The sign says it all:

I’ve learned that Atlantis had one final job to perform after undocking from the ISS and before returning home. Earlier today, the crew deployed a tiny satellite called PicoSat from a canister in her payload bay. Weighing in at only eight pounds, PicoSat’s function is to send back data on the performance of its own solar power cells, in hopes of learning something that could be useful for future space hardware. PicoSat is, of course, the last payload that will ever be deployed by a U.S. space shuttle, the 180th over the last three decades.

Atlantis looks to be in good shape and the weather forecast is favorable for a deorbit burn following her 200th orbit for this flight, leading up to a scheduled landing at 5:56 tomorrow morning, Eastern time (that’ll be 3:56 here in Utah). If something goes wrong, she’ll try again at the end of her 201st orbit, coming down at 7:32 AM Eastern (5:32 Mountain time). I’ve been thinking I shouldn’t even try to get up for the event — after all, I don’t sleep enough as it is, and this past week has been worse than usual in that regard, and I have a job to get to and plans for tomorrow evening that will probably result in yet another late night — but like I’ve been saying all along, this is important. Odds are I’m going to be very bleary-eyed when I stagger into work tomorrow…

Photo source.

Atlantis in the light of the rising sun, shortly after casting off from the space station last night:

Photo source.

Earlier this morning, the connecting hatches between shuttle Atlantis and the International Space Station closed for the last time.

I know I keep writing variations on the same theme, “last this” and “final that,” and it’s probably starting to get a bit tedious for Readers who don’t share my fascination with human spaceflight. But please understand that I have to do this. Each and every one of these landmarks is important. We need to mark them, because these last two weeks are the closing words of a chapter in a future history book. And very possibly, they’re the end of several generations’ dreams as well. I’m trying to be optimistic about the future of the space program, I really am. I know of four separate private-industry groups that are working on manned vehicles capable of reaching low-earth orbit, including one spaceplane that’s designed to land on a runway like the shuttle, and there are probably more I don’t know about. But with news that Congress is looking to cut NASA‘s annual budget — which, by the way, is not the outrageously high percentage of the federal budget most people believe it is, but is in fact smaller than the amount we’re spending every year to air-condition military tent cities in Afghanistan — as well as rumblings that some folks want to deorbit the just-barely-finished station as soon as 2015… with a cultural zeitgeist that no longer seems to have much interest in the Final Frontier, and a nagging, dread-filled sense that the whole damn country is falling apart while we surf for porn on the InterWebs… well, it’s hard to keep telling myself the United States is going to be launching people into space again anytime soon, let alone going back to deep space. American robots, maybe… but actual Americans? I just don’t know anymore. Once upon a time, I thought it was simply, logically inevitable that human beings — Americans, to be precise — would explore and settle and spread out across space. It seemed as natural a progression to me as manifest destiny must’ve seemed to people in the 19th century. And of course, I figured the progression would never falter, but just keep going ever higher, ever farther. But now I’m wondering, with a big tablespoon of bitter disappointment, if perhaps these ideas were only the naive thinking of a kid who watched too much Star Trek and was dumb enough to believe.

Before the crew of Atlantis returned to their ship for good this morning, they assembled with the crew of the ISS for a little ceremony, in which the station commander was formally presented with a model of a shuttle orbiter and a small American flag. The model will stand in for a more impressive monument, commemorating the winged spacecraft that assembled the outpost in space. It was immediately mounted on a bulkhead alongside the forward hatch in the station module known as Node 2, where 35 shuttle missions have docked. The flag, meanwhile, is something of a sacred NASA artifact. It flew with astronauts John Young and Robert Crippen on board shuttle Columbia during the very first mission, STS-1, 30 years ago. It will now live on the ISS, fastened to the Node 2 hatch cover itself, with the idea that it will remain there until the next American crew on board an American spacecraft comes up to retrieve it. And then if all goes well, it will fly again the next time a manned American spacecraft ventures beyond low Earth orbit, bound for the moon, or Mars, or the asteroids.

I only hope that it’s not still there, forgotten, when the ISS comes back down to Earth…

Atlantis is scheduled to undock shortly after midnight tonight, Mountain time.

Atlantis made its “backflip” maneuver earlier this morning, allowing the crew in the International Space Station to take high-resolution photos of her belly to check for any damage to the heat-shield tiles. The actual Rendezvous Pitch Maneuver, its formal name, takes about nine minutes. Here’s a time-lapsed version:

The RPM was instituted, of course, following the Columbia disaster, when a damaged section along Columbia‘s leading wing edge allowed superhot plasma generated during re-entry to melt delicate systems and structures inside the wing. So there is a certain grim overtone to the proceedings. But it is nevertheless a beautiful sight, like a woman turning 360 degrees to show off her new dress. But once again, the voice of Mission Control reminds us… this is the last time this woman will ever show off for us. Savor every moment with her, because soon she’ll be gone.

Atlantis docked with the station at 11:07 EDT, about one hour after this maneuver began, and the hatches between them were opened at 12:47, only about 10 minutes ago as of the time of this writing. If you’re keeping track of the trivia, this
is the 12th time Atlantis has docked with the ISS, and the 46th
time a space shuttle has docked to any space station. Nine of those occasions were to Russia’s old Mir station,  37
to the ISS.

And now I think it’s time for breakfast…I really should have eaten before I went down the rabbit-hole of mission updates and related videos!

Photo Credit: (NASA/Dick Clark)

“A sentimental journey into history.” That’s what the Houston flight controller called it as Atlantis soared into a clearing sky laced with thin, patchy clouds this morning. In the end, the weather that had everyone worried last night caused only a slight delay, a couple of minutes, and the shuttle lifted off at 11:29 Eastern time. I missed seeing it live, as I feared I would. Stupid commute. I’ve been feeling vaguely guilty about it all day, as silly as that sounds. But you know, I saw the very first launch live. I was late for school that day so I could see it. I guess I feel like I should’ve done the same to honor the final launch as well. To bring everything properly full circle. But duty called, and like a good little corporate drone, I obeyed. Needless to say, my heart wasn’t really into looking for misplaced commas today.

Fortunately, the Internet provides in a way that Walter Cronkite never could, so I’ve been able to watch the replay, at least. If you didn’t see it live yourself, you can catch the full 10-minute clip, covering main-engine start to external tank sep, here. Some of those “POV” videos in the past have been pretty washed out and uninteresting, but this one is superb, especially right at the end when the orbiter is getting ready to drop the external tank. The lighting is perfect; you can make out every tile on the shuttle’s belly, every ridge on surface of the tank. You can even see a bolt sliding open on the tank’s forward mounting bracket at the moment of separation. Truly magnificent.

Continue Reading…

This somewhat ominous photo of Launch Pad 39A was taken earlier today:

An iconic shot of Columbia standing on the pad prior to its launch on the first-ever shuttle mission, STS-01, in April of 1981. Notice anything different about the Columbia‘s appearance compared to more recent shuttle stacks?

The external fuel tank was only painted white for the first two missions before the engineers realized they could save several hundred pounds in weight by leaving it off. The more familiar orange coloration is the natural appearance of the spray-on insulation that coats the tanks. It’s funny, though… the painted tank was only used for two out of 135 missions, and 30 years ago to boot, but this is how I imagine space shuttles — spaceships in general, really — ought to look: clean and white, sparkling beneath the sun (or the floodlights, as the case may be). In fact, I was kind of hoping the paint might make a return for the final launch, just to bring everything full circle, but I suppose engineers aren’t as sentimental about such things.

Incidentally, it’s starting to look as if the final launch might be delayed. The forecasts are showing only a 30% possibility of favorable weather tomorrow, and I’ve just read of a lightning strike this morning within a third of a mile of the pad, which may have damaged Atlantis or the equipment around the pad itself…

Photo source.