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2011 Historic Event |
Space
Shuttle Atlantis – The Last Blast-Off, July 8, 2011
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Location: Merritt Island, just
north of Cape Canaveral, Kennedy Space Center's Launch Complex,
Florida, USA
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| The crew of Atlantis: (left to
right) Mission Specialists Rex Walheim, Sandy Magnus, Pilot Doug
Hurley and Commander Chris Ferguson. |
Under
a mysterious layer of thin stratus clouds, two large plumes of
smoke erupted about 5 seconds apart from underneath Space Shuttle
Atlantis atop launch pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center. Less
than 30 seconds later, Atlantis shot through that ceiling of moisture
with a flash of brilliance and disappeared from view. The sound
of what amounts to a 4 million pound firecracker echoed over Merritt
Island for about 2 more minutes, and the faint roar of the orbiter’s
3 main engines carried on after the solid rocket booster separation
at T+2:01. After several days of uncertainty and doubt, Atlantis
made one final cry of triumph as she ascended to the heavens. |
On Tuesday, July 5th, the countdown began at 1:00pm EDT from its
standard T-43 hour mark. Over the next 70 hours and 29 minutes,
forecasts would worsen, beaches would crowd, over 1500 members
of the media would gather, lightning would strike and much doubt
would be cast on whether Atlantis would be able to launch as scheduled.
On Tuesday, Kathy Winters, the shuttle weather officer, and her
team issued forecasts earlier in the week detailing that Kennedy
Space Center weather had a 60% chance of causing a scrub. This
was increased to 70% by Wednesday the 6th, and the questions began
to grow. NASA’s technicians and officials were doing everything
they could to make sure this launch happened as scheduled, but
the weather did not seem to be cooperating. The forecast was supposed
to improve marginally over the weekend, but if the shuttle did
not launch by July 10 it would have to be postponed over a week
because of a Delta IV rocket scheduled to launch on July 14. All
that could be done was to hope the weather would smile upon KSC
just long enough to send the orbiter into space. |
Thursday
evening, the rotating service structure, which protects the shuttle
and allows technicians to perform final checks, moved away from the
shuttle. This is usually only initiated when all signs point to a
launch. Mission Management Team chair Mike Moses said in a
press conference that the decision to scrub because of weather would
only be made once it was absolutely, 100% certain that the weather
would not allow for a safe launch of the shuttle. Because the forecast
from Winters still had a 30% ‘go’ chance, the teams convened
and decided to proceed as scheduled. Mike Leinbach, Launch Director,
stated that they had had forecasts of 90% ‘no-go’ within
hours of T minus zero and still launched, and they had had forecasts
of 10% ‘no-go’ and been forced to scrub, so they wanted
to wait as long as possible before postponing a launch due to weather. |
At approximately 1:00am on July 8, Leinbach and Moses met and
decided to proceed with ‘tanking’, or the filling of
the large, orange external fuel tank with 146,181.8 US gal
(553,358 liters) of liquid oxygen and 395,581.9 US gal
(1,497,440 liters) of liquid hydrogen. The process finished at
about 5:00am, 3 hours after initiation. The crew woke up at about
4:30am to start preparing for their departure to launch pad 39A,
which included their breakfast, suit-up and walk out in front of
hundreds of members of the media, and the ride aboard the Airstream
to the space shuttle. After taking pictures of each other in front
of and under the shuttle, Commander Chris Ferguson, Pilot Doug
Hurley, Mission Specialist Sandy Magnus and Mission Specialist
Rex Walheim entered the closeout room to begin the boarding process.
Atlantis’ hatch was sealed at approximately 9:20am, the closeout
crew said their goodbyes to the camera and retreated to the fallback
area. At 10:32am, the final polls from Director Leinbach began
(with the countdown clock held at T-9 minutes) and for the first
time all week, the weather poll was filled with a “green” response.
At that point, the weather was the only obstacle to launching,
so with the polling completed and all systems green, the countdown
resumed from its 9 minute mark. |
Atlantis
would not go without giving its personnel one last temper tantrum.
At T-31 seconds, the gaseous oxygen vent arm (known as the ‘beanie
cap) is supposed to give three indications that it is in its fully
retracted position. Only two were received by launch control. Having
had this issue before, Leinbach ordered his crew to conduct the visual
test put in place in the event the beanie gave a false reading. The
visual check was completed in a matter of seconds, and the scare
was averted. At T-6 seconds, the shuttle’s 3 main engines were
ignited, soon followed by the booster ignition at T-0. A bright orange
glow illuminated the smoke from the engines while Atlantis slowly
emerged from behind the launch pad assembly. Delayed by distance,
the low rumble began to shake the earth and Atlantis cleared the
launch tower, switching control to Houston’s Johnson Space
Center, and beginning its “Roll Program”, which properly
aligns the spaceship on course for its entry into orbit. The crooked
column of smoke grew as Atlantis accelerated through the point
of maximum aerodynamic resistance, and the shuttle disappeared
from sight through the stratus cloud layer. The 500 foot flame
trailing behind was visible for a few more seconds, and then the
only sign that the crew of four and over 28,000 pounds of payload
were on their way into space was the deep crackle of the solid
rocket boosters and main engines. |
At
the Post Launch News Conference, Launch Director Leinbach and Mission
Management Team chair Mike Moses discussed with the media
their last few days. Both readily admitted to choking back tears
both before and during the launch sequence, depicting that despite
their ability to function on little sleep, they were still human
enough for emotions to show. Leinbach, when asked about the decision
to fill the external tank at 1:00am that morning, said that he and
Moses had gone into his office, shut the door, and flipped a coin.
Moses added with a smile that darts were also thrown as part of the
decision making process. After the laughter subsided, they came clean,
saying that they saw nothing that could prevent a launch other than
the weather, which was not in any way set in stone. They gave the
go for launch, for crew entry and hatch closure, and the weather
did indeed smile upon them to send Atlantis off in style. |
This is Atlantis’ 33 rd mission, 12th to
the International Space Station, and the 135th overall shuttle
mission, and 37th overall to the ISS. Included in the 28,000 pounds
of payload are:
-The Multi-Purpose Logistics Module, Raffaello,
which contains a full load of supplies for the ISS
-The Lightweight Multi-Purpose Carrier is scheduled
to bring back a failed pump module from the station so analysts
on the ground can determine why it failed and how to prevent it
in the future.
-The Robotic Refueling Mission, which is a module
designed to refuel and/or repair satellites while in orbit, even
those that were not designed to be serviced.
-Hundreds of mementos and special items to be
brought back to family and friends of the crew and NASA employees,
commemorating the final shuttle mission.
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The
mission is currently scheduled to end on the morning of July 20th,
but mission managers are currently looking to extend the mission
by one day to allow the crew to collect and pack unnecessary items
from the ISS to free space for the Expedition 28 astronauts currently
living in the station. |
Rating:
10+ |
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Report
by Stefan Seville, photography as noted for AIRSHOWSREVIEW LLC |
© 2011
www.airshowsreview.com All Rights Reserved. |
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trade names, trademarks and manufacturer names are the property
of their respective owners. |
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