more at http://scitech.quickfound.net/astro/space_station_news.html http://scitech.quickfound.net/astro/space_shuttle_news.html "STS-128 Post Flight Presentation - Narrated Commander: Frederick W. Rick Sturckow Pilot: Kevin A. Ford Mission Specialists: Patrick G. Forrester, Jose M. Hernandez, Christer Fuglesang, John D. Danny Olivas Space Station Crew: (Up) Nicole P. Stott Dates: August 28 - September 11, 2009" NASA film JSC-2309 Public domain film from NASA, slightly cropped to remove uneven edges, with the aspect ratio corrected. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STS-128 STS-128 (ISS assembly flight 17A) was a NASA Space Shuttle mission to the International Space Station (ISS) that launched on 28 August 2009. Space Shuttle Discovery carried the Multi-Purpose Logistics Module Leonardo as its primary payload. Leonardo contained a collection of experiments for studying the physics and chemistry of microgravity. Three spacewalks were carried out during the mission, which removed and replaced a materials processing experiment outside ESA's Columbus module, and returned an empty ammonia tank assembly. The mission's first launch attempt was delayed due to weather concerns, including multiple weather violations in NASA's launch rules, beginning over two hours before the scheduled launch. The second launch attempt, scheduled for 26 August 2009 at 01:10:22 EDT, was called off the previous evening due to an anomaly in one of the orbiter's fuel valves. The launch finally took place on 28 August 2009 at 23:59 EDT. Discovery landed on 11 September 2009 at Edwards Air Force Base, which was the last landing of a shuttle to occur at the California site... Multi-Purpose Logistics Module (MPLM) Leonardo The primary payload of STS-128 was the Multi-Purpose Logistics Module Leonardo to assist with establishing a six-man crew capacity by bringing extra supplies and equipment to the station. The Multi-Purpose Logistics Module contained three racks for life support, a crew quarter to be installed in Kibo, a new treadmill (COLBERT) that will temporarily be placed in Node 2 and later in Node 3, and an Air Revitalization System (ARS) that will temporarily be placed in Kibo and later in Node 3... TriDAR The shuttle flew the first test flight of the TriDAR, a 3D dual-sensing laser camera, intended for potential use as an autonomous rendezvous and docking sensor. The TriDAR successfully tracked the ISS position and orientation from the shuttle during docking operations. Other science packages It will also contain three racks dedicated to science, FIR (Fluids Integrated Rack) and the first Materials Science Research Rack (MSRR-1) to be placed in Destiny and MELFI-2 (Minus Eighty Laboratory Freezer for ISS) to be placed in Kibo. The FIR will enable detailed study of how liquids behave in microgravity, a crucial detail for many chemical reactions. One experiment, for instance, will examine how mixtures known as colloids behave without being stirred by sedimentation and convection. Another using the Light Microscopy Module (LMM) will examine how an ideal heat pipe works without the distortions of gravity... Mission experiments The STS-128 mission (as did STS-125 and STS-127) took part in crew seat vibration tests that will help engineers on the ground understand how astronauts experience launch. They will then use the information to help design the crew seats that will be used in future NASA spacecraft. STS-128 repeated the Boundary Layer Transition (BLT) Detailed Test Objective (DTO) experiment that was done by the same shuttle during STS-119. In this experiment, one of the thermal protection systems was raised to create a boundary layer transition in which the air flow becomes turbulent beyond a certain speed. During STS-119 the tile was raised 0.25 inches (6.4 mm) above the others, tripping the flow at Mach 15 during reentry. In the modification being done, the tile has been raised 0.35 inches (8.9 mm) to trip at Mach 18 producing more heat. Discovery undertook the testing of a catalytic coating which was meant to be used by the Orion (spacecraft). Two TPS tiles located in the protuberance downstream from the BLT tile had been fully coated with the catalytic material in order to understand the entry heating performance. The tiles were instrumented to collect a wide variety of data... 11 Sept. (Flight Day 15 -- Landing) On flight day 15 at 1947 EDT (2347 UTC), Discovery started the de-orbit burn for landing at Edwards Air Force Base after its two landing attempts at Kennedy Space Center the previous day were waved off. Discovery touched down safely at 2053 EDT...

• published: 06 Sep 2012
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