Leonardo attached to Space Station

NASA / MSFC MPLM patch.

1 March 2011

After a flawless launch last Thursday and a textbook docking on Saturday, the Space Shuttle today delivered the European-built Leonardo Permanent Multipurpose Module to the International Space Station.

This final flight of Discovery marks the eighth and final trip of Leonardo to the orbiting complex. This visit will be longer: the module will be left attached to the Station as a permanent extension. Originally built to ferry cargo to and from the Station in the Shuttle cargo bay, Leonardo’s modifications include improved debris shielding and easier access by the crew to its internal equipment.

The European-built Leonardo Permanent Multipurpose Module was removed from the cargo bay of the Space Shuttle Discovery

Leonardo flew into space for the first time in 2001, also on Discovery, as the first of three Multipurpose Logistics Modules built by the Italian space agency, ASI, under an agreement with NASA.

Discovery as seen from ISS

Its final cargo for the Station includes an experiment rack and a range of stowage facilities. Leonardo can also support microgravity research into fluid physics, materials science, biology and biotechnology.

Leonardo was removed from the Shuttle’s cargo bay using the Station’s robotic arm and mated to the Earth-facing port of the Unity node. Attachment was called complete at 16:05 CET.

Discovery is scheduled to return to Earth on 8 March.

Related links:

MagISStra mission: http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/magisstra/index.html

STS-133 mission (NASA): http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/shuttle/shuttlemissions/sts133/index.html

Space Station / NASA: http://www.nasa.gov/station

Credits: ESA / NASA.

Cheers, Orbiter.ch

STS-133 flight day 4 highlights

NASA - STS-133 Mission patch.

02.28.11

Moving equipment and supplies between Discovery and the International Space Station, robotics activities and preparation for Monday’s 6.5-hour spacewalk kept shuttle astronauts busy much of Sunday.

 Shuttle docked at ISS at sunset

Transfer activities began during the crews’ morning. About 2,000 pounds of cargo was brought to the station on Discovery’s middeck, and about 2,600 pounds is to be returned to Earth by the shuttle.

One early activity for the shuttle crew, Commander Steve Lindsey, Pilot Eric Boe and Mission Specialists Alvin Drew, Steve Bowen, Michael Barratt and Nicole Stott, involved robotics. The station’s Canadarm2 arm, operated by Barratt and Stott, grasped the orbiter boom sensor system from the left sill of Discovery’s cargo bay.

Image above: The docked space shuttle Discovery and the Canadian-built Dextre, also known as the Special Purpose Dextrous Manipulator, are featured in this photograph taken by the STS-133 crew aboard the station. The blackness of space and Earth's horizon provide the backdrop for the scene.

It handed the boom off to the shuttle’s arm, which could not reach it with the spacecraft docked at the station. The shuttle’s arm held it to await a decision on whether a focused inspection of its thermal protection system would be necessary.

It wasn’t. Experts completed their analysis of 302 photos (155 using an 800 mm lens, 147 with a 400 mm lens) of the heat shield taken by station Flight Engineers Paolo Nespoli and Cady Coleman during Discovery’s backflip before docking to check for damage. The Mission Management Team met Sunday afternoon and decided that no focused inspection of the heat shield would be necessary.

Spacewalkers Drew and Bowen configured tools for their Monday spacewalk. All shuttle crew members along with station Commander Scott Kelly and Nespoli were scheduled for an hour-long procedures review. A little before 8 p.m. CST the spacewalkers will begin the standard campout in the low pressure of the station’s Quest airlock.

STS-133 Flight Day 4 Highlights - Spacewalk One Preparations Video

 

 The shuttle crew with Kelly and Coleman also talked with media representatives during the afternoon. Asking the questions were reporters from The Weather Channel, Boston’s WBZ Radio, WSB-TV of Atlanta and WTVT-TV of Tampa, Fla.

Images, Video, Text, Credit: NASA / MCC / NASA TV on Youtube.

Greetings, Orbiter.ch

Space shuttle Discovery docked to the International Space Station

NASA - STS-133 Mission patch.

02.27.11

Space shuttle Discovery docked to the International Space Station at 1:14 p.m. CST Saturday with its cargo of a new station module, equipment and supplies for the orbiting laboratory.

Discovery's Final Flip

After a delay to let the relative motion between the two spacecraft, with a combined mass of 1.2 million pounds, dampen out, hatches separating crews were opened at 3:16 p.m. Shuttle astronauts, Commander Steve Lindsey, Pilot Eric Boe and Mission Specialists Alvin Drew, Steve Bowen, Michael Barratt and Nicole Stott moved into the station.

Following handshakes, hugs and a welcoming ceremony by the station crew, Expedition 26 Commander Scott Kelly and Flight Engineers Oleg Skripochka, Alexander Kaleri, Dmitry Kondratyev, Paolo Nespoli and Catherine Coleman, Discovery astronauts received the standard station safety briefing.

Discovery docked at ISS

The crews promptly went to work, with Barratt and Stott preparing to use the station’s robotic arm to pluck Express Logistic Carrier 4 from the shuttle cargo bay and hand it off to the shuttle’s arm, operated by Drew and Boe. After moving the base of Canadarm2, the shuttle arm was to hand ELC4 back for installation on the Earth-facing side of the station’s starboard truss. There it will be used for stowage of spare parts, including a spare radiator launched aboard Discovery.

STS-133 space Shuttle Discovery flight day 3 ISS Rendez-vous

As the shuttle slowly approached the station, with both spacecraft moving at 17,500 mph, it paused about 600 feet below it to do the standard backflip. Nespoli and Coleman used cameras with 400 mm and 800 mm lenses for a minute-and-a-half photo session, shooting numerous pictures of the shuttle’s thermal protection system. The photos will be sent down for analysis by experts to check for any damage.

After both crews focus on transfer of equipment and supplies Sunday, Drew and Bowen will do 6.5-hour spacewalks on Monday and Wednesday. On Tuesday the station arm, again controlled by Barratt and Stott, will take the Permanent Multipurpose Module from Discovery’s cargo bay and install it on the Earth-facing port of the station’s Unity node.

Images, Video, Text, Credits: NASA / MCC / Youtube.

Greetings, Orbiter.ch

X-37B Ready for Second Test Flight

NASA / Boeing - X-37 ALTV patch.

27.02.2011

The US Air Force plans to launch the second test flight for the X-37B space plane on 4 March, the service says, provided the weather at Cape Canaveral cooperates. The Boeing-built 8.8m-long (28.8ft), 4.2m-wide reusable space plane will lift off inside the nose cone of a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket.

The second unmanned aircraft, known as Operational Test Vehicle-2, is expected to stay on orbit for 270 days or more, collecting test data similar to that from the first flight last year and expanding the flight envelope. The test team will also be paying particular attention to the performance of the electromechanical and autonomous landing algorithms, the service says. There will also be fewer cross-range and wind restrictions for the second flight.

X-37B (Artist's view)

"The first flight was focused on vehicle check out and you obviously want to check things more than once," the air force says. "It's still an X-plane, still an experimental test programme."
The only anomaly in the first flight of OTV-1 was a blown tyre on landing at Vandenberg AFB in California on 3 December 2010; tyre pressure on OTV-2 has been reduced by 15%, the service says.
OTV-1 was launched on 22 April 2010 and returned, with its classified payload, after 224 days and 9h in space.

X-37B

The USAF will not comment on possible payloads for OTV-2 or the partially classified programme's price tag, saying only that funds for the second test launch have already been allocated and were not tied to the fiscal year 2012 budget released on 14 February, or the still-under-debate 2011 budget.

 First launch of the X-37B (failed)

Related link:

Designation Systems: http://www.designation-systems.net/dusrm/app4/x-37.html

Images, Video, Text, Credits: NASA  / USAF / Roscosmos / Flightglobal.com / Space Com / ULA.

Best regards, Orbiter.ch

Glonass-K Successfully Reached the Targeted Orbital Destination

GLONASS patch.

26.02.2011

Russia launched a new Glonass-K1 navigation satellite from Plesetsk space center atop Soyuz-2.1b with Fregat upper stage on February 26.

The first new-generation satellite Glonass-K of the GLONASS navigation system has been successfully put into the targeted orbit.

The Soyuz rocket which was lifted off from Plesetsk at 06:07 Moscow time successfully carried the satellite with the Fregat booster to orbit. It reached the planned orbit at 09:41 Moscow time. The satellite separated from the booster as planned.

GLONASS Russian GPS Constellation

High-tech Glonass-K satellite reached its intended orbit about four hours after blasting off on top a Soyuz-2 rocket from Russia's northern Plesetsk launchpad.

"We have established and are maintaining steady telemetry communications with the spacecraft," a spokesman for the Defence Ministry's Space Forces told the Interfax news agency.

Glonass-K satellite

"The on-board systems of the Glonass-K satellite are functioning normally," the official said.

The Glonass-K, which has a service life of 10 years, will beam five navigation signals - four in the special L1 and L2 bands and one for civilian applications in the L3 band.

Images, Video, Text, Credits: Roscosmos PAO / Россия 24.

Greetings, Orbiter.ch

Mars500 - "Marsonauts" Spacewalk Red Planet

ESA - ROSCOSMOS Mars500 Mission patch.

25.02.2011

On Feb 22, two of the so-called Marsonauts taking part in a 500-day Mars flight simulation experiment in Moscow have returned to their landing craft after spacewalking the conventional Martian surface for less than an hour to collect rock samples.

First Mars500 Marswalk  raw video

 The first 'Marswalk' by Diego Urbina and Alexandr Smoleevskiy on 14 February started at 13:00 Moscow time and lasted one hour and 12 minutes.

Alexander Smoleyevsky of Russia and Diego Urbina of Italy rehearsed an emergency situation, The Voice of Russia reports. Urbina stumbled over and dropped the bag with the samples.

 Mars500 complex situation

A launch module carrying three members of the Mars-500 experiment who recently “landed” on the Red Planet has successfully docked with the interplanetary expedition complex, The Voice of Russia.

Upon their return from the simulated Martian terrain, volunteers Alexander Smoleyevsky, Diego Urbina and Wang Yue will stay in quarantine for the next few days.

Fist "Marswalk"

Carried out at the Moscow Institute for Medical and Biological Problems (IMBP) and due to end by November 2011, the virtual flight includes three stages. These are: a 250-day “flight” from Earth to Mars, a 30- day “stay” on the Red Planet, and a 240-day “flight” home. On February 27, the crew will set out on the return journey.

Launched last June at the Moscow Institute of Medico-Biological Problems, the Mars 500 experiment will provide data needed to prepare a real-life interplanetary flight.

Images, Video, Text, Credits: ROSCOSMOS / ESA.

Best regards, Orbiter.ch

STS-133 Space Shuttle lifted off

NASA - STS-133 Mission patch.

24 February 2011

Space shuttle Discovery lifted off at 4:53 p.m. EST Thursday from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, with Commander Steve Lindsey leading the STS-133 crew to deliver the Permanent Multipurpose Module and Robonaut 2 to the space station.

STS-133 Astronauts Board Discovery

During space shuttle Discovery's final spaceflight, the STS-133 crew members will take important spare parts to the International Space Station along with the Express Logistics Carrier-4.

Space shuttle Discovery lifts off. Image

Steve Bowen replaced Tim Kopra as Mission Specialist 2 following a bicycle injury on Jan. 15 that prohibited Kopra from supporting the launch window. Bowen last flew on Atlantis in May 2010 as part of the STS-132 crew. Flying on the STS-133 mission will make Bowen the first astronaut ever to fly on consecutive missions.

STS-133 Space Shuttle Launch

Space shuttle Discovery has reached orbit and is on its way to the International Space Station. "Good to be here," Discovery Commander Steve Lindsey radioed soon after the three main engines shut off and the external fuel tank was jettisoned. The official launch time was 4:53:24 p.m. EST.

The shuttle performed flawlessly on its final journey into orbit. Tomorrow, Commander Steve Lindsey and his crewmates will spend their first full day in space inspecting the shuttle thermal coverings. They'll also prepare for docking with the International Space Station on Flight Day 3.

Images, Videos, Text, Credits: NASA / KSC.

Cheers, Orbiter.ch