USA Shuttle Team Presses Forward to Reach Robust Operational Flight Schedule

The history of human spaceflight is filled with stories of determined men and women defying the odds and accomplishing great feats.

Today’s test for the Space Shuttle workforce is to fly STS-121 and return to a robust operational flight schedule.

“The Shuttle team has worked well together to resolve the issues and prepare STS-121 for its mission,” said Howard DeCastro, United Space Alliance Space Shuttle Program Manager. “Flying STS-121 safely and returning to an operational flight rate that achieves NASA’s goals are challenges we can meet. As always, it will take focus, attention to detail and dedication. The Shuttle workforce is magnificent and has the skill and experience to meet the mission – to train and support the crews, verify the flight software, write the mission products, integrate the hardware, process the vehicles and accomplish this manifest, safely.”

STS-121/ISS ULF1.1, slated for launch in July, begins a sequence of five missions between now and next June, three of them before the end of the year. All five missions support assembly of the International Space Station (ISS) and are vital to achieving the Vision of Space Exploration.

Executing the plan will require flying Discovery and Atlantis twice each, prior to welcoming Endeavour back into service next June.

Technicians have accomplished a tremendous amount of work grooming Discovery for its rollover to the Vehicle Assembly Building in May. Once joined with the already-mated External Tank and Solid Rocket Boosters, the Orbiter will be rolled to Pad 39-B. Boosters for the next mission are already awaiting assembly.

Over three million parts have gone through the Shuttle logistics depot in preparation for the upcoming flights. Flight crews and mission controllers are training continuously. Food and clothing are being readied, and Orbiter engineers have evaluated issues and dispensed with problems. Experts from Engineering and Safety, Quality and Mission Assurance have overseen all aspects of preparation.

Discovery will launch a crew of seven to the ISS during STS-121’s July launch window, continuing the analysis of safety improvements that debuted on STS-114 and building on those tests. The crew will also perform maintenance on the Space Station and deliver more supplies and cargo for future Station expansion.

Veteran Astronaut Steve Lindsey commands the STS-121 mission, flying with Pilot Mark Kelly, spacewalkers Mike Fossum and Piers Sellers, Mission Specialists Stephanie Wilson and Lisa Nowak, and European Space Agency (ESA) Astronaut Thomas Reiter. Reiter will stay on board the Space Station when the remaining crewmembers return, creating a three-person ISS crew for the first time since May 2003.

A successful STS-121 mission, one that demonstrates that external foam debris and other safety issues have been mitigated, enables the return to operational flight and sets the stage for a series of ISS assembly missions, expanding the size of the Space Station, adding modules for NASA’s International Partners and increasing its capacity for science and habitation.

STS-115/ISS 12A is a heavy-lift mission to the Space Station, delivering and attaching the second port truss segment and the second set of power-generating solar arrays and batteries. The crew, Commander Brent Jett; Pilot Chris Ferguson; Mission Specialists Heidemarie Stefanyshyn-Piper, Joe Tanner and Daniel Burbank; and Canadian Space Agency Astronaut Steven MacLean, have been training and are nearly ready. The hardware is in place at KSC and awaits the opening of the launch window in late August.

In mid-December, Discovery returns to pad 39B to launch STS-116/ISS 12A.1, the 20th Space Shuttle mission to the Space Station. Commander Mark Polansky; Pilot William Oefelein; Mission Specialists Robert Curbeam, Joan Higginbotham and Nicholas Patrick; and ESA Astronaut Christer Fuglesang will deliver and install the third port truss segment and conduct work with the SPACEHAB single cargo module and the Integrated Cargo Carrier.

Atlantis launches in February 2007, lifting more critical, power-generating hardware to the ISS. Commander Frederick “Rick” Sturckow and his STS-117/ISS 13A crew will outfit the Station with the second starboard truss segment with Photovoltaic Radiator and the third set of solar arrays and batteries.

After an extended maintenance period, Endeavour launches the
STS-118/ISS 13A.1 mission in June 2007. The flight, commanded by Astronaut Scott Kelly, hauls the third starboard truss segment and installs it to the Station.

The last time the Space Shuttle workforce flew five missions in less than one year was in 2002, capping an unprecedented four-year period during which 25 missions flew.

“Tens of thousands of people have worked on the Space Shuttle since it was designed in 1971 and since its first flight just over 25 years ago on April 12 1981,” said DeCastro. “Now we have the challenge of flying as many as 19 more significant missions before the Shuttle retirement in September 2010.

“After the STS-121 ‘test’ flight, there will be 15 assembly flights, a mission to service the Hubble Space Telescope, and possibly two additional logistics flights to the ISS. This team has the opportunity to accomplish great things over the next four years and to retire the Space Shuttles with our heads held high.”

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