Tag Archives: space station

Ten years ago today — June 5, 2002 — Space Shuttle Endeavour launched from the Kennedy Space Center on a mission to the International Space Station.

(STS-111 launch. NASA image.)

The STS-111 crew consisted of US astronauts Paul S.Lockhart, Kenneth D. Cockrell, Franklin Chang-Diaz, and Peggy Whitson, French astronaut Philippe Perrin, and cosmonauts Valery G. Korzun and Sergei Y.Treschev. Korzun, Treschev, and Whitson comprised the ISS “Expedition Five” crew, and stayed aboard the ISS when Endeavour departed with the Expedition Four crew.

Endeavour delivered supplies and equipment to the ISS, and returned unneeded hardware and materiel from the station. In a series of EVAs, the crew installed the Mobile Remote Service Base System on the Mobile Transporter, which extended the Canadarm2 robotic arm’s reach by allowing it to traverse the station’s length. They also replaced a wrist roll joint on the station’s robotic arm.

Finally …

This foray into space history wouldn’t be complete without noting how good it was to see SpaceX‘s Dragon space capsule become the first commercial vehicle to dock with the space station. Well done!

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Twenty-five years ago today — May 15, 1987 — the USSR launched its first Energia rocket from the Baikonur Cosmodrome.

(Energia-Polyus, prior to being raised for launch. Image from the Buran-Energia site.)

The Energia was a heavy-lift booster built by the Soviet Union to launch their “Buran” space shuttle. On its maiden flight with the Polyus upper stage instead of Buran, the Energia performed as intended but the upper stage did not place the payload in orbit. According to the Wikipedia entry:

The Soviets had originally announced that the launch as a successful sub-orbital test of the new Energia booster with a dummy payload, but some time later it was revealed that the flight had, in fact, been intended to orbit the Polyus, a UKSS military payload. The two stages of the Energia launcher functioned as designed, but the Polyus payload failed to reach orbit. Due to a software error in its attitude control system, the burn of the Polyus’ orbital insertion motor failed to insert the payload into orbit. Instead, the payload reentered the atmosphere over the Pacific ocean.

According to the Buran-Energia site,

It would seem that Polyus is the Soviet response to the project “Star Wars” launched by the American president Reagan. It was to be in fact a space combat laser station. Finally, we know very few things about this apparatus and its real use. Officially it was intended to make scientific experiments in upper atmosphere.

Very interesting.

[BREAK, BREAK]

Ten years later — on this date in 1997 — the Space Shuttle Atlantis launched from Kennedy Space Center on mission STS-84. The shuttle carried U.S. astronauts Charles J. Precourt, Eileen M. Collins, C. Michael Foale, Carlos I. Noriega, and Edward T. Lu; French astronaut Jean-Francois Clervoy; and Russian cosmonaut Elena V. Kondakova to the Mir space station. Foale stayed on Mir, and the shuttle brought astronaut Jerry Linenger back to Earth after his 123-day space station stay.

Quite a contrast with the cold war days.

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Ten years ago today — April 8, 2002 — the Space Shuttle Atlantis launched from Kennedy Space Center on its way to the International Space Station.

(Astronauts Steven L. Smith [R] and Rex J. Walheim during the third of STS-110’s four EVAs. NASA image.)

STS-110, also known as ISS Assembly Flight 8A, featured astronauts Michael J. Bloomfield, Stephen N. Frick, Jerry L. Ross, Steven L. Smith, Ellen Ochoa, Lee M.E. Morin, and Rex J. Walheim. The team completed four spacewalks during their 10 days in space, and delivered and installed the “Starboard-Zero” Center Integrated Truss Assembly.

The new truss was a key part of the ISS’s skeleton — its “center backbone,” according to this STS-100 information page — with attachment points for additional station modules and solar panels. In addition to mechanical attachments, the truss included power and thermal control systems, a Mobile Transporter to extend the reach of the station’s robotic arm, as well as other equipment needed to keep the station operational.

In addition,

The launch marked a milestone as Mission Specialist Jerry Ross became the first human to fly in space seven times, breaking his own and other astronauts’ records of six space flights.

You know, some of us would be satisfied with getting to fly in space just once.

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Five years ago today — December 10, 2006 — the Space Shuttle Discovery launched from Kennedy Space Center on a mission to improve the electrical power subsystem on the International Space Station.

(The International Space Station as seen from STS-116. NASA image.)

Mission STS-116‘s crew consisted of U.S. astronauts William A. Oefelein, Joan E. Higginbotham, Mark L. Polansky, Robert L. Curbeam, Nicholas J.M. Patrick, and Sunita L. Williams, plus European Space Agency astronaut Christer Fuglesang of Sweden. With the exception of Williams, the crew spent 12 days in space; she, however, stayed aboard the ISS as the Expedition 14 flight engineer. ESA astronaut Thomas Reiter of Germany, previous ISS flight engineer, returned to Earth with STS-116.

From 1998 to 2006, the ISS had essentially been operating on a temporary power system. The STS-116 crew rectified that situation and prepared the station for its additional modules by rewiring the ISS … certainly not a complete “makeover” of the station, but in many ways an “extreme” one.

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Ten years ago today — December 5, 2001 — the Space Shuttle Endeavour launched from Kennedy Space Center on a mission to the International Space Station.

(Shuttle Endeavour being readied for the STS-108 mission. NASA image.)

STS-108 delivered the Raffaello Multi-Purpose Logistics Module to the ISS. Astronauts Dominic L. Gorie, Mark E. Kelly, Linda M. Godwin, and Daniel M. Tani attached the Italian cargo module to the ISS’s Unity module, and ferried the ISS Expedition 4 crew — cosmonaut Yuri Onufrienko and astronauts Carl E. Walz and Daniel W. Bursch — to their new orbital home.

When Endeavour landed, it brought the ISS Expedition 3 crew — astronaut Frank Culbertson and cosmonauts Mikhail Tyurin and Vladimir N. Dezhurov — back to Earth.

I’ve noted elsewhere on this blog that I met Captain (USN) Culbertson several years after his return from the ISS. I sat next to him during a day-long NASA Industry-Education Forum. Good guy.

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