959) and an electrical engineer for NASA during the Apollo boom, remembers the program shutdown as an abrupt reversal of fortune locally.

"Friends would become enemies because they were laid off and I wasn't," said Koller, who retired from NASA in 1992. "Neighbors on either side of me were in the process of bailing out of their homes because they couldn't afford to remain here after they were laid off. Close to the end, you could buy almost any kind of house for no money down."

And then the space shuttle program rode to the rescue. It wasn't Apollo — Titusville experienced a sharp decline in tourism after that golden era — but it rekindled excitement.

Marcia Gaedke moved to Titusville when she was 2, at the tail end of the Apollo era — too young to remember the city's economic descent. What she remembers is that shuttle launches became "a part of life" when the first orbiter, Columbia, went up on April 12, 1981.

Workers attend to space shuttle Atlantis. Photographed at Kennedy Space Center, Cape Canaveral, Fla.












"Growing up in Titusville, I hardly knew anyone who didn’t have some sort of connection to Kennedy Space Center," said Gaedke, now president of the city's Chamber of Commerce. "Everyone had a mom, uncle, cousin who worked there."

The program brought its share of visitors, too — sometimes in the tens of thousands — vying for the best launch vantage point at places like Space View Park.

But when the space shuttle Challenger exploded while departing from Earth in 1986, and Columbia broke apart upon its return in 2003, the town despaired. After each disaster, the shuttle program experienced years-long hiatuses for the ensuing investigations. The influx of tourists — and the income of the businesses that depended on them — dwindled.

And the pain wasn't just economic but deeply personal.

"Losing those seven [Columbia] astronauts was like losing my brothers and sisters," said Dan Quinn, who has six siblings, two of them retired aerospace workers. At the time of the 2003 disaster, he'd been working on the shuttles' thermal protection system.

Atlantis in a hangar. The whole shuttle fleet is scheduled to be retired this year. Photographed at Kennedy Space Center, Cape Canaveral, Fla.


















Early the next year, President George W. Bush announced that the aging shuttle fleet would be mothballed in 2010. Taking its place would be a new program, Constellation, to send astronauts back to the moon by 2020 and onward to Mars.

The news may not have spelled the end, but it was still a blow to the town. "To people like me, who have grown up with the shuttle program, its retirement is like losing a family member," Gaedke said.

The hope around Titusville and Kennedy Space Center was that most of the 8,000 NASA shuttle contract workers would simply flow into corresponding positions in the Constellation program. But preliminary projections two years ago found that Kennedy could lose as much as 80 percent of its contract workforce, about 6,400 jobs.

As if that wasn't bad enough, this year Obama revealed a 2011 budget with no money allocated for Constellation, effectively canceling Bush’s plan and instead recommending that the focus be on privatized spaceflight. Though Congress still has to OK the measure, Titusville faces the possibility of another economic upheaval.

A closer look at a shuttle engine. Photographed at Kennedy Space Center, Cape Canaveral, Fla.













"It’s like déjà vu," an echo of President Nixon axing the Apollo mission, Koller said. "We have a lot of frightened people here, not ready to end their careers. They don't know what in the world they are going to do."

Yes, Koller said, it's true that Titusville isn't as dependent on aerospace as it was in the '70s — the shuttle workforce is half the size of Apollo's, and the city is about twice as big now — but thousands still depend on the space industry. “I’d say the situation is actually worse now," he said, "because the economy is flat. ’72 and ’73 wasn’t that great either, but it wasn’t like this. People could at least go and find a new job."

The town's contraction has already begun. Since Bush's announcement of the shuttles' retirement, enrollment at Astronaut High School — built in 1962 to accommodate the Apollo boom — is down more than a third, Principal Terry Humphrey said.

"There’s lots of people with long faces here," he said. "A lot of the folks who knew the end [of the shuttle program] was coming left. And the students that remain are concerned that their parents won’t have paying jobs soon." The city's other high school is also on the decline, and five of the city's six elementary schools are now eligible for federal assistance because they have such large low-income populations.

Reusable heat shields, part of the shuttle thermal protection system, are seen in a hangar. Photographed at Kennedy Space Center, Cape Canaveral, Fla.









"About 25 percent of the students have direct ties to the space center, but when you add those who are tied indirectly — the people who support the space program, the construction workers, local businesses, food providers, et cetera — the number goes up a whole lot," Humphrey said. "We’re all somehow connected to the space center; it’s what drives our economy."

It's also central to the town’s pride. What kind of future is in store for Space City, U.S.A., with the shuttle program shutting down and nothing to fill its vacuum? Will it be a commercial center for spaceflight? And if aerospace does become a largely private endeavor, will companies want to move operations elsewhere?

The space industry is "so much a part of our heritage and history," said Gaedke, the Chamber of Commerce president. She hasn't given up. "Hopefully we’ll fight tooth and nail for it to stay in Titusville."

Quinn is trying to stay positive too. "I'm hoping we’ll have another program to go to. If not, well, you know, we'll just cross that bridge when we come to it. Right now, my whole team’s just focused on flying out the last few missions, proving our abilities to get men safely into space."

The inside of a shuttle heat shield. Photographed at Kennedy Space Center, Cape Canaveral, Fla.











Koller, who has lived most of his life in Titusville and is now an advisor to aerospace students at community colleges, has the next generation in mind. He tells them to be flexible about their career ambitions and to remember that their skills are transferrable: "For instance, if you can be a good aerospace technician, you can be a skilled medical technician."

But like Quinn, the NASA retiree is a second-generation "rocket rat" — his dad was an aerospace worker, too — and space is in his blood. He can't imagine leaving this home, a place from which so many people have blasted off for the great unknown.

"I found my little piece of heaven."

Last One

Lockheed Martin workers in NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility expect to finish the last of 134 space shuttle external tanks by the end of June before shutting down the production line for the huge aluminum-lithium structures. They have already resettled the tank—designated ET-128-back in the horizontal position after hoisting it upright to splice the liquid oxygen/intertank section to the 96.7-ft. liquid oxygen tank that rides at the bottom of the tank portion of the shuttle stack. The LOX tank that forms the nose of the external tank is 54.6 ft. long, and the intertank structure measures 22.5 ft. Completion of the tank for shipment to Kennedy Space Center is planned for June 29, to support the scheduled September 16 launch of the shuttle Discovery on the final mission of the space shuttle era before the three-orbiter fleet is retired. The government-owned fabrication facility was slated to be used by Boeing to assemble the upper stage of the Ares I crew launch vehicle, but the Obama administration has canceled that program along with the rest of the Constellation Program of post-shuttle vehicles.

ATK Officials Confident About Company’s Future

Although plenty of uncertainty still looms over NASA’s Constellation program, and local company ATK’s role in it, ATK officials remain optimistic for the future.

When U.S. President Barack Obama released his proposed budget that cut funding from the program, it meant the new Ares I rocket program, which is ATK’s main space contract right now, could be facing the chopping block as well. Should that happen, it could put ATK’s space programs, and the thousand-plus Promontory jobs that go with it, in jeapordy.

Yet despite the challenges, many ATK employees and officials are remaining optimistic about the company’s future.

“The team here is incredibly valued across the aerospace community and with our NASA partners here,” said Charlie Precourt, vice president and general manager of ATK Space Launch Systems. “In spite of the turmoil of the current moment, I remain extremely optimistic that the value remains, the quality and the unique product of the great people out here remain and will continue to contribute great things because of the unique asset they provide. It’s something we need regardless of what the future vehicles look like. I think the company has a very bright future.”

Precourt’s sentiments about the company’s unique workforce were echoed by Steve Cash, manager of the Shuttle Propulsion Office at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala.

“This is some of the best of the best right here. The talent that’s here, and the knowledge base that’s been built here are things this nation is going to depend on to go forward,” Cash said. “They’re going to be part of whatever gets us back to the moon, to Mars [or] to an asteroid.”

Speculation has been rampant over the past few weeks as to what would happen to the thousands of space-related workers at ATK’s Promontory facility should the President’s budget pass through Congress. But the message some officials were trying to convey last week during the final test of the Reusable Solid Rocket Motor (RSRM) was to take a wait and see approach.

FSM-17 Space Shuttle Reuseable Solid Rocket Motor Static Test

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/shuttle/behindscenes/final_motor_test.html

February 25, 2010 — The thunderous roar from a space shuttle solid rocket booster reverberating and rebounding off the mountains of northern Utah was heard for the final time Thursday, as NASA and Alliant Techsystems (ATK) ignited their last ground test after three decades of static firings.

The 52nd reusable solid rocket motor (RSRM) ground test since the first was fired July 18, 1977, the two minute and three second horizontal "launch" was performed in support of NASA's remaining four shuttle missions before the fleet is retired later this year.

ATK's Solid Rocket Boosters Help Launch Space Shuttle Endeavour

ATK's Titanium Auxiliary Power Unit Fuel Tanks Supply Orbiter's Hydraulic System
PR Newswire
MINNEAPOLIS, Feb. 8 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/Alliant Techsystems' (NYSE: ATK) Reusable Solid Rocket Motors (RSRM) ignited at 4:14 a.m. EST, launching the Space Shuttle Endeavour and its crew on their 13-day mission to the International Space Station (ISS). More than 100 RSRM flight sets have been launched to date, marking a two-decade track record of flawless performance.

"The successful launch of Space Shuttle Endeavour highlights the capabilities and progress ATK and NASA have made in developing the most reliable, affordable and capable family of solid rocket motors ever produced," said Blake Larson, ATK Space Systems President. "Tremendous synergy is garnered by utilizing motors with unmatched safety and reliability from the space shuttle for NASA's future human spaceflight programs."

The 149-foot-tall solid rocket boosters each produced more than 15 million horsepower, safely launching the shuttle to approximately 28 miles in altitude in just over two minutes. After the flight, the RSRMs were jettisoned from the orbiter and external tank by ATK's 16 Booster Separation Motors (BSMs). Each booster has eight BSMs: four on the forward skirt and four on the aft skirt. The separation motors propelled the RSRMs to a safe distance from the shuttle orbiter, enabling the spent boosters to parachute down through the Earth's atmosphere where they splashed down into the ocean and were recovered. The solid rocket motors were produced at ATK's facility in Promontory, Utah.

In addition, ATK supplied the titanium hydrazine propellant tanks for the space shuttle Auxiliary Power Unit (APU). Three APU tanks, manufactured at ATK's Commerce, Calif., facility, house the hydrazine fuel that generates power for the shuttle's hydraulic system. These tanks have performed perfectly for each of the shuttle's three decades of operations.

Endeavour's flight will include three spacewalks and the delivery of a connecting module that will increase the ISS's interior space. Node 3, known as Tranquility, will provide additional room for crew members and many of the space station's life support and environmental control systems. Attached to the node is a cupola, which is a robotic control station with six windows around its sides and another in the center that will provide a panoramic view of Earth, celestial objects and visiting spacecraft. After the node and cupola are added, the space station will be about 90 percent complete.

Since the inaugural flight of the space shuttle, ATK and NASA have constantly improved their techniques and processes to increase the safety and mission reliability of the RSRMs. These motors have undergone countless subscale material characterization tests that tie together complex analyses with hard data. They have also undergone 52 full-scale ground tests. This heritage is being transferred to the Ares I first stage program, which recently performed a successful ground test of its five-segment solid rocket in September 2009.

"As we move closer to the completion of the Space Shuttle Program, ATK continues its focus on a rigorous test program, with the final RSRM static firing in just two weeks," said Mike Kahn, ATK Space Systems executive vice president. "These investments directly contribute to the safety and cost-effectiveness of the motors as we move into the testing phase for NASA's next generation systems."

ATK is a premier aerospace and defense company with more than 18,000 employees in 22 states, Puerto Rico and internationally, and revenues of approximately $4.8 billion. News and information can be found on the Internet at www.atk.com.

Certain information discussed in this press release constitutes forward-looking statements as defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Although ATK believes that the expectations reflected in such forward-looking statements are based on reasonable assumptions, it can give no assurance that its expectations will be achieved. Forward-looking information is subject to certain risks, trends and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those projected. Among those factors are: assumptions related to the challenges of developing next-generation space launch vehicles; changes in governmental spending, budgetary policies and product sourcing strategies; the company's competitive environment; the terms and timing of awards and contracts; and economic conditions. ATK undertakes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements. For further information on factors that could impact ATK, and statements contained herein, please refer to ATK's most recent Annual Report on Form 10-K and any subsequent quarterly reports on Form 10-Q and current reports on Form 8-K filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

STS-130 MCC Status Report #01

After a one day delay due to clouds, space shuttle Endeavour launched at 3:14 a.m. CST Monday from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida with a new module and an attached cupola for the International Space Station that should increase human understanding of our home planet.

Spectacular Launch Begins a Complex Mission After a one-day delay due to clouds,
Mon, 08 Feb 2010 04:13:21 AM MST

"What a beautiful launch we had this morning... the orbiter performed extremely well," said Bill Gerstenmaier, associate administrator for Space Operations, during the STS-130 postlaunch news conference. "This is a great start to a very complicated mission."



Jean-Jacques Dordain, European Space Agency director general, thanked NASA, the crew and the ground teams for "a very beautiful launch." Dordain said, "It was an important event. Even more important for us because the shuttle was full of European hardware."

Mike Moses, shuttle launch integration manager, said the count went unbelievably smooth. He commented how the weather constraints influenced the launch of space shuttle Endeavour and how happy he was that it all came together today. Docking is set for flight day three with three spacewalks planned to install the Tranquility node and then cupola permanently to the International Space Station. "This will be a good example of international partnerships and cooperation between the station crew and shuttle crew," said Moses.

"This was one of the smoothest countdowns ever," said Mike Leinbach, shuttle launch director. "The team was very, very energized going into the count."

ATK Sets Final Shuttle Rocket Test

ATK Space Systems in Promontory Utah says the ground test, scheduled for February 25, will signal the end of the space shuttle program.

ATK, the company that makes booster rockets for the space shuttle, says it will conduct a final test firing in northern Utah later this month.

NASA had intended to replace the space shuttle with a new spaceship and launcher for travel to the moon and beyond, however, President Barack Obama has proposed scrapping the new program for something different, leaving NASA's longtime contractor in Utah with an uncertain future.

Clearfield-based ATK Space Systems has laid off 970 workers in Utah since October, citing the phase-out of the space shuttle and the Minuteman III ballistic missile programs.

ATK and NASA to Perform Final Ground Test for the Space Shuttle Program

Test will Ensure Safety for Four Remaining Shuttle Flights
Feb 05, 2010

PROMONTORY, Utah, Feb. 5 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Alliant Techsystems (NYSE: ATK) and NASA will conduct the last ground test for the Space Shuttle program on February 25, marking the closure of a program that has spanned more than three decades and ushering in the era of the next generation of space exploration.

Test Objectives/Background:

•A total of 43 design objectives will be measured through 258 instrument channels
•This final test will be the 52nd test conducted for NASA's Space Shuttle Program
•The ground test will be conducted to ensure the safe fly-out of the remaining four missions
•The first test was conducted on July 18, 1977
•The cases have previously flown on the space shuttle, collectively launching 38 missions

Space Shuttle Endeavor: STS-130

Fri, 15 Jan 2010 06:56:14 AM MSTuFri, 15 Jan 2010 06:56:14 AM MST
Liftoff from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida is targeted for February 7, 2010, at 4:39 a.m. EST

Workers at NASA Kennedy Space Center's Launch Pad 39A completed the loading of fuel in space shuttle Endeavour's orbital maneuvering system and auxiliary power units.

Shuttle Endeavour and its crew will deliver to the space station a third connecting module, the Italian-built Tranquility node and the seven-windowed cupola, which will be used as a control room for robotics. The mission will feature three spacewalks. (put with picture)





















Leak checks will be performed today on the ground umbilical carrier plate quick disconnect, or GUCP. The GUCP is the overboard vent to the pad and the flame stack where the vented hydrogen is burned off.

During the weekend, launch pad teams will open the rotating service structure that protects the shuttle from inclement weather and the environment in anticipation of the STS-130 mission payload delivery scheduled for early Monday morning.

At NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, Endeavour's six astronauts are preparing for their Terminal Countdown Demonstration Test, or TCDT. The crew is scheduled to arrive at Kennedy's Shuttle Landing Facility in their T-38 jets on Monday at 6 p.m. EST.

The crew during mission training.



http://www.nasa.gov/pdf/415450main_STS130_Mission_Summary_1-5-10.pdf

› STS-131 (Discovery)
-Launch Target: March 18, 2010
Mission: 13 days-Deliver a multi-purpose logistics module filled with science racks to be transferred to laboratories on the International Space Station.
› STS-132 (Atlantis)
-Launch Target: May 14, 2010
-Mission: 11 days-Deliver an integrated cargo carrier and Russian-built mini research module to the International Space Station.
› STS-134 (Endeavor)
_Launch Target: July 29, 2010
-Mission: 10 days-Deliver express logistics carrier 3 and the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer to the International Space Station.
› STS-133 (Discover)
-Launch Target: September 16, 2010
-Mission: 8 days-Deliver express logistics carrier 4 and critical spare components to the International Space Station.

Fact Sheet:
394380main_2009.12.01%20Remaining%20Shuttle%20Missions.pdf

ATK Progress on NASA's Constellation Program

The past year has been monumental for the U.S. space program as ATK continued the development of NASAs Ares I launch vehicle and launch abort motors. Major milestones were completed successfully including ground tests, parachute drop tests and a historic test flight. This coming year will bring additional parachute testing, the first flight test of the Orion crew capsules Launch Abort System, and the second ground test of an Ares I first-stage five-segment solid rocket motor. Heres to an awe-inspiring 2009 and continued progress in 2010.