Sun, Jul 10, 2011
STS-135, Report #01, 4 p.m. CDT Friday, July 8, 2011
With a cargo carrier packed with supplies and equipment,
Atlantis launched Friday morning to the International Space Station
on the final space shuttle mission. The shuttle with its crew of
four lifted off from the Kennedy Space Center on its 12-day flight
at 10:29 a.m. CDT. Aboard are the Raffaello multi-purpose logistics
module and the Robotic Refueling Mission experiment, which could
help develop ways to refuel satellites in orbit.
ANN's Jim Campbell was there for STS-1, as
well,
and can't believe such an amazing vehicle is being
mothballed.
Nearly a million people came to the
Kennedy area to see Atlantis lift off on a mission marking the end
of the space shuttle era. The mission's focus was to leave the
station as well supplied as possible to begin its post-shuttle
existence. Atlantis also is scheduled to return a failed ammonia
pump to Earth for examination - a task no other spacecraft can
do.
Commander Chris Ferguson, Pilot Doug Hurley and Mission
Specialists Sandra Magnus and Rex Walheim, are scheduled to
rendezvous and dock with the station on Sunday. Raffaello is making
its fourth trip to the station. On flight day 4 it will be lifted
from the cargo bay and attached to the Harmony node. It will be
unloaded there and subsequently loaded with station discards before
it is returned to the cargo bay on flight day 10 for return to
Earth.
The Robotic Refueling Mission experiment will be installed
during the only spacewalk, by station crew members, while Atlantis
is docked there. The experiment will test concepts, techniques and
tools for robotically refueling satellites in orbit. The test will
use the station's robotic capabilities, the first test in space of
ways to refuel satellites, including those not designed for such
servicing.
Aboard the station waiting to welcome Atlantis and its crew are
Expedition 28 Commander Andrey Borisenko and Flight Engineers
Alexander Samokutyaev, Ron Garan, Sergei Volkov, Mike Fossum and
Satoshi Furukawa.
STS-135 is the 135th shuttle flight, the 33rd flight for
Atlantis and the 37th shuttle mission dedicated to station assembly
and maintenance.
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