NASA's Shuttle Endeavour Heads To Space Station On Its Final Mission

Space shuttle Commander Mark Kelly and his five crewmates are on their way to the International Space Station after launching from NASA's Kennedy Space Center at 8:56 a.m. EDT Monday. The STS-134 mission is the penultimate orbiter flight and the final one for shuttle Endeavour. "This mission represents the power of teamwork, commitment and exploration," Commander Mark Kelly said shortly before liftoff. "It is in the DNA of our great country to reach for the stars and explore. We must not stop. To all the millions watching today including our spouses, children, family and friends, we thank you for your support." The crew will deliver the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer-2 (AMS) and critical supplies to the space station, including two communications antennas, a high-pressure gas tank and additional parts for the Dextre robot.

AMS is a particle physics detector designed to search for various types of unusual cosmic matter. The crew also will transfer Endeavour's orbiter boom sensor system to the station, where it could assist spacewalkers as an extension for the station's robotic arm. "Today's final launch of Endeavour is a testament to American ingenuity and leadership in human spaceflight," NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said. "As we look toward a bright future with the International Space Station as our anchor and new destinations in deep space on the horizon, we salute the astronauts and ground crews who have ensured the orbiter's successful missions. The presence of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords at the launch inspired us all, just as America's space program has done for the past 50 years."

Kelly's crewmates are Pilot Greg H. Johnson and Mission Specialists Mike Fincke, Drew Feustel, Greg Chamitoff and Roberto Vittori of the European Space Agency. This is the first shuttle flight for Fincke and Vittori. Vittori will be the last international astronaut to fly aboard a shuttle. Endeavour is scheduled to dock to the station at 6:15 a.m. on Wednesday. The 16-day mission includes four spacewalks. After undocking to return to Earth, Kelly and Johnson will ease the shuttle back toward the station to test new sensor technologies that could facilitate the docking of future space vehicles to the station. The shuttle's first landing opportunity at Kennedy is scheduled for 2:32 a.m. on June 1. STS-134 is the 134th shuttle flight, the 25th flight for Endeavour and the 36th shuttle mission dedicated to station assembly and maintenance.

Two Events Commemorate 50th Anniversary of U.S. Human Spaceflight

NASA Administrator Charles Bolden will commemorate the 50th anniversary of the first U.S. manned spaceflight during two events this week around the agency's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. NASA Television will carry both events live. On Wednesday, May 4, at 2 p.m. EDT, the U.S. Postal Service will unveil two new stamps at the Rocket Garden of the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex, located on State Road 405. Journalists interested in covering the event should contact Andrea Farmer at 321-449-4318 or Jillian McRae at 321-449-4273. Media need to arrive at least 30 minutes before the start of the ceremony.

One stamp commemorates NASA's Project Mercury and Alan Shepard's historic launch on May 5, 1961 aboard the spacecraft Freedom 7. The second stamp honors NASA's MESSENGER, which reached Mercury in March to become the first spacecraft to orbit the planet. The two missions frame a remarkable 50-year period in which America advanced space exploration through more than 1,500 manned and unmanned flights. Mercury astronaut Scott Carpenter and members of the Shepard family will join Bolden at the stamps' unveiling and at a 50th anniversary ceremony on Thursday, May 5, at 9 a.m., at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.

To cover the event, news media representatives need to be at the Air Force Badging Office (Gate 1) at 6:30 a.m. for transportation to Complex 5/6. Mission badges for the STS-134 shuttle mission will be honored for this event. Reporters who do not have one must contact Christopher Calkins at 321-494-7732 or Auburn Davis at 321-494-6489 to arrange for media credentials. The Thursday event includes a re-creation of Shepard's flight and recovery, as well as a tribute to his contributions as a moonwalker on the Apollo 14 lunar mission. KSC Director and former astronaut Bob Cabana and more than 200 workers from the original Mercury program, also will be in attendance.

International Space Station Water System Successfully Activated

NASA has announced the successful activation of new hardware that will support water production services aboard the International Space Station. The Sabatier system can create up to 530 gallons of water per year from byproducts of the station's Oxygen Generation System and Carbon Dioxide Removal Assembly. The process is named for Paul Sabatier, a 1912 Nobel Prize winner in chemistry. "This is an important step forward in NASA's commercialization endeavors and shows how successful private industry can be at providing solutions on its own," said Bill Gerstenmaier, NASA associate administrator for Space Operations at the agency's Headquarters in Washington. "The ability to produce this water will be important for sustaining space station operations once the shuttle is retired."

The system was integrated into the space station's Water Recovery System during the week of Oct. 11. Activation, checkout and first use of the system were completed Oct. 22, running for over eight hours. The Sabatier process uses a nickel catalyst to interact with hydrogen and carbon dioxide at elevated temperatures and pressures to produce water and methane. The water is retained for recycling processes, and the methane is vented outside of the space station. Prior to adding the Sabatier system, hydrogen produced while generating station oxygen was considered waste gas and vented overboard. Carbon dioxide generated by crew metabolism also was vented overboard. With the Sabatier system, these two former waste gases will generate a valuable product for the space station: water.

Under contract to NASA, Hamilton Sundstrand supplied the flight hardware and operational support for a Sabatier-reaction-based system that operates as part of the station's Environmental Control and Life Support System. This contract is unique because NASA did not participate in design reviews or impose any specifications on the design, except for those defined in the safety, interface and acceptance requirements met by Hamilton Sundstrand. The company developed, procured, and built the flight hardware and support equipment needed for operations and training. The in-orbit operational portion of the contract runs until Sept. 30, 2014.

NASA Assigns Crew for Final Launch on Need Shuttle Mission

NASA announced the four astronauts who will make up the crew of STS-335, the rescue mission that would fly only if needed to bring home the members of space shuttle Endeavour's STS-134 mission, currently the final scheduled shuttle flight. Chris Ferguson, a retired U.S. Navy captain and veteran of two previous shuttle missions, would command the flight. Astronaut and U.S. Marine Col. Doug Hurley would serve as pilot, and astronauts Sandy Magnus and retired U.S. Air Force Col. Rex Walheim would be the mission specialists. Based on recommendations made after the loss of space shuttle Columbia in February 2003, NASA has trained a launch on need crew to be ready to fly in the event of irreparable damage to a shuttle while in orbit. Typically, the next crew to fly serves as the rescue crew for the current mission.

The STS-335 crew will prepare for a potential rescue mission and preserve flexibility if another shuttle flight is added to the launch manifest. “These astronauts will begin training immediately as a rescue crew as well as in the baseline requirements that would be needed to fly an additional shuttle flight," said Bill Gerstenmaier, associate administrator for NASA's Space Operations Mission Directorate in Washington. "The normal training template for a shuttle crew is about one year prior to launch, so we need to begin training now in order to maintain the flexibility of flying a rescue mission if needed, or alter course and fly an additional shuttle mission if that decision is made." If required, the STS-335 rescue mission would launch on shuttle Atlantis in June 2011 to bring home the STS-134 crew from the International Space Station.

STS-134 currently is scheduled to lift off on Feb. 26, 2011, from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. If converted to an additional shuttle flight, STS-335 would be redesignated STS-135 and targeted to launch in June 2011. Ferguson, who was born in Philadelphia, flew on two prior shuttle missions, STS-115 in 2006 and STS-126 in 2008. Hurley, who was born in Endicott, N.Y., but considers Apalachin, N.Y., his hometown, served as the pilot on STS-127 in 2009. Magnus, of Belleville, Ill., flew on STS-112 in 2002 and launched to the space station in 2008 on STS-126, where she served four and a half months as a flight engineer and science officer on Expedition 18 before returning to Earth on STS-119 in 2009. Walheim was born in Redwood City, Calif., and considers San Carlos, Calif., his hometown. He flew on STS-110 in 2002 and STS-122 in 2008.

Twin Brother NASA Astronauts Available For Satellite Interviews

For the first time, twin brothers are slated to be in space simultaneously early next year. Mark Kelly will be in command of the last scheduled space shuttle flight, and Scott Kelly in command of the International Space Station. The Kelly brothers will be available for live satellite interviews between 9:15 and 11:15 a.m. CDT Tuesday, Aug. 17. Scott Kelly is scheduled to launch to the space station aboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Oct. 7 (Oct. 8 local time) for a six-month-long mission aboard the complex. He will serve as flight engineer for Expedition 25 and commander for Expedition 26.

His twin brother Mark, commander of shuttle Endeavour's STS-134 mission, is scheduled to visit the station in February to deliver supplies and the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer. AMS is a device to study the universe's origin by searching for antimatter, dark matter, strange matter and measuring cosmic rays. If the launch schedule holds, the pair would be working together in orbit for eight days before the shuttle undocks and returns to Earth. To arrange an interview, reporters should contact producer Jeremiah Maddix at 281-483-8631 or by e-mail to jeremiah.m.maddix@nasa.gov by 5 p.m. Monday, Aug. 16. Video b-roll of the Kellys' previous missions and training will air on NASA TV Aug. 17 from 8:45 to 9:15 a.m.

The Kellys, both captains in the U.S. Navy, were born Feb. 21, 1964, in Orange, N.J., and consider West Orange, N.J., their hometown. Scott has flown on two prior shuttle missions: as pilot of STS-103 in 1999 and as commander of STS-118 in 2007. Mark is a veteran of three prior shuttle missions: as pilot of STS-108 in 2001 and STS-121 in 2006, and as commander of STS-124 in 2008. The NASA Television Live Interview Media Outlet channel will be used for the interviews. The channel is a digital satellite C-band downlink by uplink provider Americom. It is on satellite AMC 3, transponder 9C, located at 87 degrees west, downlink frequency 3865.5 Mhz based on a standard C-band, horizontal downlink polarity. FEC is 3/4, data rate is 6.0 Mbps, symbol rate is 4.3404 Msps, transmission DVB-S, 4:2:0.

A Perfect STORRM

It was a perfect STORRM. On Tuesday, July 20, NASA and its industry partners Lockheed Martin Space Systems and Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp., successfully demonstrated a new sensor technology that will make it easier and safer for spacecraft to rendezvous and dock to the International Space Station. This new docking navigation system prototype consists of an eye-safe lidar Vision Navigation Sensor, or VNS, a high-definition docking camera, as well as the avionics and flight software. Both sensors will provide real-time three-dimensional images to the crew with a resolution 16 times higher than the current space shuttle sensors.

This next generation system also provides data from as far away as three miles three times the range of the current shuttle navigation sensor. "You are looking at the future of rendezvous and docking right here," said David L. Taylor, president and CEO of Ball Aerospace, as he welcomed dozens of NASA and industry engineers to the demonstration. The hardware will be tested by astronauts aboard STS-134, the last planned shuttle mission, currently scheduled for February 2011, as part of the Sensor Test for Orion Relative Navigation Risk Mitigation (STORRM) Development Test Objective (DTO).

On Flight Day 11 of the mission, the shuttle crew will conduct an unprecedented on-orbit maneuver; they will undock from the space station and then re-rendezvous with the station on an Orion-like approach. Five retro-reflectors, which will serve as targets for the VNS, were installed on the station's visual docking target during the STS-131 shuttle mission in May. The demonstration, held at Ball Aerospace in Boulder, Colo. offered the STORRM team the chance to operate the flight hardware for personnel who will be supporting STORRM during the mission the astronaut crew, flight director, and mission operations personnel.

NASA'S External Tank For Final Shuttle Flight Gets New Orleans Send-Off

NASA and Lockheed Martin Space Systems Company will hold a ceremony at 9 a.m. CDT on Thursday, July 8, at the agency's Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans. The event will commemorate 37 years of successful tank deliveries and the final external tank's rollout for the last space shuttle flight. NASA Television and the agency's website will broadcast the ceremony live. Coverage begins at 8:45 a.m.

NASA and Lockheed Martin senior managers will participate in the ceremony. Reporters interested in covering the event or interviewing workers and managers must contact Harry Wadsworth at 504-257-0094 by Tuesday, July 6. Journalists should report to the Michoud Main Gate, 13800 Old Gentilly Road, by 8:30 a.m. Vehicles are subject to a security search at the gate. Photo identification and proof of car insurance is required. The last external tank scheduled to fly on a shuttle mission was completed on June 25 by Lockheed Martin workers at Michoud.

The tank, designated ET-138, will travel on a wheeled transporter one mile to the Michoud barge dock. It will be accompanied by the Storyville Stompers, a traditional area brass band, and hundreds of handkerchief-waving employees in typical New Orleans fashion and spirit. The tank will travel on a 900-mile sea journey to NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, where it will support shuttle Endeavour's STS-134 launch.