Last tango discovery Docks with space station

HOUSTON--the shuttle Discovery glided to a picture-perfect docking with the international space station on Saturday, the 13th and final space veteran linkup with the orbital outpost.

With Commander Steven Lindsey manually flying discovery from the aft flight deck, the shuttle's payload bay docking committed his counterpart at the front end of the station's Harmony module at 1: 14 PM CST.

An astronaut "station and Houston, discovery has confirmed catch" communicated by radio.

The shuttle Discovery docked to bring forward the international space station.(Credit: NASA TV)
The historical link marked the first time in the history of 12 years of probe station from United States, Russia, the European Space Agency and Japan were docked at the outpost at the same time.

Later in the mission, if all goes well and mission managers agree, three members of the crew of the station will undock in a Russian Soyuz spacecraft to photograph the laboratory complex and all vehicles visiting from afar, capture a single moment that, with the shuttle's imminent withdrawal, never repeated.

But first, combined crews must complete the primary objectives of the mission Discovery, including a final U.S. module loaded with critical supplies and equipment, and an external storage platform carrying a spare set of radiant.

With the shuttle and station linked with all vehicles visit linked combo, the shuttle-station masses around 1.2 million pounds. It took more time than usual to relative motion between the two probes to humidity, allowing the coupling mechanism securely locks the shuttle in place, but was not immediately clear whether this was due to the mass of vehicles or some other factor.

Station commander Scott Kelly (Center, in front of the camera) watch as the crew of the shuttle Discovery enters the space station.(Credit: NASA TV)
About 45 minutes later than expected, has opened a final dash between discovery and the train station at 3: 16 and 20 minutes, after that, comandante Scott Kelly 26 Expedition, together with Alexander Kaleri, Oleg Skripochka, Catherine Coleman, Dmitry Kondratyev and Paolo Nespoli welcomed Lindsey and his fellow shuttle-Eric Boe, Drew, Stephen Bowen, Michael Barratt and Nicole Stott--in the space station.

After a mandatory safety briefing, the flight plan called for Shuttle astronauts to push ahead with the work to transfer the space suits and other station equipment.

Barratt and Stott, operating the station's robot arm, planned to extract a loading ramp in the hold of the discovery. The pallet, known as external logistics carrier 4, is loaded with a spare set of radiant panels for cooling station ammonia.

ELC-4 will be mounted on the underside of the truss solar energy on the right side of the station. To get there, Barratt and will hand out the Stott arm of the shuttle's robot, operated by Buoys and Drew.

The station will be repositioned, inchworm fashion, moving from the Harmony of its mobile workstations. When the move is complete, the Shuttle arm will hand back to ELC-4 and pallet station arm is mounted on truss solar energy for later use as needed.

Because it took longer than expected to complete the actual anchor, the attachment of the pallet load can be postponed to Sunday.

The shuttle Discovery performs a backflip maneuver during the approach to the international space station, allowing the crew to workshop photographing its heat shield.(Credit: NASA TV)
Lindsey and Boe began the terminal stage of appointment at 10: 33 with a rocket firing to begin closing final 9.2 miles to the station.

Shortly after 1: 00 pm. with the shuttle poised 600 foot directly under the laboratory complex, Lindsey guided discovery through a backflip over end-to-end procedures-but-still-spectacular, allowing the ISS crew to photograph the orbiter's heat shield.

Using the Russian Zvezda command module, Coleman and Nespoli photographed Discovery's heat shield using 400 mm and 800 mm telephoto lenses, respectively, as the orbiter flipped over. The images will be sharp analysts in mission control at the Johnson Space Center here for a detailed assessment.

During the discovery launch on Thursday, several pieces of foam insulation fell away from the ship's external tank, including some that appeared to contact the shuttle's heat shield. The spreading of foam during and after the first 2 minutes and 15 seconds of flight dense lower atmosphere can cause debris hit with higher relative speed.

Engineers do not think the foam loss Thursday caused significant damage, and nothing out of the ordinary may be seen in television views of manoeuvre. But the images taken by Coleman and Nespoli will be carefully analyzed to make sure.

Discovery Trail Blazes One Last

Just shy of 40 successful trips, NASA space shuttle Discovery headed toward the international space station (ISS) Thursday, on a final mission that followed restoration problems and bad weather.

Known as "STS-133," last voyage of discovery will have 11 days. The shuttle is offering a variety of components and modules for the space station and carrying an interesting Hitchhiker '--a humanoid robot called "robonaut 2", or "r2".

"The final Flight of discovery involves delivery of a last few components to the ISS," said Stevens Institute of Technology Professor Debra Lepore space systems, lead engineer for the U.S. Congressional Panel technician of the space launch modernization plan of engineering.

"Components can host science experiments, expand laboratory capacity and increase the storage space," Lepore told TechNewsWorld. "Think of them as extra rooms added to a modular home."

With the discovery, NASA will shutter its entire program having completed two shuttle missions.

U.S. Representative Gabrielle Giffords--recovering from injuries in a rehabilitation clinic in Houston--will be watching as her husband Mark Kelly joins shuttle Endeavour crew for his final flight April 19.

The shuttle Atlantis flies 28 June.

Takes a vessel piloted by 17th century explorer Henry Hudson, discovery began his career in 1984, going to a "rich history in human space flight, NASA Administrator Charles Bolden blog in a final tribute.

"It was my honour to fly aboard Discovery mission STS-31, in 1990, when she brought the Hubble Space Telescope into orbit."And STS-60, when Sergei Krikalyov, the first Russian to fly on an American spacecraft, was a member of the crew, he remembered.

With its uplifting story, discovered kept the fires of space exploration in life in the wake of the Challenger and Columbia shuttle tragedies, wrote Bolden.

"The shuttle Discovery is now the oldest operating, after very sad loss of Challenger, Columbia and their crews," said the researcher human space exploration Stephen Braham, Ph. d., who heads the PolyLAB Simon Fraser University.

"Together with the Hubble telescope, Discovery launched numerous probes, including advanced Satellite communication Test (acts)," Braham told TechNewsWorld. "Acts defined modern media Ka-band and was used by my team in the Arctic, in 1999, NASA Haughton-Mars project".

Discovery may be the most successful in history. She has led the crews safer from and into space than any other ship. Among the many firsts: she was the first to bring a satellite back to Earth; before you have a woman at the helm; before taking the oldest person in space--77-year-old John Glenn; in the first place to host an African-American walker of space; and before flying a member of Congress in orbit, Utah Senator Jake Garn.

Its final mission, Braham said, "is critical and involves the veteran NASA astronauts to such importance".

Not only the team installs the latest ISS modular components, but they "will show the importance of next-generation tele-robotics for future exploration of the solar system," said Braham. "Robonaut 2 will help you understand how human beings can operate robot to maintain systems in space and also to explore the surface of Mars and the moons of Mars".

After the shuttle program ends this year, "The United States will have to rely on Russia for the part with ISS crew until private clothes may come on line," said UCLA aerospace engineering graduate student Lord Cole.

"Because the space shuttle was a large part of the NASA and its public image, it will be interesting to see which direction to go in," Cole told TechNewsWorld.

With the Russian crew shuttle missions, ISS can become a national laboratory that allows a much wider array of international partners to conduct "good science," explained Lepore Stevens '. "We could change in tandem with private companies to replace the shuttle program."

Call the launch on Thursday "Bittersweet", NASA's Bolden wrote that he looks at the commerical aerospace industry as an important part of "what does the future hold for humans in space. Commercial space is rapidly becoming a reality. "

For now, however, Bolden wanted his crew "Godspeed, during the final journey of this tough bird."

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Discovery arrives at space station for the finals

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — Space shuttle Discovery arrived at the international space station on Saturday, making his final visit before being parked in a museum.

"What took you guys so long?" asked the Commander of the space station, Scott Kelly.

Discovery should have come and gone last November, but was founded by cracks of the fuel tank. It blasted off Thursday with just two seconds to spare after being held up by a balky computer on Earth.

More information on final final mission Discovery crew of Discovery: experienced six veteran astronauts and friends are flight of space shuttle Discovery to the international space station during the final voyage of the long and illustrious career of the orbiter. NASA confirms that debris has done evil Robot butler anchor ride shuttle orbit on Shuttle payload includes more closet space by the numbers: basic information about the shuttle scored a big image launch? Please share it

"Yes, I do not know, we kind of waited until the last two seconds," shuttle commander Steven Lindsey said.

The link occurred 220 miles above Australia.

Discovery — flying on his final journey — will spend at least a week at the orbital outpost. It is bringing a room closet style full of supplies, and the first humanoid robot to fly in space.

The compartment is permanently attached to the international space station early next week.

Overall, there are 12 persons aboard the probe joins, representing the United States, Russia and Italy. And in a historic first, four of the five major partners have now ships anchored there, including cargo ships from Japan and Europe. The entire agglomeration has a mass of 1.2 million pounds, including the shuttle service.

Just before pulling, discovery performed a backflip 360 degrees so slow space station cameras might capture any signs of damage. At least four pieces of debris broke the fuel tank during liftoff and one of the strips of foam insulation has hit the belly of the Discovery.

NASA managers do not believe that the shuttle was damaged. That is why it is the loss of foam so late in launching, preventing a hard impact. Hundreds of digital photos taken by two residents of space station should confirm that; Experts on the ground will spend the next day or two poring over all the images.

As a precaution, each crew after the Columbia disaster in 2003 had to carefully check for possible damage to the heat shield, which must be robust to re-enter Earth's atmosphere.

Discovery — the first to perform the manoeuvre somersaulting, back in 2005 — is the first of the fleet to be withdrawn this year. Endeavour and Atlantis close out shuttle program for 30 years.

Discovery is the oldest of three and more traveled, with 143 million miles logged over 39 flights and 26 years.

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The robot has launched aboard Discovery — Robonaut 2, or R2 for short — will remain at the space station, all boxed up for at least another couple of months. This is an experimental machine from bust to be tested before attempting to work inside the orbiting complex simple. The idea is to serve as Assistant R2 finally astronaut.

"We are here!" Robonaut said in an update to Twitter after the reception of Saturday. It actually was sent from a colleague of man on Earth.

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