NASA's space shuttle Atlantis in orbit as it begins first full day in space

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NASA's space shuttle Atlantis in orbit as it begins first full day in space

2011-07-09 19:20:21 GMT+7 (ICT)

KENNEDY SPACE CENTER (BNO NEWS) -- The four astronauts aboard NASA's space shuttle Atlantis on early Saturday morning began their first full day in space after a successful liftoff in Florida on Friday morning.

Atlantis launched from NASA's Kennedy Space Center at 11.29 a.m. EDT on Friday to begin a 12-day mission to the International Space Station (ISS). The STS-135 mission will be the Space Shuttle Program's last ever flight, making the current flight a historic event.

After Friday's launch, the crew of Atlantis began orbit operations and began preparations to dock with the ISS at 11.06 a.m. EDT on Sunday morning. Commander Chris Ferguson, Pilot Doug Hurley, and Mission Specialists Sandy Magnus and Rex Walheim also checked the shuttle robotic arm before they went to sleep at 7.59 p.m. EDT.

Exactly eight hours later, at 3.59 a.m. EDT on Saturday, the Atlantis crew woke to the song 'Viva la Vida' by Coldplay. The song was played specifically for Hurley but also included a special message from Marshall Space Flight Center employees.

Later on Saturday, the four astronauts of Atlantis will use the Orbiter Boom Sensor System to conduct a standard inspection of the shuttle heat shield and continue preparations for docking to the ISS on Sunday.

During the rest of their 12-day mission, Atlantis and its crew will deliver the Raffaello multi-purpose logistics module filled with supplies and spare parts to sustain ISS space station operations after the space shuttles are retired. The mission will also fly the Robotic Refueling Mission (RRM), an experiment designed to demonstrate and test the tools, technologies and techniques needed to robotically refuel satellites in space.

The crew will further return an ammonia pump that recently failed on the space station. Engineers want to understand why the pump failed and improve designs for future spacecraft. "This is a very critical mission for station resupply," NASA Space Shuttle Program Launch Integration Manager and chairman of the pre-mission Mission Management Team Mike Moses said earlier.

STS-135 is the 135th shuttle mission, Atlantis' 33rd flight, and the last scheduled flight of the Space Shuttle Program which began with STS-1 in April 1981 with the launch of the space shuttle Columbia. The program has seen scores of historic milestones, although its existence has also been marked by several disasters that nearly caused the cancellation of the program.

In January 1986, all 7 crew members of the space shuttle Challenger were killed when their spacecraft broke apart during launch and disintegrated over the Atlantic Ocean, off the coast of central Florida. And in February 2003, another seven astronauts were killed when the space shuttle Columbia disintegrated over Texas during re-entry into the Earth's atmosphere. Debris from the spacecraft fell over parts of the United States.

After the end of the Space Shuttle Program, NASA will put its focus on deep space missions with the to-be-built, heavy-lift Space Launch System which will carry its astronauts out of low Earth orbit. Future missions will include an unmanned mission to an asteroid in 2016 and eventually to Mars.

"We are not ending human space flight, we are recommitting ourselves to it and taking the necessary -- and difficult -- steps today to ensure America's pre-eminence in human spaceflight for years to come," NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said earlier this month, although some have said the move is intended to save money. "We have to get out of the business of owning and operating low-Earth orbit transportation systems and hand that off to the private sector, with sufficient oversight to ensure the safety of our astronauts. American companies and their spacecraft should send our astronauts to the ISS, rather than continuing to outsource this work to foreign governments."

He added: "Our destinations for humans beyond Earth remain ambitious. They include: the moon, asteroids, and Mars. The debate is not if we will explore, but how we'll do it."

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