Space Shuttle Era Ends with Atlantis Landing

Houston TX (SPX)
Jul 22, 2011

Space shuttle Atlantis touched down on the Shuttle Landing Facility's Runway 15 at 5:57 a.m. EDT on July 21. After 200 orbits around Earth and a journey of 5,284,862 miles, the landing at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida brought to a close 30 years of space shuttle flights.

"Although we got to take the ride," said Commander Chris Ferguson on behalf of his crew, " we sure hope that everybody who has ever worked on, or touched, or looked at, or envied or admired a space shuttle was able to take just a little part of the journey with us."

The STS-135 crew consisted of Commander Chris Ferguson, Pilot Doug Hurley, Mission Specialists Sandra Magnus and Rex Walheim.

"I really want to thank the space shuttle team and the Space Shuttle Program for just a tremendous effort and throughout the entire history of the program. We gave them a tremendous challenge to fly and execute these missions and to finish strong and I can tell you that the team accomplished every one of those objectives," said Associate Administrator for Space Operations Bill Gerstenmaier as he addressed the media at the post-landing news conference.

"I'd also like to thank the nation for allowing us to have these thirty years to go use the shuttle system."

"It is great to have Atlantis safely home after a tremendously successful mission - and home to stay," said Bob Cabana, Kennedy Space Center director, referencing Atlantis' retirement at Kennedy's Visitor Complex.

"I'm unbelievably proud to be here representing the Space Shuttle Program and the thousands of people across the country who do the work," said Mike Moses, space shuttle launch integration manager. "Hearing the sonic booms as Atlantis came home for the last time really drove it home to me that this has been a heck of a program."

"The workers out here and across the country in the Space Shuttle Program have dedicated their lives, their hearts and their souls to this program, and I couldn't be more proud of them," said Mike Leinbach, space shuttle launch director at Kennedy.

A welcome home ceremony for the astronauts will be held Friday, July 22, in Houston. The public is invited to attend the 4 p.m. CDT event at NASA's Hangar 990 at Ellington Field. Gates to Ellington Field will open at 3:30 p.m. The ceremony will be broadcast live on NASA Television.

On the 13-day mission, the STS-135 crew delivered to the International Space Station more than 9,400 pounds of spare parts, spare equipment and other supplies in the Raffaello multi-purpose logistics module, including 2,677 pounds of food. The supplies will sustain space station operations for the next year. The 21-foot long, 15-foot diameter Raffaello brought back nearly 5,700 pounds of unneeded materials from the station.

Source: Space-Travel.
Link: http://www.space-travel.com/reports/Space_Shuttle_Era_Ends_with_Atlantis_Landing_999.html.

Shuttle Atlantis heads home from space station

Washington (AFP)
July 19, 2011

The crew of Atlantis undocked Tuesday from the International Space Station, wrapping up the last visit by a US shuttle to the orbiting outpost and setting its sights on an emotional homecoming.

With a spectacular orbital sunrise illuminating a vessel in the sunset of its career, Atlantis maneuvered away from the ISS at 0628 GMT about 350 kilometers (217 miles) above the Pacific Ocean.

"Thanks so much for hosting us. It's a great station, and it's been an absolute pleasure," Atlantis commander Chris Ferguson said of his crew's eight-day stay at the ISS, closing the book on the storied relationship between the two iconic spacecraft.

"We'll miss you guys. Godspeed," space station flight engineer Ronald Garan called out as Atlantis floated away.

As the age of the shuttle -- which has carried US astronauts into space longer than any other vessel -- drew to a close after 37 dramatic rendezvous with the ISS, their crews Monday exchanged embraces and kisses before shutting the hatches separating them for a final time.

Astronauts placed an American flag that flew on the first shuttle mission in 1981 on the passageway separating the shuttle and the space station, to symbolize the end of one era of US spaceflight and the dawn of a new one.

"When this flag returns again someday to Earth by astronauts that came up on an American spacecraft, its journey will not end there," said Ferguson.

"Its journey will continue, it will leave low-Earth orbit once again, perhaps to a lunar destination -- perhaps to Mars."

Atlantis blasted off July 8 with a four-member crew, lugging the Raffaello multipurpose logistics module and several tons of supplies to the ISS to help sustain the outpost for a year.

The shuttle is scheduled for a predawn touch-down Thursday at 5:56 am (0956 GMT) at Florida's Kennedy Space Center.

Emotions ran high during the undocking and its aftermath, with Atlantis accomplishing one final task after another, including a flyby of the ISS to document seldom-seen outer parts of the station, as it prepared for re-entry in two days' time.

NASA flight director Dan Tani praised the work of "the magnificent machines that delivered, assembled and staffed our world-class laboratory in space."

The warm words gave way to a focus on getting the shuttle crew home safely. By 10:30 am (1430 GMT) Tuesday, Atlantis had completed one last inspection of its protective heat shield, using the robotic arm to scan and photograph the wings' leading edges, the nose cone and the shuttle's underbelly.

With the conclusion of America's vaunted shuttle program, the world's astronauts will rely on Russian Soyuz rockets for rides to the ISS until a new US space craft -- a commercial launcher and capsule built by a private corporation in partnership with NASA -- is ready to fly sometime after 2015.

The end of the shuttle program means that opportunities for astronauts to embark on journeys to space will become much rarer.

"Of course it's hard, because we dedicate our lives to fly in space. We are astronauts and it's what we do for a living," astronaut Steve Robinson, a veteran of four shuttle missions, earlier told AFP.

Over the course of the three-decade-long program, five NASA space shuttles -- Atlantis, Challenger, Columbia, Discovery and Endeavor -- have comprised a fleet designed as the world's first reusable space vehicles.

Besides the prototype Enterprise that never flew in space, only three have survived after Columbia and Challenger were destroyed in accidents that killed their crews.

At a time of US budget austerity, President Barack Obama has opted to end the program that has averaged about $450-500 million for each of its 135 missions.

Obama also canceled Constellation, a project that aimed to put US astronauts back on the Moon by 2020 at a cost of $97 billion.

NASA administrator Charles Bolden told US lawmakers last week that there would be opportunities in commercial space flight in the near future.

"We are not abandoning the human space flight. We have a big job to do of operating the ISS for the next nine years at least."

Source: Space-Travel.
Link: http://www.space-travel.com/reports/Shuttle_Atlantis_heads_home_from_space_station_999.html.

Atlantis docks at space station for last time

Washington (AFP) July 10, 2011

The shuttle Atlantis docked at the orbiting International Space Station for one last hitch-up Sunday, on its final space voyage before the entire 30-year US shuttle program shuts down for good.

The shuttle docked at 11:07 am (1507 GMT), just over an hour after the spacecraft performed its habitual slow backflip so that the ISS crew could take pictures of Atlantis's heat shield before clasping onto the lab, NASA said.

Hatches opened between the two spacecraft at 12:47 pm (1647 GMT), and the four Atlantis astronauts floated across to greet their ISS crewmates with hugs and smiles.

Shortly afterward, NASA said it was tracking a piece of space debris that could be on a path to collide with the ISS by Tuesday, the day that two US astronauts are scheduled to step out on a spacewalk.

"What we were told today is very preliminary," said deputy manager of the space shuttle program LeRoy Cain. "It is a potential right now."

Atlantis began its 12-day journey on Friday with a picture-perfect liftoff from Kennedy Space Center that was watched locally by hundreds of thousands of tourists, and marked the last-ever blastoff of the three decade long program.

The flight marks the end of an era for NASA, leaving Americans with no actively operating government-run human spaceflight program and no method for sending astronauts to space until private industry comes up with a new capsule, likely by 2015 at the earliest.

With the shuttle gone, only Russia's three-seat Soyuz capsules will be capable of carrying astronauts to the ISS at a cost of more than $50 million per seat.

Asked on CNN Sunday about headlines that proclaim the start of a period of Russian dominance in spaceflight, the US space agency's administrator Charles Bolden said: "I don't think I could disagree more with the headlines."

"We have been the leader for many years, many decades now, and that will -- we will maintain that leadership," said the former astronaut.

Atlantis is carrying 8,000 pounds (3,000 kilograms) of supplies, which the combined crew of 10 -- four aboard the shuttle's STS-135 mission and six aboard the ISS as part of Expedition 28 -- will transfer during the mission.

A failed ammonia pump will then be transferred to the shuttle payload bay for return to Earth.

Monday will be occupied with setting up the transfer of the Raffaello multipurpose module, which holds the extra supplies, from the shuttle to the Earth-facing side of the station's Harmony module.

A spacewalk by American ISS crew members Garan and Mike Fossum is set for Tuesday.

The duo has already stepped out together on three spacewalks in June 2008 as part of the STS-124 mission that delivered the Japanese Kibo lab to the ISS.

"Poetry in motion," said a commentator at mission control in Houston after the shuttle began its nine-minute somersault ahead of approach, also known as the rendezvous pitch maneuver.

The one-degree-per-second backflip was a key maneuver in Atlantis's approach to the lab, allowing ISS crew members already at the station to take photos of the shuttle's exterior and check if any damage was incurred during the takeoff.

The approach and latch-on were "flawless," said mission control.

Three ISS crew, including Japanese flight engineer Satoshi Furukawa, snapped high-resolution photos of the shuttle as it circled in toward the orbiting lab.

On Saturday, the Atlantis crew performed the first inspection of the craft's thermal protection system, the outer barrier that protects it from the searing heat upon re-entry into the Earth's atmosphere.

Careful inspections of the shuttle body have become a primary activity since the space shuttle Columbia was destroyed upon re-entry into the Earth's atmosphere in 2003.

A panel of experts concluded that a heat shield tile on the craft's wing was damaged at blast-off, fatally compromising the craft's re-entry protection and killing all seven crew on board.

The shuttle's return to Earth is currently scheduled for July 20, though NASA may add an extra day to the mission.

After that, NASA will continue working with private industry on plans to build a next generation spacecraft to tote astronauts and cargo to the ISS, while NASA focuses on a multipurpose crew vehicle that could take astronauts to deep space, Bolden said.

"The president has set the goals: an asteroid in 2025, Mars in 2030. I can't get any more definitive than that," he said.

Source: Space-Travel.
Link: http://www.space-travel.com/reports/Atlantis_docks_at_space_station_for_last_time_999.html.

Atlantis to carry next-generation vaccine candidate on last space voyage

by Richard Harth - Science Writer: The Biodesign Institute
Tucson AZ (SPX) Jul 08, 2011

On July 8, at approximately 11:26 a.m. EDT, the space shuttle Atlantis will streak skyward from the Kennedy Space Center's launch pad 39A, for one last mission. While the STS-135 flight marks the end of the space shuttle's glory days, its final trip may open a new era of research into infectious diseases, thanks to space bound experiments conducted by Dr's. Cheryl Nickerson, and Roy Curtiss III, along with their colleagues at Arizona State University's Biodesign Institute.

Nickerson, a microbiologist and authority on infectious pathogens, has been using spaceflight or spaceflight analogues since 1998 as an exploratory platform for investigating the processes of infection. Her provocative approach to microbial research has already paid rich dividends.

In earlier experimental missions, Nickerson's team demonstrated that conditions of microgravity present aboard the space shuttle have the potential to increase the disease-causing capacity or virulence of microbes like Salmonella-a major causative agent of food-borne illness.

Further, her research demonstrated that spaceflight globally altered gene expression in Salmonella and other pathogens in critical ways that were not observed during culture on Earth, and were governed by a master switch regulating this response.

"Our earlier work showed the potential for spaceflight to provide novel insight into the mechanisms of microbial virulence that may lead to innovations in infectious disease control here on Earth," she said.

Curtiss, director of the Biodesign Institute's Center for Infectious Diseases and Vaccinology, has engineered an experimental vaccine strain, which will fly aboard Atlantis on its journey to the International Space Station Laboratory. By removing the disease-causing components of Salmonella and incorporating a key protective antigen from Streptococcus pneumoniae, Curtiss has produced a powerful oral vaccine against pneumonia, that has shown promise in phase 1 human clinical trials. The ability of spaceflight to enhance the efficacy of this recombinant attenuated Salmonella vaccine, or RASV, will be the focus of the Atlantis mission.

Current experiments aboard STS-135 will build on decades of earlier research by Nickerson and Curtiss, in attempts to improve the effectiveness of RASVs. These vaccines exploit Salmonella's renowned infectious capacity in order to produce a strong, system-wide immune response.

In addition to the defensive response to Salmonella, the vaccine recipient also marshals an immune response to secondary disease antigens studded on the pathogen's surface membrane-in this case, antigens to pneumococcus, the causative agent of pneumonia.

"Many breakthroughs in life sciences research and translational advancements to the healthcare setting, have been achieved through studying the response of biological systems to extreme environments," Nickerson says.

The extreme environment in the present study is the reduced gravity present during spaceflight, which alters a fundamental physical property encountered by living cells, known as fluid shear.

Fluid shear refers to the physical forces exerted on cells by the extracellular liquids surrounding them. Previous experiments by Nickerson aboard the space shuttles Endeavor and Atlantis showed that changes in fluid shear due to microgravity induced important cellular responses in pathogens, including unique alterations in gene expression and virulence.

Nickerson notes that the responses of pathogenic cells to microgravity may be closely correlated with their behavior during infection here on earth, where the effects of low fluid shear environments present in the body are believed to contribute to virulence.

Such pathogen responses, however, may often evade detection in conventional in vitro experiments on earth, where gravity may be masking this effect. In the current study, this approach is being applied to Salmonella vaccines.

Because RASVs can be produced against a wide variety of human and animal pathogens, the outcome of this research could influence the development of vaccines against many other diseases in addition to pneumonia

Unlike existing anti-pneumococcal vaccines, Curtiss' RASV may be given orally and acts to stimulate mucosal, humoral and cellular immunity, offering enhanced protection. Diseases due to Streptococcus pneumoniae include community-acquired pneumonia, otitis media, meningitis, and bacteremia, and are responsible for some 10 million fatalities per year.

Pneumonia poses a particular threat to newborns and the elderly, who may fail to mount an effective immune response after receiving current anti-pneumococcal vaccines.

The current experiments planned for Atlantis' final mission represent an interesting twist in Nickerson's research into microbial virulence and modes of infection, which she has pursued with longtime collaborator Mark Ott, a senior microbiologist at the Johnson Space Center and a Co-Investigator on the RASV flight experiment.

Again, the pathogen of choice is Salmonella, but here, the invader has been genetically re-engineered to protect from infectious disease, rather than to cause it. The outcome of this research has the potential for better protecting astronauts, who are keenly vulnerable to infection during spaceflight, as well as to help engineer better therapeutics for infectious diseases on earth.

Specially designed growth chambers containing the vaccine strain will travel with Shuttle Atlantis to the International Space Station. During spaceflight, crewmembers will activate the samples, while simultaneously, an earthbound sample will be grown under otherwise identical conditions.

The spaceflight cultured RASV strain, upon its return, will be evaluated against the control sample and analyzed for its ability to protect against pneumococcal infection.

Nickerson and Curtiss hope that results from the RASV spaceflight study will offer important clues for producing a more protective anti-pneumococcal immune response, while limiting undesired side effects.

Although the space shuttle program now enters retirement, space-based research into infectious diseases and vaccinology will continue, thanks to the newly signed Space Act Agreement between the National Laboratory Office and the Biodesign Institute, which will grant routine access to the ISS for continuing research. Nickerson is enthusiastic about spaceflight research and the significant clinical potential for the current study:

"It is incredibly exciting to me that we have the opportunity to utilize spaceflight as a unique research and development platform for novel applications with potential to help fight a globally devastating disease."

Source: Space Daily.
Link: http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/Atlantis_to_carry_next_generation_vaccine_candidate_on_last_space_voyage_999.html.

Atlantis in place as Endeavor returns

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla., June 1 (UPI) -- The U.S. space shuttle Atlantis was wheeled to the launch pad at Florida's Kennedy Space Center Wednesday as the shuttle Endeavor completed its final mission.

Endeavor, with six astronauts led by Navy Capt. Mark Kelly, touched down on the shuttle landing strip at 2:35 a.m. EDT, right around the time Atlantis was to reach its launch site.

The Endeavor landing was the 25th nighttime landing of a shuttle.

Atlantis, which has circled Earth more than 4,600 times, traveling more than 120 million miles in space, is expected to add 5 million more miles to its record when it makes the 135th and final mission of NASA's 30-year space shuttle program, set to begin July 8, NASA officials said.

That 12-day mission to the International Space Station will include a four-person crew -- the smallest of any shuttle mission since April 1983.

The commander is to be Christopher Ferguson, a retired U.S. Navy captain who piloted Atlantis on his first mission in September 2006, and Endeavor in November 2008. Other crew members include pilot Douglas Hurley, a U.S. Marine Corps colonel who piloted Endeavor in July 2009, mission specialist Sandra Magnus, an engineer who was part of the Discovery crew in March 2009 after spending 134 days in orbit, and mission specialist Rex Walheim, a retired U.S. Air Force colonel who flew Atlantis in April 2002 and again in February 2008.

The crew is to bring cargo to the space station in the large, pressurized multipurpose logistics module Raffaello, named by the Italian Space Agency, which built it, after the Renaissance painter and architect Raffaello Sanzio -- better known as Raphael, who with Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci, formed the traditional trinity of great masters of that period.

All Atlantis crew members have been custom-fitted for a Russian Sokol spacesuit and molded Soyuz seat liner should they have to return to Earth in a Soyuz capsule in case Atlantis can't make the re-entry and land.

Atlantis emerged, brightly lit, from the massive 52-story Vehicle Assembly Building after sunset Tuesday for the 3.4-mile journey to the Launch Complex 39, the rocket launch site originally built for the 1960s Apollo program and later modified to support shuttle operations.

It traveled to the seaside launch site on top of NASA's crawler-transporters, a pair of tracked vehicles used to transport spacecraft since Apollo days along a 100-foot-wide pathway known as the Crawlerway.

The Crawlerway was designed to support the weight of a Saturn V rocket and payload and was used since 1981 to transport the lighter shuttle to its launchpad.

Source: United Press International (UPI).
Link: http://www.upi.com/Science_News/2011/06/01/Atlantis-in-place-as-Endeavour-returns/UPI-28491306911600/.

NASA's Atlantis Moves To Launch Pad May 31 For Final Shuttle Launch

Kennedy Space Center FL (NASA) May 23, 2011

Space shuttle Atlantis will begin moving to its launch pad at 8 p.m. EDT on May 31, at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The six-hour rollout from Kennedy's Vehicle Assembly Building is a major milestone as Atlantis is prepared for the final shuttle launch targeted for July 8

Journalists are invited to cover the shuttle's 3.4-mile journey atop a giant crawler-transporter. Activities include an 8 p.m. photo opportunity, followed by a 9 p.m. interview availability with Atlantis Flow Director Angie Brewer. Media representatives must arrive at Kennedy's news center by 7:30 p.m. for the rollout photo opportunity.

On June 1, NASA also will provide a sunrise photo opportunity at the launch pad following Atlantis' arrival. Reporters must arrive at the news center for transportation to the viewing area by 6 a.m.

Source: Space-Travel.
Link: http://www.space-travel.com/reports/NASA_Atlantis_Moves_To_Launch_Pad_May_31_For_Final_Shuttle_Launch_999.html.

Space shuttle Atlantis, 7 astronauts back on Earth

By MARCIA DUNN, AP Aerospace Writer

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – Space shuttle Atlantis and its seven astronauts returned to Earth with a smooth touchdown Friday to end an 11-day flight that resupplied the International Space Station.

With bright sunlight glinting off it, the shuttle swooped through a clear sky and landed on the runway right on time. Mission Control said no one could remember such welcoming conditions; there were no clouds in sight for the midmorning arrival, and the temperature was in the 50s.

"Couldn't have picked a clearer day," commander Charles Hobaugh said during the final approach. Mission Control congratulated him on a "picture perfect" landing.

"We really had truly an amazing mission," Hobaugh said after exiting the shuttle.

It was an especially sweet homecoming for two of the crew.

Astronaut Nicole Stott was away for three months, living at the space station. Fellow crew member Randolph Bresnik's baby daughter was born last weekend.

"Everybody, welcome back to Earth, especially you, Nicole," Mission Control radioed.

Hobaugh and his crew spent a week stockpiling the space station. They delivered big spare parts and performed three spacewalks to install equipment and carry out maintenance.

The pumps, gyroscopes and storage tanks should keep the outpost in business for another five to 10 years, long after Atlantis and the two other shuttles are retired.

Stott was feeling the full effects of gravity for the first time since she rocketed to the space station at the end of August. Her mission lasted 91 days.

Hobaugh said she was doing "great."

Stott was reunited quickly with her husband and 7-year-old son, who were at Kennedy Space Center for the landing. She said throughout the flight that she also was looking forward to some pizza and icy cola.

Bresnik had even bigger plans: to hold his infant daughter for the first time.

Abigail Mae Bresnik was born Saturday night, right after her father took his first spacewalk. But he'll have to wait until Saturday to see her. Bresnik's wife, Rebecca, stayed home in Houston with Abigail and 3-year-old big brother Wyatt.

Atlantis — which brought back broken equipment from the space station's water-recycling system — logged 4.5 million miles and circled Earth 171 times.

This was Atlantis' next-to-last mission. Only five shuttle flights remain, all to the space station next year. Station construction will essentially end at that point, so NASA used the trip to send up as many hefty spare parts as possible. None of the other visiting spacecraft — from Russia, Japan and Europe — can carry so much in a single load.

Atlantis, which delivered nearly 15 tons of gear, left the space station 86 percent complete.

NASA's next shuttle flight is in February. Endeavour will deliver a full-fledged module to the space station, complete with a cupola for prime Earth gazing with a domed chamber that has seven windows.

The five remaining space station residents, meanwhile, may have to dodge a piece of space junk this weekend.

NASA said Friday that flight controllers were monitoring a large piece of an old Delta rocket that could pass within an uncomfortably close six miles of the outpost Saturday afternoon. The rocket was used to launch NASA's Stardust spacecraft in 1999 to gather comet dust samples.

A decision on whether to move the space station to avoid a possible hit was expected Friday evening.