Posted in space shuttle, tagged crest, pins, shuttle program on July 23, 2011| Leave a Comment »
A contest was held to design a crest for the entire shuttle program. This was the crest selected and it was then placed on commemorative pins and other memorabilia.
Each of the 135 missions had its own crest and, at the completion of each mission, the crest was affixed in a ceremony to the wall of the Launch Control Firing Room from which the shuttle was launched in Florida, and on the Mission Control Center room in Houston from which the mission was controlled.
Posted in STS-135, tagged ellington field, end of shuttle missions, houston, johnson space center, nasa, sts-135, welcome home rally on July 23, 2011| Leave a Comment »
Houston is home to the astronauts. A huge crowd of family and well-wishers surround the four STS-135 astronauts as they return, finally, home safely after their 13 day mission in space, and after the final mission of the Space Shuttle.
Political officals spoke as did all four astronauts. Then the astronauts melted into the crowd and signed autographs. This is one of two hangars where the homecoming rallies are held. Ellington Field is a few miles north of Johnson Space Center in Houston and once was an Air Force base.
The media had two areas but many could not get into the hangar because they were blocked by security. Finally a member of the Johnson Space Center public relations staff intervened and brought the media into the hangar allowing them to set up their tripods and other cameras. The event last about an hour.
Posted in space shuttle, STS-135, tagged ellington field, end of sts-135, houston, nasa, texas, welcome home rally on July 23, 2011| Leave a Comment »
The control tower at Ellington Field is visible through a maze of tv cameras Friday afternoon, July 22, 2011, in Houston. The STS-135 astronauts have returned to their homes in Houston and are being welcomed by nearly a thousand people inside NASA Hangar 990.
This is the final event in STS-135 mission, and only one event remains in the 30-year history of the shuttle program — a celebration at Johnson Space Center in late August which will be August 20 or August 27, 2011.
Posted in atlantis, johnson space center, STS-135, tagged atlantis, ellington field, final celebration, hangar 990, houston, landing, sts-135, where will the shuttle atlantis go? on July 21, 2011| 1 Comment »
Thursday, 4 pm, July 21, 2011 The crew of STS-135 / Space Shuttle Atlantis successfully landed shortly before 6 am on their first orbit opportunity on July 21, 2011, on runway 15 in Florida.
After safeing the vehicle, a press conference was held on the runway, and then Atlantis was towed back to Orbiter Processing Facility #2 where a walk-around for NASA / Kennedy Space Center eomployees was held.
For many of these employees the landing was bittersweet. A large number will be laid off on Friday, July 22, 2011.
Following the employee ceremonies, Atlantis was returned to its hangar (OPF #2) and preparations to turn her over to the Kennedy Visitors Space Center sometime in 2012 will begin.
STS-135 was the last of 135 shuttle missions over the past 30 years.
NASA has no near term plans to fly manned missions again and has, in effect, ceded the American manned space program to the Russians and the Chinese.
On Friday, July 22, 2011 … the four Astronauts will fly to Houston in the morning and will attend a final public celebration of their successful mission in Hangar 990 at Ellington Field near the Johnson Space Center at 4 pm.
This gathering is open to the public. Doors open about 3:30 pm.
Posted in Uncategorized on July 21, 2011| Leave a Comment »
In the far distance at left, tiny, remote and now empty, Pad 39-A. It may be years before 39-A is used again, if ever, but in the Apollo and the Space Shuttle years, both now ended, it was a very active pad sending men to the Moon eight times and, with Pad 39-B, the shuttle into space 135 times.
It is dawn at the Cape. This photo was taken at the press site.
The shuttle had safely landed on runway 15 on the Shuttle Landing Facility a few minutes earlier on a near perfect mission.
American’s ability to put its own astronauts into space onto the International Space Station is ended. Now, and in the foreseeable future, the United States astronauts will ride into space on the Russian Soyuz. Cost of the ride to American taxpayers?
Sixty-five million-dollars, roundtrip.
Posted in atlantis, international space station, STS-135, tagged atlantis, california, edwards air force base, florida, kennedy space center, landing times, new mexico, space shuttle, sts-135, where does the shuttle land?, white sands on July 19, 2011| 2 Comments »
The Space Shuttle Atlantis will land during one of the times below, and in one of the listed locations, between Thursday July 21 and Saturday July 23, 2011. The shuttles energy reserves will be 14 hours (it’s ability to keep flying) after these landing times.
STS-135 Mission crest. The final shuttle mission will end between Thursday morning, July 21, and Saturday afternoon, July 23, 2011.
It is expected to land at Kennedy Space Center, Florida, the most preferred location of the three locations.
Tuesday afternoon, July 20, 2011, the weather looked favorable for the shuttle to successfully land in Florida on its first of two Florida opportunities. The shuttle would be landing at dawn on Thursday morning, July 22, 2011
The landing opportunites and locations are as follows:
THURSDAY
KSC orbit 200 – 5:56 am EDT
KSC orbit 201 – 7:32 am EDT
FRIDAY
KSC orbit 215 – 4:56 am EDT
KSC orbit 216 – 6:31 am EDT
EDW orbit 217 – 8:02 am EDT
NOR orbit 217 – 8:04 am EDT
EDW orbit 218 – 9:38 am EDT
NOR orbit 218 – 9:40 am EDT
EDW orbit 219 – 11:15 am EDT
SATURDAY
KSC orbit 231 – 5:30 am EDT
KSC orbit 232 – 7:06 am EDT
NOR orbit 232 – 7:03 am EDT
EDW orbit 233 – 8:37 am EDT
NOR orbit 233 – 8:39 am EDT
EDW orbit 234 – 10:13 am EDT
KSC orbit 236 (descending) – 1:36 pm EDT
source:
NASA / Johnson Space Center / July 19, 2011
NASA / KSC confirms times; NOR not listed as alternative / July 20, 2011
Posted in Uncategorized on July 18, 2011| Leave a Comment »
Atlantis photographed from the ISS, July 10, 2011. -- courtesy of NASA-TV (http://www.nasa.org)
If the shuttle does land on time shortly before 6 am, Thursday, July 21, 2011, the ISS will be passing 235 miles above Atlantis as she turns toward the runway. If, as is possible, both the shuttle and the ISS are visible, they may well appear for a few moments that morning to be traveling together. And then the ISS will fly on — to 2020 or perhaps 2028 or longer.
And Atlantis will land, never to fly again.
Posted in atlantis, STS-135, tagged atlantis, final shuttle mission, international space station, johnson space center, kennedy space center, landing, media coverage of the shuttle, space shuttle, sts-135, undocking from the iss on July 18, 2011| Leave a Comment »
Hatch closing is a matter of life and death so much care is taken. This is the hatch that leads to the shuttle. With no more shuttle missions, and no more shuttles, it will be a long time before this hatch is opened again. Note the model of the shuttle in the upper left, and the American flag attached to the hatch. That flag flew on STS-1 and returned to Earth only to be brought back on STS-135. When Americans again dock here in their own vehicle this flag will be returned to Earth. The flag is likely to be here a very long time.
The crew of four, eminently likeable people, spend the following eight days as first longshoremen, hauling about 9,000 pounds of supplies onto the ISS, and then as trashmen, hauling out 5,400 pounds of trash, stuff that had stopped working and, incredibly, 25-percent of their entire load: packing foam. When they arrived the shuttle and its bay was packed with goodies and when they closed the hatch on Monday morning sealing themselves back onto the Atlantis, they had an equal amount in volume (although not in pounds) that they had brought up.
The press, present in huge numbers for the final launch in Florida, didn’t bother to follow the mission to Houston. Six of the 3,000 accredited reporters were here. A couple of others used the phone bridge and called in each day for the press conferences. That was it.
Life in Houston. With an exception or two, the reporters in Houston, like those in Florida, were young, but very knowledgible. They represented mostly dot.coms who are space sites. One network reporter was here; another called each day from Florida. I was the only newspaper, although occasionally a F.orida news reporter would call in and ask a question or two.
In truth, there was not a lot of reason to be here.
NASA was running events on the ISS and the Shuttle 24/7 so anyone could be right up to date from anywhere in the world. They did not, of course, have a scuttlebutt in the hall or pick up tidbits that first could be known here, and sometimes not known anywhere else. But it was minor stuff. At one point on day eight the NASA public relations staff scuttled a press conference on a Saturday afternoon figuring no one would show, and considered canceling the one the following day only to be surprised that all the reporters (remember that is only six) showed up.
Press conferences, moreover, were oddly public, on TV, and then when the lights went off, reporters would gather with whoever was doing the briefing and the discussions sometimes would go on and on, as it did on Sunday.
What most intrigued me, I suppose, was the all encompassing nature of the mission here. NASA TV was on everywhere around JSC and the surrounding area. The local TV stations have NASA-TV on their cable channel lineup. And because of the nature of life on the ISS, reporters (me included) gradually lapsed into a life where day or night mattered less and less.
The shuttle circles the Earth roughly every 90 minutes, half in darkness and half in the sunlight. Languidly the Earth slowly rolls by 235 miles below — first over the Red Sea, then New Zealand and the Hudson Bay, each orbit slightly different than the last. It began to mesmerize me — the silence. The beauty. I longed to have a video tape of it to play in our home — hour after hour of grand elegance.
As the mission went on the crew was awakened earlier and earlier until, no longer getting up in the middle of the night, the day was beginning at 11 pm and then 10. The press site too followed the crew hours. First it opened at 4 am, then 3 and 2 am — and finally at midnight and continued to track earlier each day. The press conferences gradually eased back into the early hours of the day as well.
As the mission went on, I began to sleep in snatches, always with NASA-TV on, or sitting at my desk in the press site working, watching. Hotels follow a more rigid schedule and like their guests to leave at a certain time, but as the days passed one hotel’s front desk clerks began to befriend me and I to befriend them. They were fascinated by the shuttle and by NASA but, as is often true, they had never been allowed on Johnson Space Center. I brought them reporter’s notebooks and DVDs. They put me in a suite and began sliding their hotel hours later and later to accommodate my schedule.
And when I couldn’t make their computers work, I was taken into the back office and given access to their computers — and here, then, I asked about one of the clerk’s life, and he began to ask me about mine.
. . . . . . .
Coming home. The shuttle cannot remain in space for long due to its limited amount of energy. Because the shuttle launched on its first attempt, it retained enough energy to stay up an additional day — crucial in terms of packing out additional trash.
By Monday morning, NASA was eying the weather in Florida, and eying the energy levels left on the shuttle. When Atlantis left the space station she had 4 days and 13 hours of energy left, but of that NASA will use two days of energy just to get the shuttle in position to land, and as for the other two days, they do not use them. They are for the direst of circumstances to insure that the shuttle will have enough energy, and time (two days) to land if unexpected things happen and need to be straightened out.
One reporter asked, given that the shuttle is scheduled to land before dawn when no one, including nASA itself, gets much in the way of pictures, if NASA had considered sending the shuttle around an extra orbit to allow the sun to come up on Thursday.
“We don’t think that way,” was the answer. NASA wants the shuttle down as soon as possible once she leaves the ISS.
. . . . . . . .
Why was I at home on the International Space Station? I was at home on the ISS because in one sense, I have been there and spent time roaming around. That’s why I gradually slipped more and more into life on the ISS as the mission went on; I know what is where on the ISS.
NASA took me on board in Houston on June 1, 2011 and set me free. So …
Direcly ahead? The Russian sector. To my left, the Japanese laboratory. Straight ahead, through the hatch, the shuttle is docked and, look up, that is the back of the shuttle, and look down and there is its nose. I’ve crawled from the shuttle’s mid deck through to the shuttle bay to the other side of that very hatch.
The Europeans? They are over there. And …
On July 1, 2011, JSC walked about eighty members of the press, me included, past and often right through their mockups in Building 9 at JSC — the shuttle, the Soyuz, the onboard bathroom, and the entire mockup of the International Space Station itself.
These mockups, we were told, were exact replicas. The astronauts train here for familiarization.
After watching STS-135’s crew on the ISS they have me convinced.
I knew where I was — although sometimes I had to think “now where is …?” Unlike a house with steps, the ISS has different pods attached here and there almost haphazardly because, in the weightlessness of space, there’s no reason for stairs, and so there’s no reason not to attach new stuff everywhichway to the main ISS.
And so they did.
On the day before landing the shuttle commander took a videocamera and roamed the entire ISS (with the exception of the Russian area). This was like my final exam. I may have thought I’d known all week where I was, but did I really? I was quietly surprised. Yeah, I knew what was around that corner. Yeah — look up. There it is … a hatch. I knew it was there … and …
It was eerie, but stangely comforting.
I longed to be weightless and to float free.
. . . . . . . . .
What I do. I long ago decided that while I always report the basic facts hen I’m covering an event, what I’m really interested in is who has shown up. At the political conventions, it is the party officials who get those awful seats high in the eaves, or the people in the streets holding signs.
That’s where I head. That’s who I want to talk to.
The almost-Astronaut. Waiting in line to fly to Houston I strike up a conversation with a woman ahead of me with a NASA sticker on her luggage. “Does she work for NASA?”
“No — I was one of the 12 finalists to be one of the teacher astronauts, but I didn’t make it. They only selected three.”
I was impressed. Did she go through the training?
She did — she rode weighless on the vomit comet and had the $40,000 NASA physical.
“Forty-thousand dollars for a physical? What did they do?”
“You don’t want the details — really you don’t.”
She was philosophical. She knew all the places at NASA I knew — the mockups and the training facilities. She sincerely liked all of the other finalists and seemed genuinely happy for those selected. “They all spoke Russian so it would have been a plus.”
I asked her if they might call her back later since she was not merely one of the finalists, she was one of the stand-bys if someone dropped out.
“I don’t think so. They have never selected someone over 44 and now I’m over 44. No — I think it is over, but it was a great experience.”
Wait! This woman is over 44?
“Take a closer look.”
I already had. She didn’t look “over 44” to me.
The hotel clerk. A hotel clerk spies my media credentials. I’m vaguely embarrassed — I always try to remember to remove them before I leave the car. For one thing, that means I always know where they are, but mostly it is because I don’t like to draw attention to myself.
I’m here on business, but it doesn’t matter what my business is.
But I had forgotten to pull my credentials off and sow them, and he asked me about how it was to cover the shuttle, and how long I’ve covered launches. After we chat for awhile a second clerk, a woman, joins us — and eventually I go find them some momentos which are handed out to the press free. They are thrilled.
Later I ask the clerk about himself.
He works at the hotel part time and has three young daughters. He is an X-ray technician and learned his skills in the Army. His father was a career officer. The more I talk to him the more I like him.
I ask him whether he had been sent to Iraq — and he said he had several tours there, and also Afghanistan. I ask him if he is okay because what you see in war can harden and deaden you. “Yeah,” he says, “I’m okay” and then he adds that he was trained in airborne assault “so I knew what I might get into.”
What did he get into?
“911 — I was airlifted to Ground Zero less than three hours after it happened and our unit went down onto the streets by ropes. We didn’t land.”
Whoa.
“The streets were so hot that in three days I burned off the souls of four pairs of boots — the souls would get stock in the streets.”
These were stories I’d never heard before.
“We lived in Central Park,” he said, at first under the stars. By the end of September 11, 2001, the US military had 15,000 troops surrounding the ground zero site. The stink. Three and a half months later when they pulled me out, the stink was still there. No — it was worse. It was rotting human flesh. I knew what the stink was …”
Posted in Control Tower, Runway / Shuttle Landing Facility, STS-134, tagged florida, kennedy space center, shuttle control tower, shuttle landing facility, shuttle runway, where does the shuttle land? on July 16, 2011| Leave a Comment »
Shuttle Landing Field Tower at Kennedy Space Center. Grandstands for the media and VIPs are just below the tower. The tower is halfway down the runway known as the SLF, shuttle landing facility. The shuttle takes about 2/3s of the runway to land.
The Control Tower is part of a complex halfway down the SLF.
Other facilities adjoining the Tower include media work space and a VIP viewing area. This photograph was taken on May 31, 2011, when the Shuttle Endeavour landed in the evening on the second to last shuttle mission, STS-134.
Posted in atlantis, crawler transporter, international space station, launch pad 39-a, shuttle hangar, space shuttle, STS-134, STS-135, Vehicle Assembly Building, tagged 39A, 39b, carol anne swagler, launch paqd, life of a shuttle, opf, orbiter processing facility, pete crow, peter crow, peter michael crow, rollout, rollover, runway, shuttle landing facility, slf, vehicle assembly building on July 16, 2011| Leave a Comment »
Hangar to VAB to Launch to Space & back
Shuttles always returned on landing to one of four hangars which were offically known as Orbiter Processing Facility 1, 2, 3 and 4. In the OPF the shuttle was serviced, repaired as necessary and readied again to fly in space.
Movement of the shuttle first was from the OPF to the Vehicle Assembly building several hundred yards away. This movement was called "the rollover" and took several hours.
The shuttle was transported on a carrier that was driven by a driver. Entering the VAB the shuttle was in the Transit Aisle, a room which extends to the top of the VAB more than 500 feet and 40 stories high.
Carol Anne Swagler's Shuttle photograph from a 16th floor catwalk in the VAB. As lifting of the shuttle begins, the shuttle seems to takes flight. Once she is upright, she hangs above the Transit Aisle for hours.
On the Transit Aisle, the shuttle is harnessed and then turned on end. It is allowed to hang there for hours until it completely settles and stops swaying. Then it is slowly lifted 500-feet to the ceiling on the VAB.
Pete Crow's Shuttle photograph showing the Atlantis after being moved directly over the 5-story high Crawler/Transporter in VAB High Bay 1. This photo was taken from a catwalk on the 16th floor of the VAB.
The most difficult and occasionally time-consuming step in the "Lift (the shuttle) to Mate (the shuttle with the Transporter/Crawler) is lowering the shuttle precisely onto the Crawler to enable its being secured onto the Crawler/Transporter. Once the shuttle is secure, the Crawler begins moving out of the VAB, as shown here, toward the Launch Pad at the rate of 1 mile and hour.
Once outside the VAB, the Crawler turns onto the Crawler way, two strips on Alabama river rock separated by a green center median. The Crawler way leads to both Pad 39-A and Pad 39-B, branching several miles down the Crawlerway. In the final missions only Pad 39-A was used. Pad 39-B was torn down and demolished in May and June 2011 to begin to prepare it for Constellation, the next US manned space program. President Obama canceled Constellation after millions had been spent, but the outcry was so great he reinstated it. More money was spent and then Mr. Obama canceled it again. All that remains is a 1960s-esq capsule that resembles Apollo called Orion. Orion is a capsule without a rocket to get it into space and no one will say when a rocket for it will be announced.
The Crawler is five stories high. To gauge the size of it look for the man in this picture besides the track (bottom center). For many years NASA invited selected members of the press to walk with the Crawler from the VAB to the Pad. As the program neared an end, the shuttles were commonly moved at night and it was deemed too dangerous to allow the media to walk with the shuttle any longer.
Carol Anne Swagler, Grove Sun Daily, walks far ahead of the shuttle and stands on one of the twin rock highways on which the shuttle traveled. The Crawler and shuttle were so heavy the rocks on the highway were crushed each time and had to be replaced. Nothing about the shuttle program was easy or inexpensive.
Pete Crow and the Shuttle Atlantis days before her final July 8, 2011 launch. Once at the Pad, the payload for the shuttle is brought to the pad and lifted up onto the Rotating Service Structure, directly behind Pete Crow. The payload for STS-135 is in the white rectangular box over his left shoulder. When ready, the shuttle's payload doors are opened and the RSS is rotated until it covers the shuttle. The payload is then secured in the shuttle's bay.
The RSS remains mated with the shuttle until about 18 hours before launch. Then it is retracted -- rotated more than 90-degrees leaving the shuttle alone on the pad, and ready to be fueled about 9 hours before launch.
The RSS has been fully retracted and the shuttle is ready to be launched. This is Endeavour awaiting launch on STS-134, the second to last shuttle mission. Retraction is a popular press event unless it rains. Few photographed the retraction of the final shuttle mission, STS-135, on the afternoon of July 7, 2011 because the time for retraction was repeatedly shifted due to weather, and because weather at the Pad was often a driving rain and it was muddy. Retraction was more easily enjoyed by watching it on NASA-TV from the comfort of the Pad 39 Press site.
Kennedy Space Center adjoins a wildlife sanctuary, Merritt Island, on the eastern shore of the Atlantic Ocean. Dawn here is often beautiful as it was on the blustery morning of July 8, 2011, when Pete took this photograph of the Atlantis on Pad 39-A.
Pete Crow shuttle Atlantis photograph from the roff of the Vehicle Assembly Building seconds after lift-off. There are only a handful of photographers allowed on the VAB roof for safety reasons, but Seine/Harbour® and The Grove Sun, Grove, Oklahoma, were granted two of the less than 40 spaces on July 8, 2011.
This is Endeavour being launched on STS-134 on May 16, 2011. The view is 22 seconds into the launch and was taken at the Media Press site. It shows a strikingly different perspective than the picture directly above taken from the VAB roof. Once launched the astronauts are in subjected to three+ G's (three times the weight of gravity). It doesn't last long. Eight minutes after launch the shuttle is over Africa and in space. And the astronauts are weightless.
Later shuttle missions lasted 12 to 14 days. The shuttle has to watch its energy reserves which drive the electrical which drives its computers. Generally, the shuttle undocks two days before landing from the International Space Station (ISS) then re-configures its orbits for landing in Florida. Landing begins with a de-orbit burn on the other side of the world, commonly over the Indian Ocean. Once the de-orbit burn is exectued about 60 minutes from landing, the shuttle has no where else to go except to the tiny Shuttle Landing Facility (runway) at Kennedy Space Center. This photo, taken by Pete, is of the final landing of Discovery and was taken on the northern end of the runway.
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PeteCrow / NASA 