30 May 2011
Shortly after 7 a.m. EDT, the six crew members of space shuttle Endeavour said farewell to the three Expedition 28 crew members aboard the International Space Station. At 7:23 a.m., hatches were closed between Endeavour and the station 12 days, 22 hours and 27 minutes into the mission. The hatches between the two spacecraft were opened at 7:38 a.m. on May 18 and were open for joint crew operations for a total of 10 days, 23 hours, and 45 minutes.
Image above: The STS-134 and Expedition 28 crews say goodbye during a farewell ceremony shortly before closing the hatches between the shuttle and station. Photo credit: NASA TV.
Space Shuttle Endeavour undocked from the Space Station on Monday morning at 03:55 GMT after being docked to the orbital outpost for almost 12 days. The STS-134 mission will end on Wednesday at 06:32 GMT with a landing at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
STS-134 Endeavour Undocking
The mission’s main task was accomplished on 19 May, when the AMS-02 Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer cosmic-ray detector was attached to the S3 truss in a carefully choreographed operation of the Shuttle and Station robot arms.
ISS seen from Endeavour before docking
ESA’s Roberto Vittori was at the arm controls in Endeavour with Drew Feustel, while the other arm was controlled from the Station’s Cupola by Gregory Johnson and Gregory Chamitoff.
Following three hours of zero-gravity ballet, AMS-02 was firmly attached and all the power and data lines connected.
AMS-02 being installed
The instrument almost immediately began recording data and captured its first cosmic rays the next day.
Four spacewalks and goodbye
After installing AMS, the Shuttle astronauts made two spacewalks to retrieve external experiments and attach new ones. They also added an antenna on the Destiny laboratory for external wireless communications.
Last Monday evening, the crews bade farewell to three Expedition 27 colleagues, including ESA’s Paolo Nespoli, who returned to Earth after 159 days in space.
Image above: A fish-eye lens attached to an electronic still camera was used to capture this image of NASA astronaut Greg Chamitoff during the mission's fourth STS-134 spacewalk. Credit: NASA TV.
The Shuttle astronauts then performed two more spacewalks. They installed a grapple fixture for a robotic arm on the Zarya module and upgraded the power feed to the Station’s Russian section. They also repaired the thermal insulation on one of the spare gas tanks of the Quest airlock.
The crew members for space shuttle Endeavour's STS-134 mission are Commander Mark Kelly, Pilot Gregory H. Johnson and Mission Specialists Michael Fincke, Greg Chamitoff, Andrew Feustel and European Space Agency astronaut Roberto Vittori.
Related links:
STS-134 mission (NASA): http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/shuttle/shuttlemissions/sts134/index.html
AMS: ready to discover the particle universe: http://www.esa.int/esaHS/SEMF5BMSNNG_index_0.html
Images, Video, Text, Credits: NASA / ESA / NASA TV.
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