Monday, November 30, 2009

Space shuttle Atlantis and its crew of seven astronauts

Space shuttle Atlantis and its crew of seven astronauts ended an 11-day journey with a 9:44 a.m. EST landing at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Atlantis flew 171 orbits around Earth and traveled 4,490,138 miles since its Nov. 16 launch.

The STS-129 mission included three spacewalks and the installation of two platforms to the International Space Station's truss, or backbone. The platforms hold large spare parts to sustain station operations after the shuttles are retired.

The shuttle crew delivered about 30,000 pounds of replacement parts for systems that provide power to the station, keep it from overheating, and maintain a proper orientation in space. The shuttle left the space station 86 percent complete, weighing 759,222 pounds.

Astronaut Nicole Stott returned to Earth after 91 days in space. She had spent 87 days aboard the space station and 80 days as an Expedition 20/21 flight engineer. She is the last astronaut who will be transported to or from the space station by the space shuttle.

Atlantis' main gear touched down at 9:44:23 a.m., followed by the nose gear at 9:44:36 and wheel stop at 9:45:05 a.m.

STS-129 was the 129th space shuttle mission, the 31st for Atlantis and the 31st shuttle mission to the International Space Station. It was the fifth and final flight of 2009.

Sunday, November 29, 2009

Planning Your Trip

Full-size replica of Space Shuttle orbiterLocated on the east coast of Florida approximately midway between Jacksonville and Miami, the Center represents a marriage of technology and nature at its best. Kennedy shares its property with the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge, and in 1975, nearly half of the Space Center was designated by Congress as part of the Canaveral National Seashore.

Image to left: A full-size replica of a Space Shuttle Orbiter and genuine solid rocket boosters and external tank are on display at the Visitor Complex. Credit: NASA

When you explore Kennedy, you will get a good look at how the Space Shuttle is processed today. A trip to the Air Force Museum at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station will take you back to NASA's beginnings and past the launch structures that were used to launch the Mariner, Explorer, Viking, and Voyager spacecraft to the planets. And as you watch future launches and landings, you can remember back to the day you explored Kennedy Space Center. If you would like to receive Shuttle Status Reports and Kennedy news releases via e-mail to aid in planning your trip, join our electronic subscription service.

Mad Mission to Mars 2025 attractionA Journey through Time
Already rich in history, the Kennedy story continues unfolding with each Space Shuttle and International Space Station mission. You can witness history in the making as NASA plans and prepares for returning humans to the Moon and sending robotic explorers deep into our galaxy. See the stories unfold on our gigantic five-and-a-half story IMAX movie screens. Walk through a full-scale replica of a Shuttle orbiter. See real Moon rocks and rockets used to launch man and machine into Space.

Image to right: A popular exhibit at the KSC Visitor Complex, the Mad Mission to Mars 2025, is a live-action stage show that combines stereoscopic 3-D computer animation and spectacular theatrical effects. Credit: NASA

The Space Coast
Kennedy Space Center is located about 35 miles east of Orlando International Airport in Brevard County, Florida. We've provided maps and directions to KSC from Orlando, Miami, and Jacksonville.

Attractions
Visitors can expect to dedicate at least one day exploring the Visitor Complex, enjoying its Rocket Garden, IMAX movies, space history exhibits, a full-sized walk-through Space Shuttle display, bus tours, restaurants, gift shops, the Apollo/Saturn V facility and the Astronaut Hall of Fame.

Other space-related attractions available nearby include the Astronaut Memorial Planetarium and Observatory at Brevard Community College in Cocoa and the U.S. Space Walk of Fame in Titusville.

Launch Viewing
If you will be in Florida during a Shuttle launch, you have two options for launch viewing. You may purchase Launch Transportation Tickets from the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex. There are also many prime viewing areas outside of the space center. For more details, visit our special sections for viewing Space Shuttle launches and landings and viewing rocket launches.

STS-129 Post-landing Crew Conference

Commander Charles O. Hobaugh took the lead describing how well Atlantis performed from launch to landing, and the incredible amount of work that went into preparing both the shuttle and the crew for this ambitious mission.

Hobaugh proudly introduced his crew and the tasks each member was responsible for. He mentioned Mission Specialist Randy Bresnik was not present at the briefing because he flew home to be with his wife and new baby girl, born while he was still on orbit.

Nicole Stott is doing really well, said Hobaugh, after her 91 days in space, 80 of them as flight engineer. She's enjoying Thanksgiving dinner with her family.

Mission Specialist Robert L. Satcher Jr. remarked that the training the crew members received helped them deal with the false alarms that went off a few times during their stay on the orbiting outpost.

After being asked if there were any memories that stood out, Pilot Barry E. Wilmore jokingly said, "I feel great (but) I had noticed that many of the buildings here are on a little bit of a teeter-totter that I didn't know before." Wilmore was referring to coming back to Earth's gravity after being weightless in space.

The crew members fly back to NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston on Saturday. They’ll have the traditional Houston homecoming celebration on Monday.

Touch Down!


Streams of smoke trail from the main landing gear tires as space shuttle Atlantis touches down on Runway 33 at the Shuttle Landing Facility at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida after 11 days in space, completing the 4.5-million-mile STS-129 mission on orbit 171. On STS-129, the crew delivered 14 tons of cargo to the International Space Station, including two ExPRESS Logistics Carriers containing spare parts to sustain station operations after the shuttles are retired next year.

Friday, November 27, 2009

Atlantis races down the runway

braking parachute is deployed as the shuttle Atlantis races down the runway

Launched to the lab in August, Stott made the trip back to Earth resting on her back in a recumbent seat on the shuttle's lower deck to ease her return to gravity after 91 days in orbit.

Flight surgeons were standing by to help her off the shuttle and carry out initial medical checks before accompanying her to crew quarters for a more detailed exam. Looking comfortable and in good spirits, she told a NASA interviewer a few hours later that while her vestibular system had not yet re-adapted to gravity, she was in good shape and glad to be home.

"As you move, everything else seems to be moving around you," she said. "And it's not a spinning, dizzy feel, it's more if I get up, then everything else seems to want to move up. ... But other than that, the main thing was when they opened the hatch, it smelled like fresh, clean, fall air. And that was really nice."

Her husband and 7-year-old son were on hand to welcome her back to Earth and "I have the promise of a Coca-Cola with crushed ice in a styrofoam cup and some good food, Thanksgiving left overs, waiting for me upstairs. There are also nice, warm showers here so that's a definite luxury I think I will enjoy for some time."

Stott, Hobaugh, Wilmore, Melvin, Foreman, and Satcher planned to fly back to Houston early Saturday. Bresnik, whose wife Rebecca gave birth to the couple's second child on Saturday, flew home right away aboard a NASA training jet to meet his daughter for the first time.

Space shuttle Atlantis lands on runway

Space shuttle Atlantis and its crew of seven astronauts ended an 11-day journey with a 9:44 a.m. EST landing at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Atlantis flew 171 orbits around Earth and traveled 4,490,138 miles since its Nov. 16 launch.

The STS-129 mission included three spacewalks and the installation of two platforms to the International Space Station's truss, or backbone. The platforms hold large spare parts to sustain station operations after the shuttles are retired.

The shuttle crew delivered about 30,000 pounds of replacement parts for systems that provide power to the station, keep it from overheating, and maintain a proper orientation in space. The shuttle left the space station 86 percent complete, weighing 759,222 pounds.

Astronaut Nicole Stott returned to Earth after 91 days in space. She had spent 87 days aboard the space station and 80 days as an Expedition 20/21 flight engineer. She is the last astronaut who will be transported to or from the space station by the space shuttle.

Atlantis' main gear touched down at 9:44:23 a.m., followed by the nose gear at 9:44:36 and wheel stop at 9:45:05 a.m.

STS-129 was the 129th space shuttle mission, the 31st for Atlantis and the 31st shuttle mission to the International Space Station. It was the fifth and final flight of 2009.

NASA UPDATES: NASA proposes robotic rocket-plane to explore Mars

NASA proposes robotic rocket-plane to explore Mars

The Aerial Regional-scale Environmental Surveyor (Ares), around the dimension of a little plane, will be folded into a rocket and launched to the red planet. It will be the first aircraft ever to take wing over another world.

After entering the atmosphere in a capsule, the aircraft will deploy the parachutes and unfold its wings and tail, before firing its rocket motor and flying around a mile over the surface of Mars for about an hour and a quarter.



The idea is that an atmospheric craft similar to Ares can explore far more ground than existing rovers, similar to Spirit and Phoenix, but in much more detail than an orbital spacecraft. It is hoped that it may possibly cover as much as 600 square miles in its short flight.

While the idea was tabled several years ago, with suggestions it might even have launched by 2007, no progress has so far been made.

On the other hand, NASA has issued a "teaming opportunity", offering private companies and designers the opportunity to help create the craft.

The team behind the concept hopes that it would be accepted as one of the space agency’s "Discovery" missions, aimed at swiftly as well as (relatively) inexpensively exploring other worlds in our solar system.

Other recent proposals that been proposed for Discovery include a nuclear-powered robot sailing-boat to plough the seas of Saturn’s moon Titan.

Likewise, a proposal by scientists at the California Institute of Technology has suggested that armies of flying, sailing and driving robots will one day explore other planets.

Space Shuttle Mission: STS-129


Crew Begins Landing Day
The crew of space shuttle Atlantis has begun what is scheduled to be the STS-129 mission’s landing day.

Atlantis will be bringing home Mission Specialist and former Expedition 20 and 21 Flight Engineer Nicole Stott, who spent 87 days on the International Space Station. Her return brings to an end nearly a decade of space shuttle use to rotate crew on the station.

With the weather in Florida looking perfect for a landing, Atlantis’ first opportunity is at Kennedy Space Center on orbit 171. It would see a deorbit burn at 8:37 a.m. EST. Landing would be at 9:44 a.m.

Atlantis is winding up a mission that included three spacewalks and more than six days at the International Space Station. The orbiter took 14 tons of cargo in its payload bay, including two large carriers with spare parts to sustain station operations after the shuttles are retired next year, to the orbiting laboratory.

Tuesday at 10 a.m., European Space Agency astronaut Frank De Winne handed over command of the station to NASA astronaut Jeff Williams. De Winne and Expedition 21 Flight Engineers Roman Romanenko and Robert Thirsk are scheduled to leave the station for return to Earth in a Soyuz capsule on Nov. 30.

Thursday, November 26, 2009

The Way Home


Seen over the Mediterranean Sea, near the Algerian coast, the space shuttle Atlantis is featured in this image photographed by the Expedition 21 crew on the International Space Station soon after the shuttle and station began their post-undocking separation. Undocking of the two spacecraft occurred at 4:53 a.m. EST on Nov. 25, 2009.

Gamma-ray Space Telescope

In Cygnus X-3, an accretion disk surrounding a black hole or neutron star orbits close to a hot, massive star. Gamma rays (purple, in this illustration) likely arise when fast-moving electrons above and below the disk collide with the star's ultraviolet light. Fermi sees more of this emission when the disk is on the far side of its orbit.

Brighter colors indicate greater numbers of gamma rays detected in this Fermi LAT view of a region centered on the position of Cygnus X-3 (circled). The brightest sources are pulsars

This image locates the view around Cygnus X-3 within Fermi's all-sky map.

World on the Latest Climate Science


View of the Earth as seen by the Apollo 17 crew traveling toward the moon


A new global scientific synthesis report prepared by 26 of the world's top climate scientists, including JPL research scientist Eric Rignot and NASA Goddard Space Flight Center researcher Robert Bindschadler, concludes that several important aspects of climate change are occurring at the high end of, or even beyond the expectations of just a few years ago.

The report, "The Copenhagen Diagnosis: Updating the World on the Latest Climate Science," documents key findings in climate change science since December 2005. That was the cutoff for scientific inputs used to prepare the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Fourth Assessment Report, released in 2007.

NASA Prepares for New Juno Mission to Jupiter


WASHINGTON -- NASA is officially moving forward on a mission to conduct an unprecedented, in-depth study of Jupiter.

Called Juno, the mission will be the first in which a spacecraft is placed in a highly elliptical polar orbit around the giant planet to understand its formation, evolution and structure. Underneath its dense cloud cover, Jupiter safeguards secrets to the fundamental processes and conditions that governed our early solar system.

"Jupiter is the archetype of giant planets in our solar system and formed very early, capturing most of the material left after the sun formed," said Scott Bolton, Juno principal investigator from the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. "Unlike Earth, Jupiter's giant mass allowed it to hold onto its original composition, providing us with a way of tracing our solar system's history."

The spacecraft is scheduled to launch aboard an Atlas rocket from Cape Canaveral, Fla., in August 2011, reaching Jupiter in 2016. The spacecraft will orbit Jupiter 32 times, skimming about 4,800 kilometers (3,000 miles) over the planet's cloud tops for approximately one year. The mission will be the first solar powered spacecraft designed to operate despite the great distance from the sun.

"Jupiter is more than 644 million kilometers (400 million miles) from the sun or five times further than Earth," Bolton said. "Juno is engineered to be extremely energy efficient."

The spacecraft will use a camera and nine science instruments to study the hidden world beneath Jupiter's colorful clouds. The suite of science instruments will investigate the existence of an ice-rock core, Jupiter's intense magnetic field, water and ammonia clouds in the deep atmosphere, and explore the planet's aurora borealis.

"In Greek and Roman mythology, Jupiter's wife Juno peered through Jupiter's veil of clouds to watch over her husband's mischief," said Professor Toby Owen, co-investigator at the University of Hawaii in Honolulu. "Our Juno looks through Jupiter's clouds to see what the planet is up to, not seeking signs of misbehavior, but searching for whispers of water, the ultimate essence of life."

Understanding the formation of Jupiter is essential to understanding the processes that led to the development of the rest of our solar system and what the conditions were that led to Earth and humankind. Similar to the sun, Jupiter is composed mostly of hydrogen and helium. A small percentage of the planet is composed of heavier elements. However, Jupiter has a larger percentage of these heavier elements than the sun.

"Juno's extraordinarily accurate determination of the gravity and magnetic fields of Jupiter will enable us to understand what is going on deep down in the planet," said Professor Dave Stevenson, co-investigator at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. "These and other measurements will inform us about how Jupiter's constituents are distributed, how Jupiter formed and how it evolved, which is a central part of our growing understanding of the nature of our solar system."

Deep in Jupiter's atmosphere, under great pressure, hydrogen gas is squeezed into a fluid known as metallic hydrogen. At these great depths, the hydrogen acts like an electrically conducting metal which is believed to be the source of the planet's intense magnetic field. Jupiter also may have a rocky solid core at the center.

"Juno gives us a fantastic opportunity to get a picture of the structure of Jupiter in a way never before possible," said James Green, director of NASA's Planetary Division at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "It will allow us to take a giant step forward in our understanding on how giant planets form and the role that plays in putting the rest of the solar system together. "

The Juno mission is the second spacecraft designed under NASA's New Frontiers Program. The first was the Pluto New Horizons mission, launched in January 2006 and scheduled to reach Pluto's moon Charon in 2015. The program provides opportunities to carry out several medium-class missions identified as top priority objectives in the Decadal Solar System Exploration Survey, conducted by the Space Studies Board of the National Research Council in Washington.

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., manages the Juno mission. Lockheed Martin of Denver is building the spacecraft. The Italian Space Agency is contributing an infrared spectrometer instrument and a portion of the radio science experiment.

For more information about the Juno mission, visit: http://juno.nasa.gov

Examining 'Marquette Island'


NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity used the wire brush of its rock abrasion tool during the rover's 2,070th Martian day, or sol (Nov. 19, 2009), to scour dust from a circular target area on a rock called "Marquette Island." The brushed target area, called "Peck Bay," is visible as a dark circle about 5 centimeters (2 inches) in diameter just below the tool turret at the end of the rover's robotic arm in this image. The image was taken later the same sol by the rover's front hazard-avoidance camera.

Opportunity is performing an extensive analysis of this rock, which initial investigation suggests may be a stony meteorite.

Thin Blue Line


The thin line of Earth's atmosphere and the setting sun are featured in this image photographed by the crew of the International Space Station while space shuttle Atlantis on the STS-129 mission was docked with the station.

Wednesday, November 25, 2009

Space shuttle Atlantis

Space shuttle Atlantis and its seven-astronaut crew undocked from the International Space Station at 4:53 a.m. EST. Pilot Barry Wilmore piloted Atlantis during its flyaround of the station.

Tuesday at 10 a.m., European Space Agency astronaut Frank De Winne handed over command of the station to NASA astronaut Jeff Williams. De Winne and Expedition 21 Flight Engineers Roman Romanenko and Robert Thirsk are scheduled to leave the station for return to Earth in a Soyuz capsule on Nov. 30.

Tuesday, November 24, 2009

A Different View of the STS-129 mission


On flight day four of the STS-129 mission, a member of the crew photographed the aft section of space shuttle Atlantis through a window from aboard the International Space Station. Reflections on the window are visible in this image. The 11-day shuttle mission continued maintenance and upgrades to the orbital outpost.

Space shuttle Atlantis

Shuttle and Station Crews Bid Farewell

Space shuttle Atlantis’ astronauts said farewell to the International Space Station’s crew at 12:43 p.m. EST and crossed the threshold into the shuttle. Next the crews will close the hatches that divide the two spacecraft. Once the hatches are closed, the shuttle crew will set up and check out tools and a camera needed for undocking tomorrow.

Earlier, Commander Charles Hobaugh, Pilot Barry Wilmore and Mission Specialists Leland Melvin, Mike Foreman, Randy Bresnik, Robert Satcher Jr. and Nicole Stott joined European Space Agency astronaut Frank De Winne and the Expedition 21 crew when he ceremonially handed over command of the station to NASA astronaut Jeff Williams.

On Sunday, Bresnik told the flight controllers his new daughter, Abigail Mae Bresnik, had been born in Houston at 11:04 p.m. CST Saturday. He said his wife Rebecca and new daughter, 6 pounds, 13 ounces and 20 inches long, were doing well. Bresnik got the news by private phone patch through mission control shortly after the crew was awakened.

Monday, November 23, 2009

Mike Foreman

Astronaut Mike Foreman performed tasks on the exterior of the International Space Station during the second spacewalk of the STS-129 mission to the orbital outpost. Astronauts Foreman and Randy Bresnik were in the midst of the second of three scheduled spacewalks for this shuttle crew, working in cooperation with the five current crewmembers for the orbital outpost and with their five Atlantis crewmates.

final spacewalk


Astronauts Randy Bresnik and Robert Satcher Jr. completed all their tasks during the third and final spacewalk scheduled during Atlantis’ mission to the International Space Station. It ended at 2:06 p.m. EST, lasting five hours and 42 minutes.

Inside the station astronauts Leland Melvin and Barry Wilmore operated the station’s Canadarm2, which played a major role in the spacewalk’s first and most lengthy task -- the installation of a 6.2-foot-long, 1,240-pound high-pressure oxygen tank. The arm lifted the tank from Express Logistics Carrier 2 (ELC2) and took it to the airlock, where it was attached.

While Satcher worked on early steps of the tank move, Bresnik got a materials experiment from Atlantis’ cargo bay and installed it on ELC2. The two also removed some debris shields from outside the airlock and strapped them to an external stowage platform.

Robert Satcher's Self-Portrait


Astronaut Robert Satcher uses a digital still camera to expose take a self-portrait during the STS-129 mission's first spacewalk. During the six-hour, 37-minute spacewalk, Satcher and astronaut Mike Foreman installed a spare S-band antenna structural assembly to the Z1 segment of the station's truss, or backbone. Satcher and Foreman also installed a set of cables for a future space-to-ground antenna on the Destiny laboratory and replaced a handrail on the Unity node with a new bracket used to route an ammonia cable that will be needed for the Tranquility node when it is delivered next year. The two spacewalkers also repositioned a cable connector on Unity, checked S0 truss cable connections and lubricated latching snares on the Kibo robotic arm and the station's mobile base system.

Friday, November 20, 2009

Robotics and Spacewalk Today

False depressurization caution alarms sounded on the International Space Station last night just after 8:30 p.m. EST waking the shuttle and station crew. The flight control teams on the ground were able to determine there was no depressurization occurring. The crew was never in any danger and ventilation fans were shutoff as a precaution. That shutoff kicked up dust that resulted in a fire alarm in the European Columbus laboratory also sounding.

By 9:15 p.m., the flight control teams in Houston were working to bring the station back into its normal configuration, and Atlantis’ crew was told it could go back to sleep. The space station crew members were required to stay up a bit longer as the station’s ventilation system was reactivated. That work took a little over an hour, after which the station crew was able to resume its sleep period as well. Flight control teams are looking into the cause of the initial false alarm.

Thursday, November 19, 2009

A Partial View - Nasa Space Station


Backdropped by the blackness of space, a partial view of Space Shuttle Atlantis' payload bay, vertical stabilizer, orbital maneuvering system pods and docking mechanism are featured in this image photographed by the STS-129 crew from an aft flight deck window.

The spacewalk began

Astronauts Busy Inside and Outside Station Today
Atlantis’ crew was awakened at 4:28 a.m. EST to the sound of The Newsboys’ song “In Wonder.” It was played for Mission Specialist Randy Bresnik, who is choreographing today’s spacewalk from inside the station.

The spacewalk began at 9:24 a.m. and is scheduled to last 6.5 hours. Mission Specialists Mike Foreman and Robert Satcher installed a spare S-band antenna structural assembly brought up in Atlantis’ cargo bay. The equipment is being stored on the Z1 segment of the station’s truss system, and to get it there Satcher rode the station’s robotic arm, driven by Mission Specialist Leland Melvin, Commander Charles Hobaugh and Pilot Barry Wilmore.

Meanwhile, inside the station, further work is going on to prepare the station for the arrival of the Tranquility node. Station Commander Frank De Winne and Flight Engineer Jeff Williams will be working at the port hatch of the Harmony node to rewire data, power and cooling lines and air flow connections that will be connected to Tranquility. Their task is also scheduled to take about 6.5 hours today. De Winne and Williams will continue working on the project over several days during the STS-129 mission.

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Space shuttle Atlantis

Space shuttle Atlantis docked with the station at 11:51 a.m. EST.

After a series of leak checks that should take about two hours, the hatches between the two vehicles will be opened and the two crews will start their joint operations.

Space shuttle Atlantis is scheduled to dock to the station at 11:53 a.m. EST and deliver two pallets carrying more than 20,000 pounds worth of spare equipment too large to be launched into space aboard any other vehicle.

The morning focused on preparations for the rendezvous and docking to the station. Commander Charles Hobaugh and Pilot Barry Wilmore performed a few final corrective jet firings to refine the orbiter’s path to the station and position the vehicle for its rendezvous pitch maneuver 600 feet beneath the station.

Hobaugh will fly Atlantis ahead of the space station and slowly back it in for the docking to the station’s Harmony node. After a series of leak checks that should take about two hours, the hatches between the two vehicles will be opened and the two crews will start their joint operations.

Hatch opening will mark the end of Flight Engineer Nicole Stott’s two-and-a-half-month stint with the space station’s crew.

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

All 'SMILES' Aboard International Space Station in Wake of New Experiment

There's a new way to look at environmental issues on Earth -- from 210 miles up aboard the International Space Station -- and investigators are all "SMILES" with early results.

The SMILES experiment, more properly known as the Superconducting Submillimeter-wave Limb-emission Sounder, is investigating issues such as ozone depletion and air quality problems.

The experiment launched on the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency’s H-II Transfer Vehicle in September -- an unmanned cargo ship for station resupply. Housed on the Japanese Experiment Module's Exposed Facility, SMILES is gathering data on trace gases known to cause ozone depletion, such as chlorine and bromine compounds. The Exposed Facility provides a multipurpose platform where science experiments can be deployed and operated in open space. The observations are taken in the stratosphere, the region of the atmosphere six to 30 miles above the Earth's surface.

"Measurements of ozone and trace gases in the stratosphere from instruments such as SMILES are important for understanding the dynamics of Earth’s atmosphere," said Julie Robinson, International Space Station program scientist at Johnson Space Center in Houston.

The advantage of this experiment is the space station's power and payload resources, which enable researchers to test out new technologies. As a result, SMILES can measure precise molecules of trace atmospheric gases and obtain data about elements in quantities too small to be measured until now.

SMILES observations taken in October show that ozone amounts are greater around Earth's equatorial region than at higher latitudes, illustrating the characteristics of stratospheric ozone in its global distribution.

"This is just the beginning," said Takuki Sano, a member of the SMILES science team with the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency. "In due course, SMILES, with its full-scale observation, will contribute to the prediction of ozone depletion through analyses of the accumulated observation data, thus clarifying the influence the stratosphere has on the troposphere -- the lowest and most dense layer of the atmosphere 10 to 12 miles above the Earth’s surface."

Monitoring the Launch


NASA mission managers monitor the launch of the space shuttle Atlantis from Firing Room Four of the NASA Kennedy Space Center, Monday, Nov. 16, 2009. Shuttle Atlantis and its six-member crew are on an 11-day STS-129 mission to the International Space Station to transport spare hardware to the outpost and return a station crew member who spent more than two months in space.

Space Station Assembly



Russian Progress Spacecraft

The Progress resupply vehicle is an automated, unpiloted version of the Soyuz spacecraft that is used to bring supplies and fuel to the International Space Station. The Progress also has the ability to raise the Station's altitude and control the orientation of the Station using the vehicle's thrusters.

Image to right: A Progress spacecraft sits atop a Soyuz rocket at Baikonur Cosmodrome. Credit: NASA

Both the Progress M and M1 versions have a pressurized Cargo Module to carry supplies, a Refueling Module that holds fuel tanks containing propellant and pressurized gases, and an Instrumentation/Propulsion Module where the Progress systems equipment and thrusters are located.

The Progress spacecraft is launched to the Space Station from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan aboard a Soyuz rocket. It normally docks to the end of the Station's Zvezda Service Module, but it can also dock to the bottom of the Pirs Docking Compartment.

Cargo Module

The Progress Cargo Module -- which is similar in construction to the Soyuz Orbital Module -- can carry up to 1,700 kilograms (3,748 pounds) of supplies to the Space Station in a pressurized volume of about 6 cubic meters (212 cubic feet). Once the Progress docks with the Space Station, the crew enters the Cargo Module through the docking hatch.

After the cargo is removed and before the Progress undocks, the crew refills it with trash, unneeded equipment and wastewater, which will burn up with the spacecraft when it re-enters the Earth's atmosphere. The Cargo Module can hold 1,000 to 1,700 kilograms (2,205 to 3,748 pounds) of trash.


Refueling Module
In place of the Soyuz Descent Module, the Progress has a Refueling Module. The Progress M1 Refueling Module has eight propellant tanks that can hold up to 1,740 kilograms (3,836 pounds) of fuel, depending on how much weight is carried in the Cargo Module. Four of the tanks contain fuel, while the other four contain the fuel's oxidizer. The Progress M has four tanks -- two for fuel and two for oxidizer -- and two water tanks. The M1 has no water tanks.

The contents of the fuel and oxidizer tanks can be transferred to the Space Station's own propulsion system through fluid connectors in the docking ring. This propellant can also be used by the Progress' thrusters to boost the Station altitude or to change its orientation, or attitude, in space.

Instrumentation/Propulsion Module

This module contains the electronic equipment, or avionics, for the Progress' systems and sensors. It is similar in design to the Soyuz Instrumentation/Propulsion Module. Any fuel in this module that is not used to get the Progress to the Station or for undocking and deorbit can be used to boost the altitude of the Space Station. Surplus fuel amounts can vary from 185 to 250 kilograms (408 to 551 pounds).

Rendezvous, Docking and Undocking

The Progress normally takes two days to reach the Space Station. The rendezvous and docking are both automated, although once the spacecraft is within 150 meters (492 feet) of the Station, the Russian Mission Control Center just outside Moscow and the Station crew monitor the approach and docking.

The Progress uses an automated, radar-based system called Kurs to dock to the Station. The active portion of the Kurs is on the Progress and the passive equipment is on the Station. The Station crew can also dock the Progress using the TORU system, a backup remote control docking system in the Station's Zvezda Service Module.

Once the Progress is filled with trash, usually a day before the launch of the next Progress vehicle, the Station crew closes the hatches and initiates the undocking process. Once the Progress has undocked, the vehicle's thrusters are fired to maneuver it into an orbit that will send it into the Earth's atmosphere, where it will burn up on re-entry over the Pacific Ocean.

NASA Moon Mission Wins Second-Best of 'What's New' Award by Popular Science

The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) is cited as one of the best innovations in aviation in the December issue of Popular Science.

"It is an honor to be selected by Popular Science for Best of What’s New in aviation," said Craig Tooley, LRO project manager from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. "There was tremendous excitement about the United States returning to the moon after many years. I believe our selection is a result of that excitement."

Each year, the editors of Popular Science review thousands of products in search of the top 100 tech innovations of the year; breakthrough products and technologies that represent a significant leap in their categories. The winners -- the Best of What's New -- are awarded inclusion in the much-anticipated December issue of Popular Science, the most widely read issue of the year since the debut of Best of What's New in 1987. Best of What's New awards are presented to 100 new products and technologies in 11 categories: Automotive, Aviation and Space, Computing, Engineering, Gadgets, Green Technology, Home Entertainment, Security, Home Technology, Personal Health and Recreation.

"For 22 years, Popular Science has honored the innovations that surprise and amaze us -- those that make a positive impact on our world today and challenge our views of what’s possible in the future." said Mark Jannot, editor-in-chief of Popular Science. "The Best of What’s New Award is the magazine’s top honor, and the 100 winners -- chosen from among thousands of entrants -- represent the highest level of achievement in their fields."

LRO launched from Kennedy Space Center, Fla. on June 18, 2009. Since that time the spacecraft has completed calibration and commissioning. LRO has already begun its detailed survey of the moon. First results from the mission included -- new looks at the Apollo landing sites; indications that permanently shadowed and nearby regions may harbor water and hydrogen; observations that large areas in the permanently shadowed regions are colder than Pluto; and detailed information on terrain roughness.

LRO is scheduled for a one year exploration mission in a polar orbit about 31 miles above the lunar surface. During the next year, LRO will produce a complete map of the lunar surface in unprecedented detail, search for resources and potential safe landing sites for human explorers and measure lunar temperatures and radiation levels.

NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center built and manages the mission for the Exploration Systems Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. The Institute for Space Research, Moscow, provided the neutron detector aboard the spacecraft.

Monday, November 16, 2009

Ares I-X Flight Test

The Ares I-X Flight Test blasts off from the launch pad at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. Image Credit: Thilo Kranz, Deutsches Zentrum fur Luft-und Raumhahrt (German Space Agency)


Ares I-X, including the Upper Stage Simulator (USS) built at NASA’s Glenn Research Center, is illuminated the night before launch. Image Credit: Thilo Kranz, Deutsches Zentrum fur Luft-und Raumhahrt (German Space Agency)

NASA's Ares I-X Rocket Completes Successful Flight Test

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- NASA's Ares I-X test rocket lifted off at 11:30 a.m. EDT Wednesday from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida for a two-minute powered flight. The test flight lasted about six minutes from its launch from the newly-modified Launch Complex 39B until splash down of the rocket's booster stage nearly 150 miles down range.

"This is a huge step forward for NASA's exploration goals," said Doug Cooke, associate administrator for the Exploration Systems Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "Ares I-X provides NASA with an enormous amount of data that will be used to improve the design and safety of the next generation of American spaceflight vehicles -- vehicles that could again take humans beyond low Earth orbit."

The 327-foot tall Ares I-X test vehicle produced 2.6 million pounds of thrust to accelerate the rocket to nearly 3 g's and Mach 4.76, just shy of hypersonic speed. It capped its easterly flight at a sub-orbital altitude of 150,000 feet after the separation of its first stage, a four-segment solid rocket booster.

Parachutes deployed for recovery of the booster and the solid rocket motor will be recovered at sea for later inspection. The simulated upper stage, Orion crew module, and launch abort system will not be recovered.

"The most valuable learning is through experience and observation," said Bob Ess, Ares I-X mission manager. "Tests such as this -- from paper to flight -- are vital in gaining a deeper understanding of the vehicle, from design to development."

Wednesday's flight offered an early opportunity to test and prove hardware, facilities, and ground operations - important data for future space vehicles. During the flight, a range of performance data was relayed to the ground and also stored in the onboard flight data recorder. The 700 sensors mounted on the vehicle provide flight test engineering data to correlate with computer models and analysis. The rocket's sensors gathered information in several areas, including assembly and launch operations, separation of the vehicle's first and second stages, controllability and aerodynamics, the re-entry and recovery of the first stage and new vehicle design techniques.

The Ares I-X efforts are led by the Ares I-X mission management office of the Constellation Program, based at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, and NASA's Exploration Systems Mission Directorate in Washington. NASA's Glenn Research Center in Cleveland designed and built the vehicle's upper stage mass simulator. NASA's Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va., provided aerodynamic characterization, flight test vehicle integration and the crew module/launch abort system mass simulator. NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., with contractor support, provided management for the development of Ares I-X avionics, roll control, and first stage systems. The Kennedy Space Center provided operations and associated ground activities and launch operations.

Contractors for Ares I-X include Alliant Techsystems, or ATK, of Salt Lake City for the first stage solid rocket booster and Teledyne Brown Engineering of Huntsville for the roll control system. Jacobs Engineering of Tullahoma, Tenn., supported by Lockheed Martin of Denver, provided the avionics systems. United Space Alliance of Houston and ATK Launch Systems support the ground systems and launch operations.

Hosting Destruction


This artist's concept illustrates the two types of spiral galaxies that populate our universe: those with plump middles, or central bulges (upper left), and those lacking the bulge (foreground).

New observations from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope provide strong evidence that the slender, bulgeless galaxies can, like their chubbier counterparts, harbor supermassive black holes at their cores. Previously, astronomers thought that a galaxy without a bulge could not have a supermassive black hole. In this illustration, jets shooting away from the black holes are depicted as thin streams.

The findings are reshaping theories of galaxy formation, suggesting that a galaxy's "waistline" does not determine whether it will be home to a big black hole.

Friday, November 13, 2009

NASA finds water on the moon




WASHINGTON (AFP) – A "significant amount" of frozen water has been found on the moon, the US space agency said Friday heralding a giant leap forward in space exploration and boosting hopes of a permanent lunar base.

Preliminary data from a dramatic experiment on the moon "indicates the mission successfully uncovered water in a permanently shadowed lunar crater," NASA said in a statement.

"The discovery opens a new chapter in our understanding of the moon," it added, as ecstatic scientists celebrated the landmark discovery.

"Yes indeed we found water and we did not find only a little bit but a significant amount," said Anthony Colaprete, project scientist and principal investigator for the 79-million-dollar LCROSS mission.

The data was found after NASA sent two spacecraft crashing into the lunar surface last month in a dramatic experiment to probe Earth's nearest neighbor for water.

One rocket slammed into the Cabeus crater, near the lunar southern pole, at around 5,600 miles (9,000 kilometers) per hour.

Moon holds key to solar system's secrets

The rocket was followed four minutes later by a spacecraft equipped with cameras to record the impact which sent a huge plume of material billowing up from the bottom of the crater, untouched by sunlight for billions of years.

"In the 20 to 30 meter crater we found maybe about a dozen, at least, two-gallon buckets of water. This is an initial result," Colaprete told reporters.

"We are ecstatic," he added in a statement.

"Multiple lines of evidence show water was present in both the high angle vapor plume and the ejecta curtain created by the LCROSS Centaur impact.

"The concentration and distribution of water and other substances requires further analysis, but it is safe to say Cabeus holds water," Colaprete said.

Scientists had previously theorized that, except for the possibility of ice at the bottom of craters, the moon was totally dry.

Finding water on Earth's natural satellite is a major breakthrough in space exploration.

"It's very exciting, it is painting a new image of the moon," said Gregory Deloy, from the University of California hailing it as "an extraordinary discovery."

He theorized that "one of the possible source of water is a comet."

"We're unlocking the mysteries of our nearest neighbor and, by extension, the solar system," said Michael Wargo, chief lunar scientist at NASA headquarters in Washington.

"The full understanding of the LCROSS data may take some time. The data is that rich," Colaprete cautioned.

"Along with the water in Cabeus, there are hints of other intriguing substances. The permanently shadowed regions of the moon are truly cold traps, collecting and preserving material over billions of years."

Only 12 men, all Americans, have ever walked on the moon, and the last to set foot there were in 1972, at the end of the Apollo missions.

But NASA's ambitious plans to put US astronauts back on the moon by 2020 to establish manned lunar bases for further exploration to Mars under the Constellation project are increasingly in doubt.

NASA's budget is currently too small to pay for Constellation's Orion capsule, a more advanced and spacious version of the Apollo lunar module, as well as the Ares I and Ares V launchers needed to put the craft in orbit.

A key review panel appointed by President Barack Obama said existing budgets are not large enough to fund a return mission before 2020.


soucre : news.yahoo.com

Hosting Destruction


This artist's concept illustrates the two types of spiral galaxies that populate our universe: those with plump middles, or central bulges (upper left), and those lacking the bulge (foreground).

New observations from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope provide strong evidence that the slender, bulgeless galaxies can, like their chubbier counterparts, harbor supermassive black holes at their cores. Previously, astronomers thought that a galaxy without a bulge could not have a supermassive black hole. In this illustration, jets shooting away from the black holes are depicted as thin streams.

The findings are reshaping theories of galaxy formation, suggesting that a galaxy's "waistline" does not determine whether it will be home to a big black hole.

Thursday, November 12, 2009

Skirting an Obstacle


This view from the navigation camera on NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity shows tracks left by backing out of a wind-formed ripple after the rover's wheels had started to dig too deeply into the dust and sand of the ripple.

The frames combined into this view were taken on the 1,867th Martian day, or sol, of Opportunity's mission on Mars (April 25, 2009). The scene spans 120 degrees, from southeastward on the left to westward on the right.

Two sols earlier, Opportunity drove 310 feet south-southwestward before stopping when the rover detected that its wheels were slipping more than the limit that engineers had set for the drive. That Sol 1865 (April 23, 2009) drive created the tracks that enter this scene from the left and ended with wheels on the left side of the rover partially embedded in the ripple. On Sol 1866, Opportunity began to back away from this potential trap, but moved only about 11 inches. On Sol 1867, the rover backed up 12 feet before taking this picture. Subsequently, Opportunity proceeded on a path avoiding the ripple where the wheel slippage occurred.

For scale, the distance between the parallel wheel tracks is about about 40 inches). This view is presented as a cylindrical projection with geometric seam correction.

International Space Station

In a project known as Butterflies in Space, the Atlantis space shuttle will next week carry a butterfly habitat containing monarch and painted lady adults and larvae to the International Space Station.

The idea is that thousands of schoolkids across the US will be able to study the effects of space travel on the little astronauts, comparing them with examples reared in their own classroms. The children will be able to monitor their progress via still and video images.

"One of the most exciting things about this project is that we can use the International Space Station to bring spaceflight experiments into classrooms around the country," said BioServe Director Louis Stodieck, principal investigator on the project. "Our continuing goal is to inspire K-12 students around the country in science, technology, engineering and math."

The butterfly payload has been designed and built by BioServe Space Technologies in CU-Boulder's aerospace engineering department and will carry two butterfly habitats containing monarch and painted lady butterfly larvae and enough nectar and other food to support them as they develop.

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Atlantis space Station.

At NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, technicians at Launch Pad 39A begin work today to get space shuttle Atlantis' propulsion systems ready for flight to the International Space Station.
The shuttle's three main engines, as well as the orbital maneuvering system and reaction control system, which will be used to steer Atlantis in space, will start being pressurized for flight.

Techs also will complete installation of sensors and microphones in Atlantis' aft section today for the acoustic environment testing. Final systems checks in the shuttle's aft section are complete.

The STS-129 astronauts will fly to Kennedy tomorrow in NASA's Shuttle Training Aircraft. Landing at the Shuttle Landing Facility is expected around 12 p.m. EST. NASA TV will air the crew's arrival live on the Web at www.nasa.gov/ntv.

The countdown to launch begins 1 p.m. Friday.

Liftoff of Atlantis' 11-day cargo mission to the space station is set for 2:28 p.m. EST Nov. 16.

Atlantis and Crew Prepare for Flight

The STS-129 mission will be commanded by Charles O. Hobaugh and piloted by Barry E. Wilmore. Mission Specialists are Robert L. Satcher Jr., Mike Foreman, Randy Bresnik and Leland Melvin. Wilmore, Satcher and Bresnik will be making their first trips to space.

Atlantis and its crew will deliver two control moment gyroscopes, equipment and EXPRESS Logistics Carrier 1 and 2 to the International Space Station. The mission will feature three spacewalks.

Atlantis also will return station crew member Nicole Stott to Earth and is slated to be the final space shuttle crew rotation flight.

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Observatories Celebrate International Year of Astronomy

A never-before-seen view of the turbulent heart of our Milky Way galaxy is being unveiled by NASA on Nov. 10. This event will commemorate the 400 years since Galileo first turned his telescope to the heavens in 1609.

In celebration of this International Year of Astronomy, NASA is releasing images of the galactic center region as seen by its Great Observatories to more than 150 planetariums, museums, nature centers, libraries and schools across the country.

The sites will unveil a giant, 6-foot-by-3-foot print of the bustling hub of our galaxy that combines a near-infrared view from the Hubble Space Telescope, an infrared view from the Spitzer Space Telescope and an X-ray view from the Chandra X-ray Observatory into one multi-wavelength picture. Experts from all three observatories carefully assembled the final image from large mosaic photo surveys taken by each telescope. This composite image provides one of the most detailed views ever of our galaxy's mysterious core.

Participating institutions also will display a matched trio of Hubble, Spitzer and Chandra images of the Milky Way's center on a second large panel measuring 3 feet by 4 feet. Each image shows the telescope's different wavelength view of the galactic center region, illustrating not only the unique science each observatory conducts, but also how far astronomy has come since Galileo.

Monday, November 9, 2009

Kennedy Space Center Runway Than Shuttle Ops

Space shuttle Endeavour rolls down the Shuttle Landing Facility runway past the air traffic control tower. The tower is about 100 feet above the 3-mile-long runway and affords controllers working inside a clear view of the SLF and much of the Kennedy Space Center area. They also have radar and other technology to watch the airspace around the center


The Shuttle Landing Facility was the takeoff point for Steve Fossett's record-setting solo flight aboard the Virgin Atlantic GlobalFlyer.


Part of an air traffic controllers duties during launch and landing operations is coordinating the search-and-rescue teams and landing convoy that are on hand for potential shuttle work.


Air shows bring in the biggest variety of aircraft at once for the Shuttle Landing Facility. Here, an F-104 from Starfighters Inc., from bottom, two F-16s, an F-4 Phantom II and a pair of F-18s share the ramp at the SLF before a recent air show.

Since there is no weight limit on the SLF runway, it can host any aircraft in the world, no matter how big. Here, a European transport brings a module for the International Space Station so it can be processed and taken to the orbital laboratory by the space shuttle lear view of the SLF and much of the Kennedy Space Center area. They also have radar and other technology to watch the airspace around the center

Friday, November 6, 2009

Space Shuttle News

Less Than Two Weeks to Launch

At NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, Launch Pad 39A technicians are loading space shuttle Atlantis' two, mass-memory units today. Located in the middeck's two avionics bays, each reel-to-reel digital magnetic tape storage device holds basic flight software for the shuttle's general purpose computers and can store additional data.

Preparations for final ordnance installations and connections at the pad will begin today and are expected to wrap up this weekend.

At NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, the STS-129 mission's six astronauts will be given their L-10 physicals today. They'll also practice integrated entry procedures in Johnson's motion base simulator.

The STS-129 mission will be commanded by Charles O. Hobaugh and piloted by Barry E. Wilmore. Mission Specialists are Robert L. Satcher Jr., Mike Foreman, Randy Bresnik and Leland Melvin. Wilmore, Satcher and Bresnik will be making their first trips to space.

Atlantis and its crew will deliver two control moment gyroscopes, equipment and EXPRESS Logistics Carrier 1 and 2 to the International Space Station. The mission will feature three spacewalks.

Atlantis also will return station crew member Nicole Stott to Earth and is slated to be the final space shuttle crew rotation flight.

Thursday, November 5, 2009

A Feel for Astronomy

The field of astronomy is very visual and can be challenging to teach to people who are visually impaired. For more than a decade, David Hurd has embraced this challenge as a space science professor at Edinboro University of Pennsylvania. Hurd and his wife Robin have worked through his university and with NASA to develop tactile, or textured, products that can be used in teaching about space to students who are visually impaired.

"So much of space is still so visual and so out of reach for them," Hurd said.

Hurd and tactile engineer John Matelock began creating tactile astronomy tools because a student with a visual impairment signed up for Hurd's introductory astronomy course. The course was primarily visual and auditory -- students used the university's planetarium, where Hurd pointed to and described what was there. Hurd and Matelock created a tactile star chart and a planisphere, which is used for determining the positions of the stars at a given time. Over the years Hurd has built a library of tactile charts, graphs and models.

Robin Hurd said it helped that her husband and Matelock shared a passion about astronomy. "I have a feeling John (Matelock) stayed up till midnight some nights making tactiles because he was so excited to be doing something astronomy-related," she said.

One of the Hurds' star products is a Tactile Guide to the Solar System. The guide is based on an earlier version that originated with NASA scientist Steve Dwornik and was developed by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. and Cass Runyon, a professor at the College of Charleston in Charleston, S.C. The guide illustrates the comparative size and distance of the planets in the solar system. It also details the individual characteristics of each planet. The objects in the guide are not smooth, like a ball, but textured so students can understand that planets have unique surface features.

"One of our passions is to make these things feel like they look," said David. "The easy way to do tactile material is to outline it, make dots for sun spots or solar flares, but it really doesn't feel like it really looks. So we try to come up with creative ways to make our tactiles feel like the images look."

The Hurds used materials such as cork and sand to produce a three-dimensional mold, called a master, to make objects "feel as they look." For example, satellite pictures of the sun show the sun as fibrous and bubbly, Robin described. The Hurds created a sun out of Spanish moss to give it that fibrous, bubbly feel. "So that when you feel the sun, you actually perceive the texture and can relate it to the actual image of the sun. This helps 'viewers' realize it is not like a smooth ball," Robin said.

The Tactile Guide to the Solar System includes a CD with digital talking text. The CD works with text readers, which convert text to speech, and refreshable Braille technology, which converts text to Braille. The digital talking text allows users to access detailed information about each planet and NASA missions. The guide is part of the Lunar Nautics Toolkit, available through NASA's Central Operations of Resources for Educators, or CORE.

In addition to working with students with visual impairments at Edinboro University, Hurd has four sons, none of whom are blind but three of whom have other disabilities. The youngest two are identical twins with physical disabilities that affect their walking and speech. The Hurds' middle son has mild autism and problems with auditory processing, social cues and non-verbal signals. "On a personal level, our passion for meeting the needs of people with disabilities comes partially because of the learning differences we see in our own kids," Robin said.

The development of tactile materials is just another way of inspiring the next generation of explorers, David Hurd said. "The difference is we're inspiring explorers who were overlooked in the past, and that's what's really exciting about what we're doing."

Hurd and Matelock's early products were created through the university. Matelock has since retired from the university, and David and Robin Hurd now develop tactile products and teaching materials through AAC Core Concepts. AAC stands for Alternative and Augmentative Communication. The Tactile Guide to the Solar System was developed in cooperation with NASA in support of the agency's goal of engaging Americans in NASA's missions.

In May, David and Robin Hurd were invited to attend a NASA Education forum in conjunction with the launch of the STS-125 Hubble Servicing Mission. The STS-125 mission carried into space two Louis Braille Bicentennial Silver Dollar coins to recognize the critical role Braille plays in the pursuit of careers in math and science by the visually impaired. This commemorative coin, only available until Dec. 11, 2009, is the first U.S. coin to have readable Braille. As authorized by Congress, the United States Braille coin will fund efforts by the National Federation of the Blind to reverse the Braille literacy crisis in America. After Dec. 11, any unsold coins will be melted.

It was Hurd's first time to see a space shuttle launch in person. "Even though I'm in the fringe -- and most people are in the fringe when you go to something like that -- you feel like such a part," Hurd said about participating in the launch. "It takes everybody to make that happen, from the engineers to the astronauts themselves, from the business people to those involved with education and public outreach, from the school administration to the school teachers to the students.

"It was so neat to feel that kinship. Even though we couldn't be on board, we were part of that launch."

Space Shuttle Overview: Atlantis (OV-104)

NASA's fourth space-rated space shuttle, OV-104 "Atlantis," was named after the two-masted boat that served as the primary research vessel for the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute in Massachusetts from 1930 to 1966. The boat had a 17-member crew and accommodated up to five scientists who worked in two onboard laboratories, examining water samples and marine life. The crew also used the first electronic sounding devices to map the ocean floor.


Construction of the orbiter Atlantis began on March 3, 1980. Thanks to lessons learned in the construction and testing of orbiters Enterprise, Columbia and Challenger, Atlantis was completed in about half the time in man-hours spent on Columbia. This is largely attributed to the use of large thermal protection blankets on the orbiter's upper body, rather than individual tiles requiring more attention.

Weighing in at 151,315 pounds when it rolled out of the assembly plant in Palmdale, Calif., Atlantis was nearly 3.5 tons lighter than Columbia. The new orbiter arrived at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida on April 9, 1985, and over the next seven months was prepared for her maiden voyage.

Like her seafaring predecessor, orbiter Atlantis has carried on the spirit of exploration with several important missions of her own. On Oct. 3, 1985, Atlantis launched on her first space flight, STS-51-J, with a classified payload for the U.S. Department of Defense. The vehicle went on to carry four more DOD payloads on later missions.


Atlantis also served as the on-orbit launch site for many noteworthy spacecraft, including planetary probes Magellan and Galileo, as well as the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory. An impressive array of onboard science experiments took place during most missions to further enhance space research in low Earth orbit.

Starting with STS-71, Atlantis pioneered the Shuttle-Mir missions, flying the first seven missions to dock with the Russian space station. When linked, Atlantis and Mir together formed the largest spacecraft in orbit at the time. The missions to Mir included the first on-orbit U.S. crew exchanges, now a common occurrence on the International Space Station. On STS-79, the fourth docking mission, Atlantis ferried astronaut Shannon Lucid back to Earth after her record-setting 188 days in orbit aboard Mir.

In recent years, Atlantis has delivered several vital components to the International Space Station, including the U.S. laboratory module, Destiny, as well as the Joint Airlock Quest and multiple sections of the Integrated Truss structure that makes up the Station's backbone. As NASA seeks to fulfill the Vision for Space Exploration, beginning with the completion of the Station, Atlantis will be called upon for many missions to come.

Construction Milestones - OV-104

Jan. 29, 1979 Contract Award
March 30, 1980 Start structural assembly of crew module
Nov. 23, 1981 Start structural assembly of aft-fuselage
June 13, 1983 Wings arrive at Palmdale from Grumman
Dec. 2, 1983 Start of Final Assembly
April 10, 1984 Completed final assembly
March 6, 1985 Rollout from Palmdale
April 3, 1985 Overland transport from Palmdale to Edwards
April 9, 1985 Delivery to Kennedy Space Center
Sept. 5, 1985 Flight Readiness Firing
Oct. 3, 1985 First Flight (STS-51-J)

Upgrades and Features

By early 2005, Atlantis had undergone two overhauls known as Orbiter Maintenance Down Periods. Some of the most significant upgrades and new features included:
  • Installation of the drag chute
  • New plumbing lines and electrical connections configuring the orbiter for extended duration missions
  • New insulation for the main landing gear doors
  • Improved nosewheel steering
  • Preparations for the Mir Orbiter Docking System unit later installed at Kennedy
  • Installation of the International Space Station airlock and Orbiter Docking System
  • Installation of the Multifunction Electronic Display System, or "glass cockpit"