SLN: Up to the Minute, I'm Charles Atkeison. A beautiful night launch of the space shuttle Endeavour occurred tonight at 7:55 pm ET from here at the Kennedy Space Center to begin 15-days of orbital operations and a visit to the international space station."It's our turn to take home improvement to a new level after ten years of international space station construction," Commander Chris Ferguson stated to launch control just before flight. "Endeavour is ready to go!"
Endeavour will dock to the space station on Sunday evening to begin ten+ days of docked operations. On tap will be four spacewalks, installation of a second toliet, a water purification system, two extra beds, and more supplies in an effort to begin having six crew members live on the space station beginning this spring.
The seven crew members are commander Ferguson and Pilot Eric Boe, mission specialists Steve Bowen, Shane Kimbrough, Don Pettit, Heidemarie Stefanyshyn-Piper and Sandrea Mangus. Mangus will stay behind after Endeavour undocks and live aboard the station for four months.
Following a Thanksgiving Day station seperation by Endeavour, touchdown is currently scheduled for November 29th. However, most at the Johnson Space Center feel a one to two day mission extension could be placed into the timeline to allow for extra work to be performed.
At a mission elapse time of 10 minutes into the 22nd flight of Endeavour, this is spacelaunchnews.com.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment