Orbiter: Endeavour
Mission: STS-134 (A four-spacewalk voyage to deliver supplies, spare parts and a $2 billion particle physics detector to the International Space Station.)
Payloads: Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer 2 (AMS-02), ExPRESS Logistics Carrier 3, MISSE 8, STORRM DTO, GLACIER Freezer Module, OBSS
Mission Experiments: Endeavour will perform four Department of Defense payloads of opportunity: MAUI, SEITI, RAMBO-2, and SIMPLEX. All four of these experiments require engine and thruster firings. They will be completed if there is sufficient propellants on board Endeavour.
Launch Date: Monday, 16 May 2011
Time: 5:56 a.m. PDT
Launch Window: 5:55 a.m. PDT - 6:01 a.m. PDT
Launch Site: Pad 39A, Kennedy Space Center, Florida
Orbital Altitude: 188 nautical miles (348 km)
Orbital Inclination: 51.6 degrees
Mission Length: 14 days
Landing: 31 May 2011 @ 11:32 p.m. PDT
Landing Site: KSC’s Shuttle Landing Facility
Live Launch Coverage:
http://www.spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/sts134/status.html
http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/index.html
http://www.spacevidcast.com/ (in HD)
NASA Television Schedule:
http://spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/sts134/fdf/134tvskedrev0.pdf
Twitter Feed:
http://twitter.com/#!/spaceflightnow/
(U.S. readers can also sign up from their phone by texting “follow spaceflightnow” to 40404.)
Space Flight Now Facebook page:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Spaceflight-Now/123621931040548
More info:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STS-134
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/shuttle/main/index.html
Mission Milestones:
* 165th NASA manned space flight
* 134th shuttle mission since STS-1
* 25th and final flight for Endeavour
* 35th shuttle mission to the ISS
* 109th post-Challenger mission
* 21st post-Columbia mission
This is the second to last flight of the Space Shuttle program with the last remaining Shuttle mission for STS-135 on 12JUL2011 using the Atlantis orbiter.
Mission Insignia:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6a/STS-134_patch.png
Official Mission Poster based on a Star Trek promotional poster.
Hi-Res (132.24 Mb)
http://sfa.nasa.gov/MISSIONPOSTERS/sts134/134%20popup%20print.pdf
Lo-Res (152.4K)
http://sfa.nasa.gov/MISSIONPOSTERS/sts134/STS-134%20poster%20lores.pdf
Latest updates from SpaceFlightNow.com
0030 GMT (8:30 p.m. EDT)
Hands-on work to configure launch pad 39A has been completed for space shuttle
Endeavour’s liftoff. The final ground technicians will be clearing the complex
shortly in preparation of tonight’s hazardous fueling operations that occur via
remote control.
SUNDAY, MAY 15, 2011
2300 GMT (7:00 p.m. EDT)
In a pre-flight interview, Endeavour commander Mark Kelly talked about the space
shuttle program’s retirement and its legacy:
“I’ve flown on Endeavour before so I’m excited to fly on it again, and my
brother’s flown on Endeavour.
“The space shuttle was designed to build the space station, and that’s why it
has this big payload bay, and it never really got to do that for the first 20
years of its life, and now in the last ten it’s been critical in building ISS.
Without the space shuttle, International Space Station would not be what it is
today. We would not have been able to build the space station, so I think it’s
somewhat fitting that the end of the shuttle era is being finished with the
assembly of the space station, and the utilization part for the next 10 or 15
years,” he said.
“More people have flown on the space shuttle than any other spacecraft,
including Soyuz. The ability to fly seven people into space and have this huge
payload bay and an airlock and a robotic arm and to be able to bring payloads
home and land on a runway: this is the most capable spacecraft that’s ever been built and probably will be built for a long period of time. And, I think Americans should be proud that we’ve been able to build such a thing and operate it successfully for such a long period of time.”
2136 GMT (4:36 p.m. EDT)
T-minus 11 hours and counting. Clocks are running again after this half-day hold. The countdown will proceed to the next pause at T-minus 6 hours tonight.
