CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. Spaceshuttle Atlantis hold the spotlight late on Wednesday night in to early Thursdaymorning as it rolled out of Kennedy Space Centers Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB)in Florida, on the approach to the launch desk desk desk desk desk desk desk desk desk desk desk desk pad for what is programmed to be the lastflight.
Theblackandwhite wingedorbiter, mounted to an orange outmost fuel tank andtwin white plain space station boosters, left the voluminousbuilding the largest onestory construction in the universe only prior to midnight �atop amobile launcher height and crawler transporter tracked vehicle.
Atlantis"trip to the launch desk desk desk desk desk desk desk desk desk desk desk desk pad came only a day after the successfullanding of the sister boat Discovery on Tuesday to hang up a15day moody to the International Space Station.
Oneof myfavorite shots,almost as illusory as launch, is entrance out here in the center of the night,watching it transparent the VAB doors. When it moves out in to the xenon lights andthey"re resplendent on it, theres only something really special about that,former wanderer and Kennedy Space Center executive Bob Cabana toldcollect. The commencement of this tour in to space, it all startswhen the total smoke-stack rolls out.
Atlantis"first moves at 11:31 p.m. EDT Wednesday were additionally slated to be in between the last.
Scheduledto lift off in midMay to the International Space Station (ISS) to broach anew Russianbuilt miniresearch module, Atlantis" STS132 mission will symbol its32nd, and as planned, last spaceflight.
STS132is the last moody of Atlantis, reliable NASAs space convey launchintegration physical education instructor Mike Moses on Tuesday, addressing the conjecture thatanother mission competence be combined formed on the plan to have Atlantis readied torescue the organisation of the last scheduled convey mission if an puncture arose.Only dual flights are now slated to fly after STS132; STS134 by shuttleEndeavour and STS133 by Discovery.
Therehas been a lot of speak from the administration department about possibly you go forward andfly that rescue car given you have the hardware... but there has been nodecision done there and from a formulation role standpoint we"re still planningon STS132 being the last moody of Atlantis, Moses explained.
We"vecome up with a tagline, pronounced STS132 commander in chief Ken Ham after Atlantis had arrived at the desk desk desk desk desk desk desk desk desk desk desk desk pad onThursday at 6:03 a.m. EDT, 6 hours and 32 mins after the rollout began.This is the initial last moody of Atlantis.
Thirtyninerolls ... and a half
ThoughSTS132 is Atlantis" 32nd launch, it has done the tour to the launch padseven and a half — one some-more times.
Thefourth orbiter to stick on NASAs fleet, Atlantis finished the initial rollout tothe desk desk desk desk desk desk desk desk desk desk desk desk pad on Aug 30, 1985, five weeks prior to light off on the lass flight,STS51J, a personal mission for the Department of the Defense.
Sincethen, over the past twenty-five years Atlantis has traversed the 3.5 to 4.2 miles (5.6to 6.8 km) in between the Vehicle Assembly Building and possibly pads 39A or 39B to deploytwo heavenly probes Galileo to Jupiter and Magellan to Venus; muster theCompton Gamma Ray Observatory and use the Hubble Space Telescope; and visitboth the Mir and International space stations.
Sometimesthough, those missions compulsory some-more than one revisit to the pad.
TwiceAtlantis indispensable to be rolled behind to the VAB due to technical issues discoveredwhile it was being readied for launch. Once the problems a hydrogen fuel leakin 1990 and a plain space station upholder cabling regard in 2001 were resolved,Atlantis was rolled out again to fly the STS38 and STS98 missionssuccessfully.
Infact, Atlantis had already left by a prejudiced rollout for STS98 evenbefore the cabling issue was identified. A unsuccessful computer on the crawlermoving the convey to the desk desk desk desk desk desk desk desk desk desk desk desk pad resulted in Atlantis retreating again in to theVAB.
Morerecently, Atlantis was rolled to the desk desk desk desk desk desk desk desk desk desk desk desk pad and ready to launch when the mission"starget, the Hubble telescope, suffered the own hardware failure. Atlantis wasrolled behind and didnt proceed the STS125 mission until 7 months after inMay 2009.
Stormsaccounted for Atlantis" 4 and a half alternative turn trips to the pad.
A hailstorm in Mar 2007 resulted in repairs to Atlantis" outmost tank for STS117. Repairswere done inside the public construction and the convey was returned to the padto fly.
Thethreat from coming hurricanes caused Atlantis to take preserve in the VABthree times, and roughly a fourth.
Thehalfrollout statistic, that is singular to Atlantis, came in Aug 2006 afterwhat was forecasted to be a flourishing storm, Tropical Storm Ernesto, weakened.Already on the approach behind to the VAB, Atlantis" move was topsy-turvy and it returnedto the desk desk desk desk desk desk desk desk desk desk desk desk pad to proceed the STS115 mission eleven days later.
A really romantic moment
Atlantis"crew for the STS132 mission was means to watchtheir float to circuit leave for the launch pad, carrying arrived in Florida onTuesday to take piece in a skirt operation for their May 14th scheduled liftoff.
Originallythe astronauts were slated to come to Kennedy Space Center after Atlantis hadreached the desk desk desk desk desk desk desk desk desk desk desk desk pad but sleet storms behind the shuttles depart by severaldays.
Thelate rollout meant that the 6 organisation members could additionally catch a float withAtlantis.
Ridingthe crawler ... was positively fantastic, pronounced Ham. It was one ofthose moments that we common with each alternative to remind us of the being ofwhat we"re going to do,
ForCabana, the rollout was likewise moving.
Tome, [it"s] a really romantic moment, he said. Its similar to it is pullingout of port, the on the way. It is a 3 mile outing out to the desk desk desk desk desk desk desk desk desk desk desk desk pad and it"sstarting the tour to space. It is only phenomenal.
Clickthrough to pick up for the print galleries: Atlantis hasleft the construction ... and Atlantis and astronauts at the pad.
Images Shuttle Discoverys Mission in PicturesMorning Star: The Predawn Launch of Shuttle DiscoveryWhat Will NASA DoWith the Retired Space Shuttles?Copyright 2010 collect. All rightsreserved.
No comments:
Post a Comment