The planned
Saturday evening launch of the space shuttle Endeavour may be the third orbiter
flight this year, but it is one of just eight remaining missions before NASA
mothballs its space plane fleet next year.
Endeavour
is scheduled to blast off at 7:39 p.m. EDT (2339 GMT) on Saturday from NASA's
Kennedy Space Center in Florida to begin a long-delayed construction flight to
the International Space Station. The spaceflight will be NASA's 127th mission
for the aging shuttle fleet, which has been flying
since 1981.
NASA
currently plans to retire Endeavour and its sister ships Atlantis and Discovery
in 2010 after completing construction on the $100
billion space station. Their replacement, the capsule-based Orion ship and
its Ares I booster, is not slated to begin operational flights until 2015. NASA
currently plans to fly astronauts on Russian Soyuz vehicles, and possibly
commercial spacecraft, during the interim.
Months of
margin between the remaining flights have dwindled to just a couple of weeks,
said Mike Moses, head of Endeavour's mission management team, on Friday. But
that should be enough, barring any unexpected - and large-scale - issues in the
missions to come.
"It's not
so much the issues that come up, but the lack of flexibility that we're going
to have when an issue does come up," said Moses. "Right now, we still look like
we're in great shape to make the manifest."
Here is a
glimpse - courtesy of NASA - of the last eight missions for the world's only
reusable orbital space planes:
8)
STS-127: The space station's porch
First in
line is the shuttle Endeavour's STS-127 mission to the space station, a flight
that has been delayed since mid-June because of a hydrogen gas leak that
prevented two launch attempts. The glitch has since been repaired, setting the
stage Saturday for an ambitious 16-day construction flight that calls on three
space cranes – two on the station and one on Endeavour – to complete.
In addition
to delivering an experiment porch that will complete Japan's massive Kibo lab
at the station, the mission will also deliver vital spare parts so large that
only NASA shuttles can carry them. They include new solar array batteries, a
replacement cooling system pump module and a drive unit for the station's
railcar.
The mission
is also the first shuttle flight since the station doubled its crew size to six
people in late May. The outpost is home to two Russian cosmonauts and one
astronaut each from the United States, Japan, Canada and Belgium. Endeavour's
crew also includes a Canadian astronaut and will boost the station's population
to 13 people - its highest ever - when the shuttle arrives on Monday.
"It just
brings a lot of different nations together," STS-127 Commander Mark Polansky
said. "I look at space and what we've done with the International Space Station
as a wonderful example of how we can cooperate. We all have a common goal, and
we all work together. We all have cultural differences, and somehow we put all
that aside and we get the job done."
The mission
will also swap out one member of the station's crew, replacing Japanese
spaceflyer Koichi Wakata with NASA astronaut Tim Kopra.
7)
STS-128: Comedian's name heads for space
The shuttle
Discovery may be toting a cargo pod full of vital supplies when it launches
toward the space station on Aug. 18, but the star of its STS-128 mission is a
new treadmill named after comedian
Stephen Colbert.
Colbert won
a NASA outreach campaign to name a new space station room - Node 3 - after
himself by urging fans of his Comedy Central faux-conservative show "The
Colbert Report" to write in his name in an online poll. NASA named the node
Tranquility, in honor of the Apollo 11 moon base, instead, but slapped
Colbert's moniker on the station's new treadmill.
It's called
the Combined Operational Load Bearing External Resistance Treadmill (COLBERT)
and will help keep astronauts in shape.
Commanded
by veteran astronaut Rick Sturckow, Discovery's seven-astronaut crew will
replace one member of the six-person staff aboard the space station and deliver
other vital supplies. That includes a pair of new experiment racks and an extra
freezer to boost station science. Discovery's launch seats will also be fitted
with sensors for a vibration test to help design better seats for Orion
capsules.
The mission
includes three spacewalks. One crewmember, astronaut Jose Hernandez of
Stockton, Calif., is chronicling the flight in English and Spanish using the
microblogging Web site Twitter. He's @Astro_Jose.
6)
STS-129: Stocking up space station
NASA plans
to cap 2009 with a space station supply run by the shuttle Atlantis during the
STS-129 mission led by veteran spaceflyer Charlie Hobaugh. Because NASA's new
spaceship Orion is too small to haul the large parts needed for the station the
space agency and its partners are trying to stock up as many spares as possible
before the shuttle fleet retires.
"What you've done," said NASA's deputy station program manager Kirk
Shireman in a statement, "is take away the 18-wheeler and replace it with a
bunch of small pickup trucks."
Atlantis is
slated to launch on Nov. 12 and will carry spare space station parts attached
to platforms in the shuttle's 60-foot (18-meter) payload bay.
Those spares
include: two 600-pound (272-kg) gyroscopes for the station's U.S.-built
attitude control system, extra nitrogen and ammonia tanks for the cooling
system, a spare grasping hand for the outpost's Canadarm2 robotic arm, an extra
umbilical cable system for the station's railcar, a spare antenna and a
high-pressure gas tank for storing air.
"This
should last us for some time," Shireman said.
5)
STS-130: Observation deck in space
NASA's
first flight of 2010 promises to give astronauts on the space station a whole
new view of their home planet when the shuttle Endeavour delivers the
Tranquility module, formerly Node 3. The mission is slated to launch on Feb. 4
with veteran astronaut George Zamka in command.
"This
flight will, I think, grab the public's attention," Shireman said. "It's just
going to be a really, really neat module for those on board."
Tranquility,
of course, is the module Colbert hoped would bear his name and the last major
addition to the station from the United States. It will, however, house the
COLBERT treadmill and other life support gear.
But
Tranquility's cool factor stems from the seven-window cupola that will serve as
an observation portal for astronauts inside the station. The windows will prime
views of the station exterior during robotic arm work and spacecraft arrivals
and departures.
"The dream
of being able to go out and just have an unencumbered view of space – we'll
have it," Shireman said.
4)
STS-131: Experiments in orbit
Currently
slated to launch on March 18, the shuttle Discovery will carry a cargo pod
designed to attach to the space station like an orbital walk-in closet so
astronauts can deliver a pantry full of supplies. U.S. Navy Capt. Alan
Poindexter will command the mission.
At the
heart of Discovery's space station deliveries is a set of experiment racks
containing new gear to observe how the bodies
of astronauts change in space, as well as observe the Earth far below.
A window
observational research platform will add cameras, sensitive scanners and other
sensors to the Earth-facing window in order to monitor climate changes, sea
formations and crop weather damage on a global scale. An exercise system rack
called MARES will also be packed aboard Discovery. It is designed to study how
human muscles atrophy in the weightlessness of space by measuring changes in
the strength of bones and muscles over time.
Discovery
will also deliver a sleeping berth the size of a phone booth that will serve as
station astronaut's bedroom, NASA officials have said.
3)
STS-132: An international affair
The shuttle
Atlantis is expected to end its spaceflying career with the STS-132 mission, a flight
that will deliver a new Russian room and European robotic arm to the space
station. Navy Capt. Ken Ham will command the flight.
Slated to
launch on May 14, the mission will deliver the Mini-Research Module 1 (MRM-1)
for Russia's Federal Space Agency. Despite its name, the module will actually
be Russia's second small addition to the station since its counterpart, MRM-2,
will launch atop an unmanned rocket in Fall 2009. Both mini-research modules
will be attached to different parts of the station's Russian-built segment and
double as docking ports for Russian spacecraft.
The extra
robotic arm aboard Atlantis was built for the station by the European Space
Agency (ESA). It is designed to pluck experiments out of a Russian airlock and
attach them outside the station, use infrared cameras to inspect the outpost's
exterior and help move astronauts into position during spacewalks, according to
the ESA officials.
The mission
will be the 32nd flight for Atlantis.
2)
STS-133: Spare part bonanza
Endeavour's
final flight is expected to ferry more vital spare parts to the International
Space Station as well as a cargo pod packed with supplies. The mission is
slated to launch on July 29.
"It isn't
glamorous, but it's really important for the space station to execute its
mission," Shireman said of the flight.
Chief among
the shuttle's cargo will be a debris shields for the station's Russian-built
Zvezda module and extra antennas for its S-band communications system. Extra
circuit breaker boxes, cooling system gear and a spare arm for Canada's
maintenance robot Dextre - a multi-limbed mechanical repairman - will also be
onboard mission managers said.
A series of
three spacewalks are scheduled to deliver the spare station gear. The mission
is also expected to test a new navigation sensor that could be tested on Orion.
It will be the 25th mission for Endeavour, which is NASA's youngest orbiter.
1)
STS-134: The billion-dollar experiment
In a fitting finale, NASA's last space shuttle flight will fly is expected to
be one that was never supposed to fly. It is STS-134, an extra mission tacked
on to fly a long-awaited Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer, a $1.5 billion particle
physics experiment that was shelved after the 2003 Columbia shuttle disaster.
The massive
spectrometer weighs a whopping seven tons and is designed to detect cosmic rays
and measure their charge, momentum and velocity.
The U.S. Department of Energy-led experiment includes 16 international
partners. Researchers hope the powerful spectrometer will be able to measure
antimatter and the remnants of the theoretical Big Bang that gave birth to the
universe.
The mission
is slated to launch on Sept. 16 aboard the Discovery orbiter - the oldest
remaining shuttle after the tragic losses of Challenger and Columbia in 1986
and 2003, respectively. It will mark an end to what will be just over 29 years
of U.S. space shuttle flight.
"I'm sure
it will be emotional," NASA's shuttle program manager John Shannon said in a
statement. "But I suspect that it will not be sadness over the passing of that
era, but happiness that we were a part of it."
The flight,
Discovery's 39th mission, will also mark the end
of construction for the International Space Station.
Assembly
began in 1998 with the launch of Russia's Zarya control module. When complete,
the station will contain large rooms and laboratories from the U.S., Russia, Japan
and Europe, a robotic arm and maintenance robot from Canada and draw power from
a set of expansive solar array that give the orbiting laboratory a wingspan
that could cover an American football field.
Even
unfinished, the space station can easily be spotted from Earth by the unaided
human eye.
"The
assembly of the space station could not have been done without the space
shuttle, and the assembly of the space station is one of the great engineering
achievements of mankind," Shannon said. "So the space shuttle will have done a
good job."
SPACE.com
is providing continuous coverage of STS-127 with reporter Clara Moskowitz at
Cape Canaveral and senior editor Tariq Malik in New York. Click here for mission
updates and SPACE.com's live NASA TV video feed. Live launch coverage
begins Sat. at 2:30 p.m. EDT (1830 GMT).
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