Today is the day, the final launch of the Space Shuttle Atlantis — unless something holds up the procedure or they need to use the Atlantis in an emergency in the future.
The Atlantis shown here with crew members and the specially designed patch for this mission. Did you know that each mission has it’s own patch?
Here are the crew for this special mission -
Image above: Pictured clockwise from bottom are STS-132 Commander Ken Ham, Mission Specialists Garrett Reisman and Michael Good, Pilot Tony Antonelli, and Mission Specialists Piers Sellers and Steve Bowen. Image credit: NASA
At NASA Kennedy Space Center's Launch Pad 39A, space shuttle Atlantis is revealed Thursday evening after retraction of the pad's rotating service structure. Image credit: NASA/Jack Pfaller
You can see the walkway that the astronauts will enter by in the above photo.
As I write this the crew started their activities for the day about an hour ago (5am EST), the Atlantis is currently in the ‘tanking’ process where liquid hyrogen and oxygen are pumped in to the tanks from the bottom. It takes about three hours to fill the big external tanks.
Everything is looking good for today’s launch – set for 2:20pm EST.
It is hard to really grasp that something I have made is on board waiting for blast off! I had no idea that so much ‘STUFF’ went up with each Shuttle. Each mission has an Official FlightKit that is normally stowed in the middeck and contains all kinds of things from school’s, charities, businesses etc.
Here’s a link to the official flight kit for this mission – you might be surprised to see just what and how much is listed! The beads for Beads of Courage are number 20 and that includes my three space monkeys, who report at this time they do have a few butterflies in their tummies!!
Since this is Atlantis’ final flight there are additional containers full of flags, patches and other memorabilia. I read that these items will be given to NASA employees and dignitaries — jealous??
I’m excited for Beads of Courage, and thrilled to bits that my Space Monkeys are a part of this historic event, the final voyage of the Space Shuttle Atlantis!
If you’d like to try and spy the shuttle as it flies overhead visit this link for information — first sighting should be the space shuttle on it’s own and then later it will be docked to the International Space Station.
To watch NASA TV click here and see it all LIVE.
I’ll be adding more posts during this mission with information about the Atlantis – past and present.
