Boeing helps prepare space shuttle Discovery's final payload

[News_Editor]

Boeing helps prepare space shuttle Discovery's final payload

2010-11-03 01:17:14 GMT+7 (ICT)

KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FLORIDA (BNO NEWS) -- Boeing on Tuesday announced that a group of their engineers and technicians are supporting Space Shuttle Discovery's final mission, in part by processing the shuttle's payload, which includes the last U.S. pressurized element to be delivered to the International Space Station (ISS).

Boeing built Discovery nearly 30 years ago and since then, the shuttle has flown 38 missions, traveled 142,917,535 miles (230,003,477 kilometers), and accumulated nearly a full year of time in orbit.

The latest and final Discovery mission, which will launch to the ISS from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on November 3, coincides with the tenth anniversary of the arrival of the first crew at the station and the beginning of a decade of continuous human presence in orbit aboard ISS.

"Discovery is the fleet leader and its outstanding stamina is a testament to the men and women of Boeing who designed, developed and built the shuttle and continue to support it today," said Brewster Shaw, vice president and general manager of Boeing Space Exploration.

"Working with our NASA customer, Boeing also is helping to provide much-needed capability on the International Space Station, ensuring it can be used to its full capacity for many years to come," Shaw added.

Boeing's Checkout, Assembly and Payload Processing Services (CAPPS) team prepared Discovery's mission payload, which includes the Permanent Multipurpose Module (PMM) Leonardo and Express Logistics Carrier 4 (ELC4).

The CAPPS team collaborated with PMM builder Thales Alenia Space to adapt Leonardo into a permanent element that can accommodate additional spare parts and storage, and also assembled and integrated ELC4, which will provide additional storage for the orbiting complex.

The Boeing ISS team also worked with NASA and international partners to reconfigure various electrical and warning systems for full capability of the PMM during its support of ISS operations. Boeing supported power systems and routing through the Unity and Tranquility nodes.

The services and support Boeing provides under its CAPPS contract include planning for and receiving payloads, maintaining associated ground support systems, integrating payloads with the space shuttle, launch support, and space shuttle post-landing payload activities.

Boeing has provided similar payload support since the beginning of the ISS program, for a total of 25 station expeditions.

-- © BNO News All rights reserved 2010-11-03

[Daffy D]

Sad to see the Space Shuttle program coming to an end.

Amazing to think that Discovery is 30 years old, was it really that long ago we saw the start of the Shuttle program.

Will Space ever be as interesting and exiting again as it was in those days?

Space tourism seems to be the future. Nothing wrong with that, I'd love to go, but makes it all seem so "normal" . Perhaps a mission to Mars will regenerate some of the pioneering excitement of our first tentative steps beyond our own world.

But would we be able to afford it?