PREVIEW: Shuttle Discovery to take final bow

Sun, 31 Oct 2010

Washington - After a lifetime of firsts, it's time for a last for the space shuttle Discovery: The storied craft is set to start its final flight on Wednesday.

The oldest vehicle in the operating space shuttle fleet, construction began in 1979 on Discovery, which blasted off into space for the first time in 1984. Its last flight comes as US space agency NASA retires the aging shuttles and begins to transition routine flights to commercial providers.

The scheduled Monday launch was postponed until Wednesday for repairs of helium and nitrogen leaks in one of the shuttle's engine pods, and subsequent inspections.

After Discovery's planned 11-day mission, the workhorse of the fleet will have spent nearly a year in orbit, made more flights than any other shuttle and carried more crew members.

Discovery has already made history many times.

It was the first shuttle to return to flight after both the shuttle Challenger and Columbia accidents; launched the trailblazing Hubble Space Telescope; made the first US rendezvous with the Russian Mir space station; and made the first and last shuttle trips to rotate the crew of the International Space Station (ISS).

It will now be the first shuttle to officially be retired. A previous flight by Atlantis may have been its final flight, but it remains on standby in case a rescue mission is needed, and could be used if, as NASA hopes, an additional flight is added to the shuttle schedule.

Discovery is to deliver the last major piece of the US part of the ISS along with a host of supplies, including a human-like robot, known as Robonaut 2 (R2), the first-such robot ever sent to space.

Unlike the Star Wars droid character of the same nickname, R2 has arms and a head but no legs and will be used to learn how robots perform in zero gravity with the goal of eventually using them alongside or in place of humans in complicated activities.

The new room to be installed on the US part of the ISS was built by the Italian Space Agency and has been in space before in a different capacity, as the Leonardo cargo module. NASA, which owns the module, has converted it to become a lasting part of the station, known as the Permanent Multipurpose Logistics Module. It will be delivered full of cargo, and astronauts will eventually use it as an extra room for storage or to conduct experiments.

Discovery is bringing aloft an Express Logistics Carrier, which will be attached to the outside of the station and be used to hold spare parts.

"It's pretty exciting that the Discovery is going to take up the last major US module to the station," shuttle program manager John Shannon told reporters. "We are making good on our promise that we would get the space station in the absolute best configuration before we retired the shuttle."

Two spacewalks are planned for the mission. During the first, astronauts Tim Kopra and Alvin Drew will move a failed ammonia cooling pump removed on an earlier mission and install a power extension cable and camera equipment.

On the second spacewalk, they will remove covers from the spare- parts carrier and do other repair work.

Once Discovery and its six-member crew return to Earth, NASA won't be quite done with the spacecraft. First they want to take it apart and look inside - there are pieces that haven't been examined since they were installed more than 30 years ago.

Shannon says he hopes the autopsy will provide guidance as NASA moves to create its next generation of long-distance spacecraft.

"Even after Discovery lands, we will not be done learning about the space environment," he said.

NASA has long planned to retire the aging shuttle fleet, and the last flight is currently set for February.

President Barack Obama, however, prompted criticism earlier this year when he scuttled long-term plans to return to the moon and, instead, ordered a change in focus to commercial space flight and sending NASA astronauts to an asteroid and later Mars.

His vision was approved by Congress last month but must now be backed up with money, which remains uncertain in times of tight government budgets.

Source: Earth Times.
Link: http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/news/351180,discovery-take-final-bow.html.