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BBC

Shuttle Discovery poised for final flight
By Jonathan Amos, 24 February 2011


.> LiveStream: Shuttle take off

The US shuttle Discovery is all set to make history by launching from Cape Canaveral for the very last time. The oldest of Nasa's three surviving orbiters has been given the "go" to take six astronauts and a big box of supplies to the space station. It will also deliver a sophisticated humanoid robot to the outpost. US politicians have called time on the shuttle fleet, with the expectation that just two further flights will be made before the ships head to museums. "The last flight of all three vehicles is going to be emotional for all of us but we're going to complete these missions as we always do," said shuttle launch director, Mike Leinbach.

Lift-off from the Kennedy Space Center's Launch Pad 39A complex is timed for 1650 local time (2150 GMT). The US space agency (Nasa) has struggled to get Discovery away on her final voyage. Technical problems have resulted in months of delay. She should have flown in September last year. That slipped to a target of November, which then drifted out to February when cracks needed fixing in the orbiter's giant external fuel tank. Discovery is regarded as the "leader of the fleet". First launched in 1984, it has since completed 38 missions, travelling some 230 million km in the process.

Shuttle Endeavour is expected to fly to the station in April. Atlantis will go no earlier than June, if Nasa has sufficient money left in its shuttle programme budget. Following the fleet's retirement, the plan is for US astronauts to fly to the space station on Russian Soyuz rockets until perhaps the middle of the decade. A number of American companies then hope to be in a position to sell launch services to Nasa on a range of new vehicles. The intention is that the agency should put its efforts into leading the development of a large rocket - known as the Space Launch System - that can send astronauts beyond the space station to destinations such as asteroids.

Congress has set out the broad capabilities it expects to see in this rocket and has given a deadline of 2016 for its introduction. However, Nasa has said it cannot deliver such a vehicle in the time and with the budget the politicians have specified. "We're still working on what's next," said Mike Moses, who chairs the agency's mission management team. "We have this path toward exploration with developing the SLS, putting the multipurpose crew vehicle on top of it, funding commercial entities to help us get into LEO, [in a] faster, better, cheaper way. "All that's really good future for Nasa; it's just not the same as we're doing right now, which is launching shuttles every day." Read more

> AP Video: Discovery ready for final countdown > NASA: STS 133 Mission
> Videos: 3 Great Ways to Watch the Last Space Shuttle Missions > Spacevidcast


.GMC: Space shuttle Discovery's final mission

People watch the space shuttle Discovery move to the Vehicle Assembly Building at Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla

CSMonitor

Final shuttle launch for Discovery: Was shuttle program worth it?
By Pete Spotts, Staff writer





Visionary rocket scientist Wernher von Braun explains the model of a manned spaceship to be used for flying to the moon in 1957. He was an early proponent of a space shuttle program. (Newscom/File)


For 30 years, the space shuttle launch has served as the centerpiece of the US space program. But Feb. 24 will mark the last shuttle launch of Discovery, with the final flight of Endeavour to follow in April and – if there's enough money – Atlantis's last flight of the entire program in June. Here are five questions about what the shuttles have – and haven't – accomplished.


1. Why did the US build the shuttle?

For many space enthusiasts, including Wernher von Braun, who headed the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Marshall Space Flight Center from 1960 to 1970, a shuttle of some sort was part of an overall long-term vision for the US human-spaceflight program that dated to the early 1950s. The vision included a winged craft that could carry crews and cargo and be used to loft and repair satellites, and a space station as a jumping-off point for exploring the moon and eventually Mars. Proponents also argued that reusable shuttles would be more economical than rockets that were good for only one launch.


.Space photos of the day: Exploring Mars, February 18, 2011

MSNBC

Space shuttle Discovery blasts off on its final flight to the Intern. Space Station
Problem with range safety adds last-minute drama to space station mission
By msnbc.com staff and news service reports, Feb 24, 2011


.FloridaToday: Space shuttle Discovery’s final flight > Video: Discovery lifts off


Cape Canaveral, Fla. — After a last-minute glitch, the space shuttle Discovery lifted off Thursday on its final voyage, heading for the International Space Station with six astronauts and a humanoid robot. The countdown proceeded smoothly until there were just minutes left before liftoff. Range safety officers reported that their command system display wasn't working, which could have forced a halt to the count.

"Calm down," shuttle launch director Mike Leinbach told his colleagues. He asked for some extra time to get the problem fixed — and received the go-ahead. The countdown was held at T-minus-5 minutes, but the range safety system was fixed with just seconds left to make Thursday's launch window. It was an extra bit of drama for a mission that was initially scheduled to launch in November. At that time, fueling problems held up the launch, forcing months of repairs. "Enjoy the ride," mission control told Discovery commander Steven Lindsey. "For those watching, get ready to witness the majesty and power of Discovery as she lifts off one last time," Lindsey replied.

The launch came at 4:53 p.m. ET, three minutes later than scheduled. Discovery is NASA's most traveled space shuttle, putting in nearly three decades of service. Now it's slated to become the first shuttle to retire. The shuttle is heading to the International Space Station with a load of supplies, a new orbital closet and a humanoid robot. This is the 39th flight for Discovery, which has logged 143 million miles (230 million kilometers) since its first mission in 1984. After retirement, the orbiter is expected to go on display at the Smithsonian Institution's Udvar-Hazy Center, an annex of the National Air and Space Museum.


.Meet NASA's first humanoid robot, now in space

- R2 will be the first humanoid robot in space. It is designed to show how dexterous robots cope in a weightless environment
- After upgrades and advancements, Nasa hopes R2 can venture outside the space station to help astronauts on spacewalkers
- The expectation is that R2-like robots could one day go into orbit to service communications and scientific satellites
- Similar robots might be sent on deep space missions, where they would experience more extreme thermal and radiation conditions
- Humanoid robots could also help set up Mars camps before astronauts arrive, and maintain the surface experiments after they leave


NASA estimated that 40,000 guests were on hand for Discovery's farewell launch, including a small contingent from Congress. Watching with special interest from Mission Control in Houston is astronaut Timothy Kopra, who was supposed to be the flight's lead spacewalker. He was hurt in a bicycle crash last month and was replaced by Stephen Bowen, who will become the first astronaut to fly back-to-back shuttle missions. The other crew members include Lindsey, pilot Eric Boe, spacewalker Benjamin Alvin Drew Jr. and mission specialists Michael Barratt and Nicole Stott. All six astronauts are veterans. Stott and Barratt served long-term stints on the space station in 2009.


Onlookers flock to watch launch
Well before dawn, recreational vehicles already lined nearby roads offering the best views of liftoff. Signs outside businesses and government offices in the neighboring towns of Cape Canaveral and Cocoa Beach offered words of encouragement. "The heavens await Discovery," one church proclaimed. Local grocery stores stocked up on extra red, white and blue cakes adorned with shuttle pictures. Camera batteries flew off shelves.Leinbach noted that it would be "tough" to see Discovery soar one last time. "What will be most difficult will be on landing day when we know that that's the end of her mission completely," he said.

Discovery will spend 11 days in orbit — on top of the 352 days it's already spent circling the planet — and will rack up another 4.5 million miles (7.2 million kilometers). Its list of achievements include delivering the Hubble Space Telescope to orbit, carrying the first Russian cosmonaut to launch on a U.S. spaceship, returning Mercury astronaut John Glenn to orbit, and bringing shuttle flights back to life after the Challenger and Columbia accidents. "She's been an amazing machine," Leinbach said Wednesday. "She's done everything we've asked of her."Discovery's crew will deliver and install a closetlike compartment full of space station supplies. The Italian-made module was named Leonardo, after the Italian artist/inventor Leonardo da Vinci.

Packed inside the compartment is Robonaut 2, or R2, set to become the first humanoid robot in space. The experimental machine — looking human from the waist up — will remain boxed until after Discovery departs. Up at the space station, meanwhile, the six-person crew welcomed a European cargo ship that was launched last week from French Guiana. It docked successfully just six hours before Discovery's planned liftoff, keeping the shuttle countdown on track. "Busy day in space," station commander Scott Kelly noted in a Twitter tweet. NASA is under presidential direction to retire the shuttle fleet this summer, let private companies take over trips to orbit and focus on getting astronauts to asteroids and Mars. There's been considerable disagreement among lawmakers and the space community on how best to accomplish this.


.BBC: Space shuttle Discovery last flight

- The US Discovery has launched from the Kennedy Space Center for the last time.
- It is named after various historic vessels, including James Cook's 18th Century explorer
- Discovery was the first spacecraft to retrieve a satellite and bring it back to Earth
- It has completed more missions than any other vehicle in the space shuttle fleet
- The shuttle visited both the Russian Mir station and the International Space Station
- It carried the Hubble Space Telescope into orbit and made two servicing missions
- Total in orbit time: 352 days; Number of orbits: 5,628; Individual crewmembers: 180

"Godspeed Discovery," retired space shuttle program manager Wayne Hale said in a Twitter update Thursday. "Prayers for a safe flight and wisdom for decision makers."

The Hindu

1961 Soviet space capsule to be auctioned
By AP, February 24, 2011


.Hindu: Discovery space shuttle poised for final launch > Global Media Coverage

Vostok 3KA-2 space capsule, flown with the cosmonaut-mannequin Ivan Ivanovich on March 25, 1961, as the final test mission prior to Yuri Gagarin's first manned space flight.


The capsule, scorched during its re-entry into the Earth’s atmosphere, is estimated to sell for between $2 million and $10 million at Sotheby’s. Just weeks before the first man shot into outer space in 1961, the Soviets launched a dress rehearsal with a duplicate of the space capsule carrying a cosmonaut mannequin and a live dog. The Vostok 3KA-2 spacecraft - a twin of the Vostok 3KA-3 that later carried cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin - is being auctioned in New York on April 12, the 50th anniversary of the manned mission.

The capsule, scorched during its re-entry into the Earth’s atmosphere, was to go on exhibit at the Sotheby’s auction house galleries on Thursday. It’s estimated to sell for between $2 million and $10 million. Sotheby’s said the owner, who wished to remain anonymous, bought it privately from the Russians years ago and felt the 50th anniversary was an appropriate time to sell it. The capsule’s interior, which contained about 1,800 pounds (815 kilograms) of instrumentation, has been stripped for security reasons. Made of aluminium alloy and measuring a little more than 7 feet (2.1 meters) in diameter, it retained “secret” classification until 1986.

The life-size space-suited mannequin, nicknamed Ivan Ivanovich, has been on loan at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in Washington since 1997. It was bought at Sotheby’s by the Perot Foundation in 1993. The faux astronaut shared the small capsule with a mutt named Zvezdochka, or Little Star, which made it back from space safely. The test mission made one low Earth orbit before its re-entry 115 minutes later and landing in a snow-covered gully near Izhevsk, an industrial city in what’s now the European part of Russia. Just 18 days later, the 3KA-3 manned capsule, later renamed Vostok 1, carried Gagarin on the world’s first space flight. Like the mannequin, Gagarin was ejected from the capsule and parachuted down. The Vostok 1 is now housed in the Rkk Energia Museum near Moscow.

The first manned space flight came four years after the launch of Sputnik, the first manmade satellite.

Russia Today

US leaves space for Russia
Published: 24 February, 2011


.RT Video: US leaves space for Russia

By the end of 2011, NASA will no longer be able to send humans into space


By the end of this year, NASA will no longer be able to send humans into space. According to Barack Obama’s plan, responsibility will go to private companies, which are expected to come up with cheaper ways to ferry astronauts to low-Earth orbit. “They know they have a big step to take if they are going to put humans into space… They have a lot of work to do,” says NASA Astronaut Sunita Williams. No one can say for sure when the private American companies will come up with a new spaceship.

For years to come, it will be the Russian Soyuz spacecraft, which is going to be the only means for people to reach the International Space Station, which is perfectly fine with the leaders of Russia and the US, but does not sit well with many Americans. “How could this happen? We could make it to the Moon, there was wonderful equipment, and now we are reduced to being passengers on a Russian ship. That’s a wounded pride thing,” says Marianne Dyson, an author and former NASA flight controller.


.The Space Race - The End of an Era


Wounded pride also revealed itself in comments by some American lawmakers, astronauts, scientists and former NASA officials. "We will be largely dependent on the Russians, and that is a terrible place for the United States to be," former NASA Administrator Michael Griffin told the Washington Post. "For the 'world's greatest space-faring nation', this is hard to accept", says John Glenn, the first American to be sent into Earth orbit. Comedians in the US did not miss out on poking fun at Americans’ sense of pride. “With the end of manned space flights, America has to ride on the hump in the back seat while the Russians take the wheel to space,” said Stephen Colbert.

But those in NASA who now actually work with the Russians, like astronaut Sunita Williams, have different sentiments. “I couldn’t imagine when I was going walking on the Red Square or going to a Russian company and working hand in hand with Russian colleagues. We are not competing but we are working together. It’s time for joint collaboration and learning from one another. That’s just as healthy as the competition that we had in the past,” says Williams. But it is not the first time Americans have had to rely on the Russians to take their crew to space. They depended upon Russian rockets during a two-year grounding of US spacecraft after the 2003 Space Shuttle Columbia disaster.

Columbia exploded during re-entry into the Earth's atmosphere and all seven crew members died. Shuttle’s track record includes another tragedy: in 1986, the Space Shuttle Challenger broke apart 73 seconds into its flight. The Russian Soyuz proved to be the safest way to deliver people to space and now, with the shuttle retiring, it will be the only way. “We are no longer in a space race. What was once a global competition has become a global collaboration,” said President Barack Obama. The leaders of both Russia and the US are saying that space is no longer a place for competition, it is a platform for co-operation, but the question remains: is everyone in the US ready to fully accept it?

William Anderson associate professor of economics at Frostburg State University, supports President Obama’s plan and says that this is not a competition but cooperation, and we should not turn back to “Cold war in the space program.” "It is nonsense. This is not a controversies country… I remember Yury Gagarin and the reaction after Sputnik. Yes, it is wonderful we went to the moon, but this competition with the Russian staff – that we were talking about 50 years ago. We need to grow up."

.
.CBS Photos: Space Robot

R2, which was the creation of a joint NASA-General Motors project, is 3 feet, 4 inches tall and weighs approximately 330 pounds.

CBS Live Video: Discovery docks with the Int'l Space Station > Shuttle Discovery Closing in on Space Station for Saturday Arrival

Cfnews

.

CNN: The Space Shuttle Discovery docks with International space station for 13th and final time - Feb. 26, 2011. Watch Live: Earth in Space seen from the Int'l Space Station at: CBS News


(CNN) -- Some 220 miles above the Earth's surface, the shuttle Discovery docked Saturday afternoon with the International Space Station for the last time. Due to problems lining up with each other, the shuttle's "hard-mating" with the permanent orbiter threatened to push the six-man crew off schedule. The hook-up was finished around 3 p.m., yet NASA's Mission Control noted a possibility that the installation of an express logistics carrier would not be completed until Sunday, one day later than planned. Still, there were no major problems on the third day of the shuttle's 11-day mission, during which the crew is set to deliver a storage module, a science rig and spare parts to the space station and its six occupants.

Discovery started its 39th and final flight with a launch late Thursday afternoon from Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Originally scheduled for November, the shuttle's launch had been delayed to make repairs to the external tank's support beams. And NASA halted its countdown on Thursday, at five minutes, because of a computer problem related to safety on the "eastern range." But after a confirmation that all was good to go, the countdown resumed, and the shuttle lifted off about three minutes behind its planned 4:50 p.m. ET launch. The crew is headed by Steve Lindsey. Steve Bowen, a late addition, became the first ever astronaut to fly consecutive missions after he was assigned to take the place of Tim Kopra when Kopra was injured last month in a bicycle accident, according to NASA.

Prior to Thursday's launch, Discovery had spent 352 days in orbit, circling the Earth 5,628 times. It has also carried 246 crew members, more than any space vehicle in history. "In a way, it's ... sad to see the last flight," astronaut Steven Swanson said Thursday. "It's such a wonderful vehicle." The last scheduled launch of Space Shuttle Endeavour is set for April 19 and will be commanded by Mark Kelly, the husband of U.S. Representative Gabrielle Giffords, who is recovering from being shot last month in Tucson, Arizona. Atlantis is tentatively scheduled to launch during the summer. Discovery was the first space shuttle to dock with a space station of any kind when it met up on June 4, 1998, with Russia's now defunct Mir space station. The craft also was the first to hook up with the International Space Station, doing so on May 29, 1999, according to NASA. Saturday's event marked the 13th such docking for the Discovery.

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Reuters: Shuttle Discovery pays last visit to space station
Space shuttle Discovery arrived at the International Space Station on Saturday on its final mission before the United States retires its three-ship shuttle fleet later this year.

..Astronaut briefly stranded during spacewalk..Video: Astronauts begin spacewalk

A robotic system shutdown interrupted Monday's spacewalk outside the International Space Station, leaving an astronaut stuck with an 363-kilogram pump in his hands for nearly a half-hour.


.Discovery Space Shuttle Astronauts Kick Off First Space Walk


.Gl.Med.Cov: Space walks , Discoevry - More...


..Space photos: Spacewalks

FoxNews

Virgin Galactic Deal Will Send Scientists Into Space
Published February 28, 2011


.Research institute buys six tickets to space

Who knew the perks of being a research scientist could be so good? But the Southwest Research Institute has handed over $1.6 million to Virgin Galactic to fly some of its staff into space.


Will scientists fuel Virgin Galactic's private spacefleet? Virgin Galactic announced Monday morning that the Southwest Research Institute bought two tickets for its scientists to ride aboard the six-passenger SpaceShipTwo. Each ticket costs $200,000. The two researchers will conduct biomedical monitoring, atmospheric imaging and other experiments in microgravity, the Institute said. "We look forward to the not-so-distant day when entire Virgin Galactic flights are filled with researchers and their experiments,” said Alan Stern, associate vice president of SwRI’s Space Division and former NASA associate administrator for science.


.Space.com: Countdown: Top 10 Private Fantasy Spaceships Headed for Reality (more)


George Whitesides, president and CEO of Virgin Galactic said the agreement signals the scientific potential of the Virgin spacecraft. "Virgin Galactic will be able to offer researchers flights to space that are unprecedented in frequency and cost," Whitesides said in a statement. "Science flights will be an important growth area for the company in the years to come." Engineers are flight testing SpaceShipTwo in California's Mojave Desert. There's no date for when commercial flights will begin. Built by famed aerospace designer Burt Rutan, SpaceShipTwo is based on a prototype that won a $10 million prize in 2004 for being the first manned private rocket to reach space.


.21st Century's Greatest Space Innovators (more)

Oct. 10: In this photo released by Virgin Galactic, the Virgin Galactic SpaceShipTwo, or VSS Enterprise, glides toward the earth on its first test flight after release from the mothership, WhiteKnight2, also known as VMS Eve, over the Mojave, Calif., area. - AP

Space.com

.. Photos of Discovery's Final Mission

Astronaut Paoli Nespoli snapped this photo of Discovery shuttle astroanuts Alvin Drew and Steven Bowen during the first spacewalk of their STS-133 mission on Feb. 28, 2011.

.
.NASA: Discovery Astronauts Wrap Up Mission's Second Spacewall

The Leonardo Permanent Multipurpose Module Leonardo being attached to the International Space Station, March 1, 2011, flight day 5 of NASA's STS-133 mission aboard the shuttle Discovery.

NASA
.NASA Images

Making the Grade
NASA astronauts Steve Bowen and Alvin Drew (partially obscured at center) conducted the STS-133 mission's spacewalk on Monday, Feb. 28. During the six-hour, 34-minute spacewalk, Bowen and Drew installed the J612 power extension cable, moved a failed ammonia pump module to the External Stowage Platform 2 on the Quest Airlock for return to Earth at a later date, installed a camera wedge on the right hand truss segment, installed extensions to the mobile transporter rail and exposed the Japanese "Message in a Bottle" experiment to space.


.> NASA: Shuttle and Station Missions

.


On Approach
After a very cloudy day at Forest of Dean, Gloucestershire, England, the skies cleared to allow a view of this stunning pass of the ISS and Discovery on Feb. 26, 2011. Photographer Rob Bullen, who captured this breath-taking view of the shuttle Discovery and the space station, said, "I could not believe the timing was so fortuitous to show the shuttle closing in on the station. I captured this, what I guess could potentially be, a once in a lifetime image of these two spaceships traveling as separate craft using Canon EOS 40D using eyepiece projection through a hand guided 8.5 inch Newton." Image Credit: Rob Bullen


.Space.com: The Gang's All Here

Space shuttle Discovery's STS-133 crew and the space station's Expedition 26 crew members speak with reporters during an in-flight interview on Feb. 27, 2011, the mission's fourth day.