After the successful return of space shuttle Discovery, NASA officials are moving ahead on their next mission—Atlantis. They moved the Atlantis space shuttle to its launch pad at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Thursday.
The space shuttle is slated to take off from the Kennedy Space Center on May 14 for a 12-day mission, and preparations for the Atlantis mission are already attracting attention from people across the nation.
The spacecraft rolled to its launch pad 39A successfully on the first attempt. The journey from the assembly building to the launch pad took approximately six hours.
Mission number STS-132 will be underway as soon as the shuttle leaves the launch pad. This will be NASA’s 132nd space shuttle flight.
Discovery was the last shuttle to leave the Kennedy Space Center. It faced three postponements due to clouds and rain, reported NASAspaceflight.com.
Atlantis’s STS-132 mission will be similar to the mission that Discovery just completed. The flight crew will deliver needed supplies to space. The shuttle is taking an Integrated Cargo Carrier and a Russian-built Mini Research Module to the International Space Station, stated NASA’s official Web site.
“The second in a series of new pressurized components for Russia, a Mini Research Module, will be permanently attached to the bottom port of the Zarya module. The Russian module also will carry U.S. pressurized cargo. Three spacewalks are planned to stage spare components outside the station, including six spare batteries, a boom assembly for the Ku-band antenna and spares for the Canadian Dextre robotic arm extension,” said the official statement on NASA’s Web site.
Commander Kenneth T. Ham will be piloting the take-off from the Kennedy Space Center along with Pilot Dominic A. Antonelli. Mission specialists Michael T. Good, Garrett E. Reisman, Piers J. Sellers, and Stephen G. Bowen will be onboard for the mission as well.
Atlantis is named after a two-masted research ship from the 1930s.
The space shuttle is slated to take off from the Kennedy Space Center on May 14 for a 12-day mission, and preparations for the Atlantis mission are already attracting attention from people across the nation.
The spacecraft rolled to its launch pad 39A successfully on the first attempt. The journey from the assembly building to the launch pad took approximately six hours.
Mission number STS-132 will be underway as soon as the shuttle leaves the launch pad. This will be NASA’s 132nd space shuttle flight.
Discovery was the last shuttle to leave the Kennedy Space Center. It faced three postponements due to clouds and rain, reported NASAspaceflight.com.
Atlantis’s STS-132 mission will be similar to the mission that Discovery just completed. The flight crew will deliver needed supplies to space. The shuttle is taking an Integrated Cargo Carrier and a Russian-built Mini Research Module to the International Space Station, stated NASA’s official Web site.
“The second in a series of new pressurized components for Russia, a Mini Research Module, will be permanently attached to the bottom port of the Zarya module. The Russian module also will carry U.S. pressurized cargo. Three spacewalks are planned to stage spare components outside the station, including six spare batteries, a boom assembly for the Ku-band antenna and spares for the Canadian Dextre robotic arm extension,” said the official statement on NASA’s Web site.
Commander Kenneth T. Ham will be piloting the take-off from the Kennedy Space Center along with Pilot Dominic A. Antonelli. Mission specialists Michael T. Good, Garrett E. Reisman, Piers J. Sellers, and Stephen G. Bowen will be onboard for the mission as well.
Atlantis is named after a two-masted research ship from the 1930s.
