STS-134 Endeavour

clln

This Soyuz landing really deserved a thread of its own,it landed upright bang on target,bang on time,with TV coverage almost to touchdown(some guy put his car in the way right at the end!:()


First view of the Soyuz by S&R Helicopters.

This Heli pilot wanted his moment of fame too!:)

best video ever of a Soyuz return

clln

TO BOLDLY play where no Irish traditional musician has played before – that will soon be the proud boast of American Nasa astronaut Catherine “Cady” Coleman who blasts off today from Kazakhstan for a six-month stint on the International Space Station (ISS) orbiting the Earth.
Packed with her space suit and gear for the voyage ahead is a priceless traditional Irish concert flute, given to her by a man who is considered to be out of this world himself by traditional music lovers.
Matt Molloy of The Chieftains and Planxty got to know the Nasa astronaut more than 10 years ago after playing a gig in Houston, Texas.
“We had done a concert and as always we had a tune afterwards with local musicians,” said the Westport-based musician. “It transpired she played the flute and we have been friends ever since.”
A veteran of two space shuttle flights with 500 hours in space behind her, the former US Air Force colonel – who has a doctorate in science and engineering to boot – is a huge fan of the Ballaghaderreen man’s music. On a previous trip into space, she packed his Shadows on Stone CD in her space suit.
“Cady told me: ‘Your music always brings me to a special place, so I thought I’d bring yours to one’. I was really moved,” said Molloy.
For her first voyage to the ISS, however, she has gone one better.
“She told me she was going to be heading there for six months and asked me if I had a flute that she could play while on the station.” While joking that his response may have been “a moment of weakness”, Molloy gave her one of his most prized possessions, his E-flat flute. He played the instrument on his landmark first solo album made with Dónal Lunny in 1976.
“It was made in the late 1890s or early 1900s and I couldn’t possibly put a value on it but it’s very special to me. Cady is a fine accomplished flute-player, so it will be in good hands,” Molloy added.
Along with Russian cosmonaut Dmitry Kondratyev and Italian Paolo Nespoli, Ms Coleman blasts off from Baikonur today to dock with the ISS where they will join two Russian crew and another fellow American.

Cady's Home!

clln

and Dimitro and Paolo,shortly off for medical tests.great job Soyuz TM-20 and your help with Endeavour and especially to Paolo for taking the pics/vids of Endeavour!:)






They have been in Space 159 days,157 onboard the ISS!

Soyuz TM-02 is due to launch June 7th so ISS Expedition 28th shold be back to full compliment of six June 9th!:)

Views in of touchdown from a diffrient angle

Beeker

Nice coverage of the Soyuz landing there clln! I was in bed due to early start this morning. Cant wait to see the photos they took.
Here are some video stills from last night to give us a taste of what to expect:)

Beeker

Beeker

Beeker

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-N-92p49Gn0

Beeker

Timelapse...cool!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jRcZbwlnUMI

lord lucan

Playing catch up on last nights events,Can't wait to see the pics. The footage from the Soyuz undocking was spectacular,the HD footage and pics should be amazing.

CO19

Trekmad wrote: »

I agree , I think that main reason I'm going to miss the shuttle is that to me it always looked like a proper spacecraft (or imagined what a spacecraft should look like), even though the soyuz is a more than capable spacecraft.

clln wrote: »

Lol yes it is weird looking and only the Orbital/habitation module has a window because NASA ordered it,but its been a while since NASA could ask Roscosmo's to do anything unless very very nicely:)

yea it looks like a tin can with a coat hanger stuck ontop for an aerial,must be very very cramped in that thing,do they have navigation systems inside it or do they just hope they launch and hit the right spot in the Earth to come back down ?

lord lucan

CO19 wrote: »

or do they just hope they launch and hit the right spot in the Earth to come back down ?

Sounds like how an Irish Soyuz (Sóyúz?!) would work. Sure it'll be grand,we'll land somewhere on Earth.:pac:

CO19

lord lucan wrote: »

Sounds like how an Irish Soyuz (Sóyúz?!) would work. Sure it'll be grand,we'll land somewhere on Earth.:pac:

Too true

Beeker

Third spacewalk underway. This is the second last spacewalk of the shuttle programme:(

lord lucan

Yay,an EVA that i can actually watch!:D

Worrying noises on NSF about the whereabouts of the memory cards with the pics from the flyaround. Hope they haven't gone AWOL!!:eek:

Beeker

lord lucan wrote: »

Yay,an EVA that i can actually watch!:D

Worrying noises on NSF about the whereabouts of the memory cards with the pics from the flyaround. Hope they haven't gone AWOL!!:eek:

I know, I read that. Seems they can't find the memory card! It may of floated out of a pocket and they could find in somewhere in the capsule or it may have floated into one of the discarded sections of the Soyuz:eek::eek:

I hope they find it! What a waste if not:(

clln

Thought this had a place here as it is NASA planning to make life easier for themselves and the private companies:

In a pre-flight interview, Greg Chamitoff talked more about the ISLE protocol that appears to have gone very well today:

"When you watch those science fiction movies and two people go out the door for a spacewalk, they don't take 48 hours to do it. They just somehow jump in the suit and they're gone. In real life it takes us a lot of time and we'd like that to be faster. For example on the first spacewalk we're doing campout which is one of the normal things we do on the space station. We go into the airlock the night before, we depressurize the airlock down to 10.2 [pounds per square inch] -- 14.7 is a normal atmospheric pressure -- down [to] 10.2. We breathe some oxygen off masks in that process, and we sleep at the lower pressure, and it's just like scuba diving in a sense.

"What you're trying to do is get the nitrogen out of your body, out of your bloodstream, out of your tissues, and that process by sleeping at 10.2 overnight you get a certain amount out, by breathing oxygen it helps that, and then the rest of the process to getting out the door makes sure that when you go all the way out it's like coming up from depth. It's the opposite of scuba diving: in scuba diving you go down, it pressurizes, then it pushes nitrogen into your tissues and if you come up too fast the nitrogen can't escape and can give you the bends. Here it's the opposite. We're going to a lower pressure first, and so that you would get the bends on the way out not on the way back in. This is the normal process we go through by sleeping overnight in the airlock.

"Another technique is to do exercise where we're breathing hundred percent oxygen and we do exercise on a bike and do a certain prescription of that which is based on our particular physiology, body weight and aerobic capacity and then another sequence of oxygen breathing and pressure changes before we go out the door.

"This is a brand new technique that would allow us not to have to spend the night sleeping in the airlock locked up, not have to do the exercise before basically get in the suit and spend a little more time in the suit doing some with hundred percent oxygen, doing very small motions just to make sure that you have some metabolism going. You're not sleeping in there, you have to be doing something; you're in there a little longer waiting to go out the door but overall the whole process is much simpler and you can do it on the day of the spacewalk.

"We're going to try that on, and a lot of work has been done by a lot of people to make this protocol work out. We'll try that on third spacewalk and, if it works great, we can do it on the fourth one, too."

clln

And this description of the purpose of the third EVA which is now coming to a close.They have managed to finish the unfinished tasks from EVA 1 and even got some get ahead tasks done!:)
just catching up myself but i notice that this mission has had more than its normal share of loss of signals from the tracking and data relay Satellites,i wonder may a certain Military Shuttle be getting to use them?

In a pre-flight interview, Drew Feustel offered this preview of the spacewalk:

"This involves installing a power and data grapple fixture, or a base, for Canadarm2. So the Canadarm space station arm has a capability of walking around the space station from end to end to do different tasks. The Russian segment doesn't really have any of those bases for the arm to walk on to, and this is an opportunity for us to actually attach one of these base station mechanisms onto what we call the FGB or Functional Cargo Block portion of the space station (Zarya), to allow the arm to walk onto that position and do some tasks in areas that it wouldn't have been able to reach previous to this.

"So this is an activity that's been on the book, I believe, for a number of years and, hasn't found a home and we think we've found an opportunity to do it then on our mission. The advantage to doing it on our mission on EVA 3 is that Mike Fincke has spent a considerable amount of time on the Russian segment in the Orlan spacesuit, so by having he and I go out on that task, being that he has some familiarity that I don't have, that's an advantage to us as a team to get out there and do that work."

clln

EVA 3 is now over at least thats a relief,no repeat of the Carbon Monoxide sensor failure, its official start time was 06.43 and end time 13.37,a total of six hrs 54 minutes.
now where are those Memory sticks? i will be keepng an eye on ebay i can tell You!


Sealing the hatch,job done!:)

lord lucan

Apparently the flyaround memory card is still in the Soyuz and will be removed once it reaches Moscow. A bit strange given the urgency and excitement displayed by NASA but we'll wait and see.

lord lucan

CO19 wrote: »

Is that website that showed the rocket boosters falling back to earth showing it for this launches boosters ?

They've just being showing the SRB launch replays on NASA TV. Here's a couple of rips of the coverage so far. One of the NASA TV Youtube channels should have it up in a couple of hours in higher def.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e6TJk6WPUdo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0Ee0knGxO8

clln

Let the video's do the talking!:)

lord lucan

And the full SRB package from NASA.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bJla-JsVNpw

Beeker

Final inspection of the heatshield complete and the Orbiter Boom Sensor system {OBSS} has been transfered to the station for future use in extending the reach of the stations arm.
Final spacewalk by Endeavour due tomorrow ewhick of course will also be the final spacewalk of the Shuttle programme. The end of an era started on STS-6 in 1983.:(

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rtcDhGircEc

clln

The crew of Endeavour where woken at 00.58 to a terrible song by Max-Q singing to a familiar tune but with words changed(i could not identify the song that they slaughtered:)) (We'll have fun fun fun till we put the Shuttle away)
mentions come up of Max-Q all the time,well My learning curve on it was:

Max-Q do brilliant video's set to music by 'proper' Bands.

then i found out it is the point of maximum aerodynamic pressure on a spacecraft which explained to me why they throttle down as Gravity does its best to pull them back or pull a Spacecraft apart......and when past that point they 'Throttle Up' again.

then i found out they are also Astronauts/come singer songwriters,the members have changed as Astronauts have moved on after their NASA days,i would post a link to their Youtube songs but i could not be so Cruel!:D.

Anyway i just watched yesterdays flight day highlights and the infamous early late inspection(as it was tweeted from the FRR) taken because the OBSS will be left stowed away on Station (makes me wonder what will be done on 135,but will leave that to the 135 thread)
with a thread running at the moment about the future of manned Spaceflight this video i thought was extra special as there is so much of "out with the old,in with the new" about it,from the crew.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LbJ2xL7Tpeo

If you can stick with it there is a priceless response by Mark Kelly when asked during the joint crew presser when asked about the challenge of a night landing about two minutes from end!

eilejh

I have a question about the landing. How much impact does weather have on that landing? Meaning if they come in in stormy weather et al.....

clln

eilejh wrote: »

I have a question about the landing. How much impact does weather have on that landing? Meaning if they come in in stormy weather et al.....

they would not land in Stormy Weather,they have options all over America,as well as around the Globe.
Usually on the first day of Landing opportunities they will only try for KSC,2nd day west and East coast,has never come to it but they could land overseas if needed.

clln

This historic last EVA began ahead of schedule at 05.15,Superlatives galore by the Astronauts and seemed to be well aware of this 'last' close to choking up so they were!
Again no signal as they left the airlock but this is the best pic so far that fits to boards window shortly after egress;



Hopefully somebody will post the best of the them re-entering later(hint hint:))
bit about the EVA below;

Fincke and Chamitoff are getting situated outside the space station before heading to the starboard truss to help lock the 50-foot-long Orbiter Boom Sensor System within a fixture that is already in place.

Chamitoff gave this preview of the EVA in an interview before the flight: "This is an exciting spacewalk for me, partly because I get to ride on top of the robotic arm. Box will be flying the arm. But what we’re doing is we’re leaving the boom, there’s an orbital, it’s called OBSS [Orbiter Boom Sensor System], it’s the inspection boom we have on the shuttle to use to inspect the tiles. That boom will be left behind on the space station with the idea that at some point if the space station has to do some work, it would give the robotic arm more reach if it could use this boom as well. We have left it up there before; we have the mechanisms in place to leave it up there."

Beeker

Thats it ! Job done the 162nd and final Space shuttle space walk complete.

Beeker

Back inside

lord lucan

Another moment of finality.:(