Updates STS-135 Updates

[Kyle]

For any naysayers still.. here's the press release.
Thu, 20 Jan 2011 12:20:22 PM CST

On Thursday, the Space Shuttle Program baselined the STS-135 mission for a target launch date of June 28. It is NASA’s intent to fly the mission with orbiter Atlantis carrying the Raffaello multipurpose logistics module to deliver supplies, logistics and spare parts to the International Space Station. The mission also will fly a system to investigate the potential for robotically refueling existing spacecraft and return a failed ammonia pump module to help NASA better understand the failure mechanism and improve pump designs for future systems.

In late December, the agency’s Space Operations Mission Directorate requested the shuttle and International Space Station programs take the necessary steps to maintain the capability to fly Atlantis on the STS-135 mission.

The Authorization Act of 2010 directs NASA to conduct the mission, and baselining the flight enables the program to begin preparations for the mission with a target launch date of June 28. The mission would be the 135th and final space shuttle flight.

Prepping for the next shuttle mission, STS-133, continues in the Vehicle Assembly Building at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida where technicians are making good progress in their work to modify the stringers on Discovery's external fuel tank. Discovery and its six astronauts are targeted to launch on the STS-133 mission to the International Space Station on Feb. 24.

Having been joined by their newest crew member, Steve Bowen, Discovery’s astronauts will review robotics procedures today and review spacewalk timelines at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston. Bowen, who flew into space on STS-132 in May 2010, will be the first astronaut to fly on consecutive missions.

 

[Unstung]

Goodbye, shuttle.
Like Apollo 17, the meaning of STS-135's patch signals the end of the program respectively. Apollo 17's was more hopeful for the future than just the end. STS-135's patch, on the other hand, is depressing.

 

[Yoda]

Personally I don't care for it nor what it stands for.

As a kid I watched apollo 11 land on the moon and I've followed every Apollo and every Shuttle flight since (yes i'm that old).
People back then had a drive, a passion and a vision for manned space flight.

I hate the fact that NASA no longer has that vision ( something that started with building a ISS that doesn't match what it was invisioned to do in the first place).
We spend most of our precious time repairing and updating a space station that completely misses it's potential and wasting billions of dollars that could have been spend in actual manned space exploration.

NASA's astronauts have become glorified plummers and electricians instead of the explorers they ought to be.

These days NASA is managed by a bunch of new age burocrats that are in need of growing some balls instead of beeing a watered down version of the people that NASA used to employ whom still looked up at the heavens and had a vision for man to travel into space.

The space shuttle program is coming to a end ( and I'm glad it does in the sense that we can finally put this delivery truck to rest); too bad we spend the last 30 years wasting our potential instead of focussing on actual manned exploration.

Just my two cents on the whole thing.....

By the way, compaired to previous mission patches this one sucks.... but I guess that's an appropriate way to demonstrate what NASA stand for these days...................

 

[GoForPDI]

Great tribute to the men and women who devoted, and even gave their lives to the Shuttle Programme there Yoda...

The Shuttle has provided 30 years worth of spaceflight experience that will prove critically useful to whoever makes that next endeavour to the space beyond LEO. We have a wonderful Space Station, it may not be ''what it said on the tin'', but a Space Station on that scale had never been built before, so how could it do all the things it said it could on paper? The Shuttle's great achievement was in its complexity and its design, its superiority to any spacecraft ever built, and it made its debut just 20 years after Yuri Gagarin sat inside a metal beach ball with antenna sticking out.

STS-135 will be very emotional, it will not just be the final flight of Atlantis, but the final flight of Enterprise, Columbia, Challenger, Discovery, Endeavour, and all those who devoted their lives to the programme, as well as those who gave their lives to it.

I'm not sure those people would agree that the last 30 years were wasted.

 

[Orbinaut Pete]

Yoda, I can't even begin to tell you how much I disagree with your point of view! :lol:

Firstly, I believe that NASA does have the vision to explore beyond LEO. Ask any NASA employee, and they will tell you that they think it's time to move beyond LEO and onto the next big thing. It's the politicians controlling the budget that don't share that opinion.

Secondly, the notion been banded around by some (well, mainly Buzz Aldrin) that we could be on Mars in 5 years is simply ludicrous. Going to Mars isn't simply going to be a scaled up version of Apollo - there's a whole host of other things that we need to learn about before we can safely and sustainably go there. I say safely and sustainably, because going there and planting a flag is one thing, but learning to live there and do research in that harsh environment is quite another. A mad dash across the solar system just to plant a flag, make a few footprints and come home again is not what humanity needs, even if it is what we want.

Everyone seems to have a fixation on HLVs at the moment, but they are only the first 10 minutes of what will be a 2.5 year journey. If we want to go to Mars, we need Earth-Mars transfer vehicles, we need regenerative life-support systems that make the systems on ISS look like high-school science projects, we need greenhouses or the ability to produce food, we need Mars descent vehicles, we need Mars surface habitats, we need Mars rovers, we need propellant manufacturing facilities, we need Mars ascent vehicles, we need Earth return vehicles. Who's working on that? This notion that a HLV will fix all is complete rubbish, in my opinion. We need an international effort, with each country taking a slice of the pie. We can test international collaboration on ISS - and, indeed, NASA is working on a docking system that will allow a spacecraft of any nation to dock with the ISS.

Back to my point, all the aforementioned stuff hasn't been tested in space before. And Mars is a long way to go to find out that our guesswork was wrong. Case in point, the ECLSS equipment on ISS has suffered many, many failures since it was installed in 2008, and it still isn't fully operational now. We've been flying up redesigned hardware on the Shuttle for the last two years. Now, imagine we set sail for Mars with our current ECLSS knowledge. By the time we'd reached the red planet, a significant portion of our ECLSS equipment would've failed. That would endanger the crew and the mission. We need ISS to give us the info we need on long-duration ECLSS equipment in space. And that is something NASA is actively looking at.

What I think people tend to forget is that everything on ISS is an experiment - not just the experiments themselves. Every docking, every battery change, every zero-G poop is an experiment. An experiment in how to run and operate a long-duration space vessel.

True, a lot of crew time is spent keeping the ISS operational - but that will be the same for any spacecraft in future. That's something else we can learn from ISS - how to design vehicles that require the minimum amount of crew support. You say that "NASA's astronauts have become glorified plumbers and electricians instead of the explorers they ought to be", but I ask you - what exactly is an explorer? Someone who can put one foot in front of another on a new planet? Well, anyone with a spacesuit and a rocket can do that. Learning how to run and operate vehicles in space is the key to moving beyond LEO. That's what we're testing on ISS.

The Russians built Mir, but there were so many problems with it that almost no research got done at all. The lessons from Mir were used to build ISS, and subsequently ISS does not suffer from the problems that Mir did. That is evolution, the same kind of evolution that will undoubtedly take place on the next generation deep space vehicle.

I suggest you have a read of this PDF document, and see the kind of things that are being planned for ISS - all of which are needed for future deep space exploration. Of course, all of it requires funding from politicians, who are probably more interested in answering the question "how many jobs will this bring to my state?".

 

[Phillips]

The space shuttle is a tribute to technology, many people lost their lives developing it, with STS-135, we must realize that the orbiter will come to a end, the next mission?
End of program.
Good bye shuttle, hello Orion, Shuttle-C, or whatever NASA plans for the future.

 

[GoForPDI]

Post-Shuttle will be a hell, I garuntee it.

The political wrangling, the waiting... the waiting...

 

[Orbinaut Pete]

NASA's STS-135 Image Gallery is now online! :woohoo:

 

[GoForPDI]

Excellent! God, its gonna be really weird seeing just four crew members.

I vow to follow the next three shuttle missions in down right nosy fashion!

 

[Orbinaut Pete]

"The Final Four."

Hi-res version.

 

[orb]

NASASpaceflight: NASA managers insist STS-135 will fly – Payload options under assessment:

As the future of NASA’s budget finds itself under scrutiny again this week, managers have told their workforce that STS-135 will fly “regardless” of what happens with the funding situation via the Continuing Resolution (CR). Atlantis’ preparations for the final flight of the Space Shuttle are continuing without issue, as managers debate the payloads which will ride to the International Space Station (ISS).

{...}

 

[Kyle]

Funding if not provided from Congress will be provided internally from another NASA program.

The battle for STS-135 is won. We've got 3 more shuttle missions to look forward too.

 

[orb]

Aviation Week: Extra Shuttle Mission Favored Date Moves Up:

HOUSTON — Internal NASA thinking on the timing of the agency’s hoped-for STS-135 space shuttle mission using the Atlantis orbiter has taken a U-turn, with most now favoring the manifested June 28 launch date.

The 11-day supply mission to the International Space Station would mark the end of the 30-year shuttle program. Until recently, NASA station program officials were urging a slip toward late August to ensure the orbiting science laboratory was sufficiently provisioned to support a six-member crew for up to a year, in case U.S. commercial cargo providers face delays in their initial missions. However, with the fiscal 2011 budget still in flux, the June 28 launch date has become much more attractive, according to one of those involved in the NASA planning.

The STS-135 mission’s viability could be jeopardized if the White House and Congress are unable to agree on a continuing resolution to keep the federal government running beyond March 4, the official says. A shutdown would force all but essential government personnel from working until agreement on a new spending plan is reached.

{...}

 

[C3PO]

They should include a MMU as a payload. The coolness factor would be out of this world. :lol:

But seriously, the MMU is in the top 3 most "popular" NASA item amongst non-spacebuffs. The other two being Hubble and the STS orbiters. The shot of McCandless during STS-41-B has overtaken the Apollo XI photo of Buzz as the most reproduced NASA image. And it is the most popular NASA item that has never failed.
Even if it isn't very useful around the ISS, the PR value would be huge. NASA needs all the PR victories it can get, and one MMU (I think it's #3) is still in storage somewhere.

 

[orb]

NASASpaceflight: STS-135: Atlantis in smooth flow as ET-138 undergoes mods – Hale on stringers:

Atlantis is continuing to enjoy a smooth processing flow inside her Orbiter Processing Facility (OPF-2) for the late June STS-135 mission, while her External Tank (ET-138) undergoes radius block modifications to avoid the potential of cracks forming in the intertank stringers. Former SSP manager Wayne Hale also noted the observation of such cracks is a classic example of a challenge for what is still an experimental vehicle.

{...}

 

[Orbinaut Pete]

The STS-135 crew portrait and poster is now being previewed on collectSPACE.

It's simple, but I like it.

 

[Orbinaut Pete]

Lots of cool STS-135 news today!

Just finished undock training. ISS will be in an unusual attitude so we will get some unique views and pictures.

Sounds very cool! :thumbup:

 

[clickypens]

what attitude will the ISS be in? how is it different from normal?

 

[orb]

NASASpaceflight: STS-135: Final shuttle mission preparing for SRB stacking – Mission tweaking:

Preparations for Atlantis’ honor of rounding off the 30 year long Space Shuttle program are proceeding to plan, with processing about to enter the latest milestone of Solid Rocket Booster (SRB) stacking inside the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB). Minor alterations to the mission content – as is normal for this stage in the planning – are also taking place at the Program level.

STS-135 Processing Latest:

Atlantis is currently in the final stages of her final Orbiter Processing Facility (OPF) flow for flight, with preparations taking place for rollover. This includes closeouts and pre-mate testing for Atlantis’ Multi-Purpose Logistics Module (MPLM) payload.

{...}

Most of the hardware processing is taking place in the VAB, with the Mobile Launch Platform (MLP) inside High Bay 1 (HB-1) for the start of SRB stacking, which is scheduled to begin on Tuesday, March 29.

Currently, the Left and Right Aft Boosters have been lifted from the build-up stands in the Rotation Processing and Surge Facility (RPSF) to pallets in preparation for transfer to the VAB for stacking. The D Platform has been extended to support SRB stacking optics, with the operation scheduled to begin with the Left Aft Booster buildup.

Over in High Bay 2E (HB-2E) checkout cell, ET-138 is continuing to undergo radius block modifications to its LO2 flange intertank stringers, a mitigation procedure used to avoid cracks forming in the stringers during the cryo cycle of tanking, pressurization and ascent environments.

{...}

At present, engineers have successfully installed all of the radius blocks around the circumference of the intertank, with Thermal Protection System (TPS) foam spraying and trimming currently in work. This is expected to be completed sometime next week.

{...}

ET-138 will undergo a Tanking Test shortly after arrival at launch pad 39A, although it is unlikely the stack will then be rolled back to the VAB for Non Destructive Evaluations (NDE) of stringers unless driven by data from the test itself.

{...}

what attitude will the ISS be in? how is it different from normal?

{...}

It is also understood that some unique views of the International Space Station (ISS) will be observed during Atlantis’ undocking from the orbital outpost, given the Station will be in a different attitude than normal during the flyaround.

The ISS’ attitude will be under a yaw of 90 degrees, placing the Y-axis in the Velocity Vector (+/-YVV). As a result, this will provide some unique side-on views of ISS during Atlantis’ post-undocking manuever.

{...}

 

[Kyle]

STS-135 crew photo now released by NASA: