Atlantis Blasts Off On Final Mission 143
shuz writes "Space shuttle Atlantis lifted off today on its STS-132 mission to the International Space Station — the final flight for the venerable vehicle. The mission involves three spacewalks over 12 days (PDF), during which the team will replace six batteries on the port truss which store energy from solar panels on that truss, bolt on a spare space-to-ground Ku-band antenna, and attach a new tool platform to Canada's Dextre robotic arm."
NASA has video of the historic launch and reader janek78 adds this quote from the mission summary: "Atlantis lifted off on its maiden voyage on Oct. 3, 1985, on mission 51-J. Later missions included the launch of the Magellan probe to Venus on STS-30 in May 1989, Galileo interplanetary probe to Jupiter on STS-34 in October 1989, the first shuttle docking to the Mir Space Station on STS-71 in June1995, and the final Hubble servicing mission on STS-125 in May 2009."
Re:And one to go (Score:5, Informative)
Re:And one to go (Score:1, Informative)
actually, two. plus potentially another one for atlantis. Headline and summary deceiving.
Falcon 9 (Score:5, Informative)
Speaking of that, the Falcon 9 [wikipedia.org] is scheduled to launch this Sunday (May 16th, 2010). This is one of the potential replacements of which you speak.
Re:I outlasted Atlantis (Score:4, Informative)
Are you one of those kids I chased off my lawn last night?!
I was an MCC console analyst on the mission control team for the payload. So I didn't work for NASA, but a contractor working for our governmental customer.
A lot of people don't realize this, but NASA is not the biggest player in the space business. Some individual DOD and other government customer *programs* have budgets rivaling NASA, and there are a pretty good number of programs.
Brett
Re:It doesn't come soon enough (Score:3, Informative)
Both Iran and North Korea have made getting WMDs and the launch vehicles needed to use them a top priority. Even though both countries are rather poor economically, they are not above starving their citizens to achieve their goals.
[citation needed], as they say? (sure, I will be the first to give you "starving" part with N.Korea, not really with Iran though; and "top priority" seems pulled out of your ass)
Also, did you just propose there forcing all assets into one legislated monopoly?...
Atlantis' First Last Flight (Score:4, Informative)
When she lands later this month, Atlantis won't be mothballed. She'll be put back in the standard post-flight turnaround process to ready her for the Launch On Need (LON) mission STS-335, intended to provide rescue capability if necessary for the last currently scheduled shuttle mission, Endeavor's STS-134. It has been pointed out that, assuming all goes well on STS-134, there will be a bought-and-paid-for STS stack checked out and ready to go... why not use it? STS-335 would become STS-135, and would fly next year with a four-person crew to the ISS, delivering a Multi-Purpose Logistics Module and extra supplies and equipment. Russian Soyuz ships would be used if rescue became necessary.
Source [spaceflightnow.com].
Re:Why, oh why? (Score:5, Informative)
To what specific 1980's tech are you referring? The SSME's were upgraded in the 90's and early 2000's, as were the AP-101 flight control computers. The original 'steam gauge' cockpit was also upgraded to a fully modern 'glass' cockpit in the same time frame. The airframes have been well maintained and many smaller parts/systems have been replaced or upgraded as needed as well.
Seriously, saying "80's tech" is nothing but FUD. There's plenty of places where 80's (or even older) tech does just fine.
Heck, just a couple of miles from me the shipyard still uses a lathe installed in the 1940's. The forging furnace a few buildings over (modulo a few overhauls) basically dates from the 1930's. A few miles in the other direction is the submarine base, where the hydraulic valves in the submarines are basically unchanged since the 1950's. The missiles they carry are built with 80's technology in their electronics - and the still can achieve a CEP of [a classified but very small number] of feet. The submarines navigation system uses computers designed in the 1970's.
Don't be misled by consumer culture into believing that 'old == useless'.
Re:Why, oh why? (Score:3, Informative)
No, it's a mix of 70's, 80's, and 90's technology. The Shuttle has been heavily modified, updated, and upgraded over the years.
Well, in the first place Soyuz's reliability rating is roughly the same (that is, within a few tenths of a percent) as the Shuttle's. In the second place, while the basic design has 'roots' all the way back to the start of the Soviet space program, it too has been heavily modified. Almost nothing beyond the basic shape remains from the original.