![]() ![]() “It’s generated a lot of interest,” said NASA test director Steve Payne. NASA is anticipating 40,000 guests, including 15 members of Congress. as convenient as it gets - is expected to pack in the crowds. His ships included the Discovery, one of the exploring vessels after which the shuttle was named.ĭiscovery’s planned liftoff at 4:50 p.m. To mark the historic nature of the flight, the six astronauts are taking up a medallion from Britain’s Royal Society that was struck in honor of 18th-century British explorer James Cook. “But when you think about all the things Discovery has done. “It will be really sad to call ‘wheels stop’ for the last time on it,” said Lindsey. The commander of Discovery’s final mission, Steven Lindsey, has flown this particular shuttle twice before, once alongside Glenn. Overall, it’s spent 352 days in space and circled Earth 5,628 times. The oldest of the surviving shuttles that first flew in 1984, Discovery carried the Hubble Space Telescope into orbit in 1990, returned Mercury astronaut John Glenn to space at age 77, and got NASA flying again after the Challenger and Columbia shuttle disasters.ĭiscovery has flown to the space station 12 times the upcoming trip will be No. but we’ve grown to love and appreciate and feel like we’re doing something special for the country and really the world.”ĭiscovery has long been a favorite at NASA, at least unofficially. Leinbach expects there to be a lot of choked up people on the runway “because it’s the end of a 30-year program that not only have we worked in. “Landing day is going to be tough,” he noted, as will landing day be for shuttle Endeavour in the spring and especially for shuttle Atlantis in the summer. “We’d have quite a few left in her had the program been extended, but it wasn’t.” “This is her 39th mission,” he said Wednesday. Launch director Mike Leinbach said Discovery has been “a great ship. Then last month, the lead spacewalker was injured in a bicycle crash and had to be replaced on the crew. ![]() It took until January for NASA to understand the cracking in the center portion of the tank that holds instruments, and to be assured the repairs would work. It’s been an uncharacteristically bumpy exit for Discovery.įuel tank cracks - one of the most challenging problems to strike the shuttles - cropped up during the initial countdown in early November. There is no other multi-flown spacecraft than the shuttle.” “Discovery is the most flown spacecraft in history,” NASA Administrator Charles Bolden told The Associated Press. For now, NASA prefers to focus on Discovery’s last hurrah, an 11-day mission to deliver a bundle of space station supplies and an experimental humanoid robot that will become the first of its kind in space. The Smithsonian Institution has first dibs on this one.īut the end of the 30-year shuttle program is still months down the road. When Discovery returns from the International Space Station, it will be the first of the three surviving shuttles to be decommissioned this year and shipped off to a museum. Once more, NASA’s fleet leader is paving a new road, one that leads to shuttle retirement and an uncertain future for America’s space program. ![]() It promises to be a sentimental journey for the six astronauts assigned to the mission as well as the supporting cast of thousands who have painstakingly prepped the world’s most traveled rocketship. After 143 million miles and nearly a year all told in orbit, space shuttle Discovery is poised to blast off Thursday one last time. But until one of them is ready, NASA will send astronauts up on Russian rockets.CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. Vehicles that can be used to ferry astronauts to low-earth orbit and the International Space Station are being developed by private companies. space agency will have no means of putting people into space for the next several years. The crew departed from the International Space Station on Tuesday after an eight-day visit to deliver a year's worth of supplies, and haul trash and used equipment back to Earth.Ītlantis, as well as the other remaining shuttles, will be retired from service and put on public display.Īlthough NASA has long-range plans to use heavy lift rockets to send astronauts to an asteroid and eventually to Mars, the U.S. The fourth shuttle in NASA's fleet, Atlantis first flew into space in October 1985. Perfect weather conditions and a crowd of hundreds welcomed the shuttle home.Ītlantis' 13-day mission capped off its 33rd and final flight after 26 years in service. The crew of four astronauts on board Atlantis touched down just before 10:00 UTC at the Kennedy Space Center in the southern state of Florida. The space shuttle Atlantis has made a perfect landing, bringing an official end to 30 years of U.S. ![]()
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