(Launchspace Staff)
Getting ready for the next-to-last Shuttle flight
Space Shuttle Endeavour completed its roll from the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) to Launch Pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center last Friday. Technicians are now preparing for STS-134. Meanwhile, in Houston, six astronauts are rehearsing ingress and egress procedures for launch and possible launch scrub scenarios. Endeavour's STS-134 mission is targeted to launch at 7:48 p.m. EDT on April 19.
Crew members for STS-134 are Commander Mark Kelly, Pilot Gregory H. Johnson and Mission Specialists Michael Fincke, Greg Chamitoff, Andrew Feustel and ESA astronaut Roberto Vittori. This will be a 14-day mission to deliver the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS) and spare parts including two S-band communications antennas, a high-pressure gas tank, additional spare parts for Dextre and micrometeoroid debris shields.
The last planned Shuttle flight, STS-135
The NASA Authorization Act of 2010 directed NASA to conduct one additional Shuttle mission with a target launch date of June 28, 2011. Atlantis will carry the Raffaello multipurpose logistics module to deliver supplies, logistics and spare parts to the ISS. This will be the 135th and final Space Shuttle flight.
Beyond the Shuttle era
The remaining three Orbiters are about to join the ranks of the recovered Apollo Program capsules and extra Saturn V launch vehicles. These are destined to become museum pieces and tourist attractions for future generations to ponder over. Many observers will wonder, as we do: How could America have achieve six lunar landings in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and not returned to the moon in almost 40 years? New generations will see the Orbiters and wonder: How America could have created the most amazing and complex flying machine ever, and then abandoned it for a 1960's style launch system?
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