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Five shuttle flights remain as program ends
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NASA Johnson Space Center - Earth Sciences and Image Analysis
It was December 2, 2000, and Space Shuttle Endeavor was orbiting planet Earth. The ship will be next to go into space, next February.
Shuttle flights to the ISS are diminishing as NASA gets closer to winding down the program.
With Shuttle Atlantis successfully launched to the ISS on Monday (and docked on Wednesday), There are few manned space flights left until the ARES program is ready to go. Ares will eventually take man back to the Moon. All the flights will leave from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
The next schedule shuttle launching is targeted for next February 4, STS-130, and Space Shuttle Endeavour from launch pad 39A at 5:52 a.m. EST. Endeavour will deliver the final connecting node, Node 3, and the Cupola, a robotic control station with six windows around its sides and another in the center that provides a 360-degree view around the International Space Station.
Authorized by Congress in August 1987 as a replacement for the Space Shuttle orbiter Challenger, Endeavour (OV-105) arrived at Kennedy Space Center's Shuttle Landing Facility on May 7, 1991, piggy-backed on top of NASA’s Space Shuttle Carrier Aircraft.
Endeavour was named after a ship chartered to traverse the South Pacific in 1768 and captained by 18th century British explorer James Cook.
On March 18, STS-131, aboard Discovery, is slated to leave 1:34 p.m. EDT, and will carry a multi-purpose logistics module filled with science racks that will be transferred to ISS laboratories.
On May 14 at 2:28 p.m. EDT STS-132 and Atlantis – on its final flight into space – is expected to be aloft again. The mission will be to carry an integrated cargo carrier to deliver maintenance and assembly hardware, including spare parts for space station systems. In addition, the second in a series of new pressurized components for Russia, a Mini Research Module, will be permanently attached to the bottom port of the Zarya module.
Next summer, on July 29, STS-134 is expected to be space-borne again aboard Endeavour on its final journey into space. The craft will lift off at 7:51 a.m. EDT. Endeavour will deliver an “EXPRESS” logistics carrier-3 (ELC-3) and an Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS) to the ISS.
Finally, on September 16, STS-133 and Discovery, on its final journey into space and the end of the shuttle program, are expected to leave at 11:57 a.m. EDT. Discovery will deliver the Express Logistics Carrier 4 (ELC4), with spare parts to the ISS.
Useful website: www.nasa.gov
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