By Marc S. Posner
SOAR Magazine

Space shuttle Discovery and her seven-member crew returned to Earth this afternoon, completing a 13-day mission to the International Space Station and the 125th flight of the space shuttle program.

STS-119 was highlighted by the installation of the space station’s final set of solar wings. The addition will double power in the ISS and allow the crew to expand from three to six memers later this year.

During the mission, Discovery circled the Earth 202 times and traveled 5.3 million million miles before rolling out on Kennedy’s Runway 15.

Returning home with the STS-119 crew is Sandra Magnus, who spent four months aboard the space station.

The 3:14 p.m., Eastern, landing came on the second — and final — opportunity of the day to bring Discovery home. NASA passed over an earlier landing option because of clouds and high winds that exceeded NASA’s landing criteria.

Discovery glided to a stop 12 days, 19 hours, 31 minutes and one second after its spectacular night-time launch from Kennedy Space Center on March 15. The landing was the 70th at KSC and it completed Discovery’s 36th mission.

“Welcome home, Discovery, after a great mission to bring the ISS to full power,” NASA Mission Control’s capsule communicator George Zamka radioed from Houston to the crew on board the shuttle.

“Thank you very much, it’s good to be back home,” Commander Lee Archambault responded.

Discovery and her crew will land today at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Touchdown is scheduled for 3:14 p.m., EDT, following a 13-day, 202-orbit mission to the International Space Station.

Mission managers have just given the crew permission to start the deorhit burn at 2:08 p.m., EDT.

NASA managers have waived off the first landing attempt of shuttle Discovery today because of winds and clouds at the Kennedy Space Center.

They will now have to determine if those weather conditions improve enough in the next 90 minutes or so to support a landing on the day’s second opportunity.

If NASA procedes, Discovery would end mission STS-119 after 202 orbits at 3:14 p.m. Deorbit burn would take place at 2:08 p.m.

No opportunities are scheduled for either California or New Mexico today.

stronauts Prepare for Landing
Sat, 28 Mar 2009 06:55:00 AM PDT

Discovery’s crew of seven is preparing for a 1:39 p.m. EDT landing today at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

The crew was awakened this morning at 5:13 a.m. to the song “I Have a Dream” performed by ABBA. The song was played for Mission Specialist Sandra Magnus.

Flight controllers reported to the space shuttle crew that weather conditions are forecast to be acceptable for their return home and that they could begin deorbit preparations. Discovery will fire its engines at 12:33 p.m. to begin the descent to Florida on a northeasterly track that will cross over Central America and Cuba.

Space shuttle Discovery undocked from the International Space Station at 3:53 p.m. EDT Wednesday. At 5:09 p.m., the first of two separation burns was performed to move Discovery away from the station to start the journey home. The final separation burn occurred at 5:37 p.m.

The crew on Thursday will perform an inspection of Discovery’s thermal protection system using the shuttle robotic arm and the Orbital Boom Sensor System around 10:28 a.m.

Discovery’s first landing opportunity at Kennedy Space Center, Fla., will be Saturday at 1:43 p.m.

The return to Earth will conclude a 13-day flight. Nine of those days were spent docked to the station.

During the STS-119 mission, the shuttle and station crews conducted three spacewalks, installing and deploying the final set of solar arrays. The arrays provide the electricity to fully power science experiments and support the station’s expanded crew of six in May. The flight also delivered Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Koichi Wakata, who replaced space station crew member Sandra Magnus. She spent more than four months aboard the station and will return to Earth aboard Discovery.

Astronauts Joseph Acaba and Richard Arnold ended the mission’s third spacewalk at 6:04 p.m. EDT. They helped robotic arm operators relocate the Crew Equipment Translation Aid (CETA) cart from the Port 1 to Starboard 1 truss segment, installed a new coupler on the CETA cart, lubricated snares on the “B” end of the space station’s robotic arm and performed a few “get ahead” tasks.

They were unable to deploy the Port 3 unpressurized cargo carrier attachment system (UCCAS) and tied it safely in place while engineers evaluate the problem. Because the issue is not yet understood, Mission Control cancelled the installation of a similar payload attachment system on the starboard side.

Today’s spacewalk lasted six hours, 27 minutes. It was the second spacewalk for both Acaba and Arnold and the 123rd spacewalk in support of station assembly and maintenance, totaling 775 hours. The three STS-119 spacewalks totaled 19 hours, 4 minutes. Steve Swanson has performed four spacewalks totaling 26 hours, 22 minutes. Acaba has two spacewalks totaling 12 hours, 57 minutes. Arnold has two spacewalks totaling 12 hours, 34 minutes.

In preparation for Saturday’s spacewalk, mission specialists Steve Swanson and Joseph Acaba reviewed spacewalk procedures at 7:43 p.m. EDT and will “camp out” overnight in the Quest airlock beginning at 10:08 p.m. The International Space Station crew goes to sleep at 11:13 p.m. followed by the shuttle crew at 11:43 p.m.

The space station has its final pair of solar panels stretching 240 feet tip to tip after a lessons-learned flawless deploy earlier Friday. The orbiting complex now has nearly an acre’s worth of U.S. arrays producing 120 kilowatts of usable electricity – doubling the amount available for science operations to 30 kilowatts.

NASA will post online nine names that are finalists for the agency’s Mars Science Laboratory mission and invite the public to vote for its favorite. The non-binding poll to help NASA select a name opens online Monday, March 23, and will accept votes through March 29.

More than 9,000 students in kindergarten through 12th grades submitted essays proposing names for the rover in a nationwide contest that ended Jan. 25. Entries came from all 50 states, Puerto Rico and the families of American service personnel overseas. NASA will select the winning name, based on a student’s essay and the public poll, and announce the name in April.

“The names that students proposed range from heroes to animals and bugs,” said Michelle Viotti, manager of the Mars Public Engagement program at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, or JPL, in Pasadena, Calif. “No matter what name is finally chosen, this is a mission for everyone, and we can’t wait to start calling this rover by name.”

The student who submitted the winning name will be invited to JPL to sign the rover. Additionally, all 30 student semi-finalists in the naming contest will have an opportunity to place an individually-tailored message on the chip. For worldwide participation beyond the contest, the public has a chance to participate in “Send Your Name to Mars.” The agency will collect names to be recorded on a microchip that will be carried on the car-sized robotic explorer. Names will be collected via the contest web link beginning Monday.

The naming contest is part of a Space Act Agreement between NASA and Disney. Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures is the prize provider for the contest. This collaboration made it possible for WALL-E, the animated robotic hero from the 2008 movie of the same name, to appear in online content inviting students to participate.

Scheduled to launch in 2011 and land on Mars in 2012, the rover will use a set of advanced science instruments to check whether the environment in a selected landing region ever has been favorable for supporting microbial life and preserving evidence of such life. The rover also will search for minerals that formed in the presence of water and look for chemical building blocks of life.

JPL manages the mission for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington.

To view the nine finalist names and cast your vote, visit: http://marsrovername.jpl.nasa.gov.

Astronauts today installed the International Space Station’s final truss segment, Starboard 6, containing the fourth pair of solar arrays. Once the solar array wings are unfurled, the segment will provide the final complement of power to the station.

After station robotic arm drivers John Phillips and Koichi Wakata guided the truss into position, spacewalkers Steve Swanson and Richard Arnold connected bolts to permanently attach S6 to S5. The spacewalkers plugged in power and data connectors to the truss, prepared a radiator to cool it, opened boxes containing the new solar arrays and deployed the Beta Gimbal Assemblies containing masts that support the solar arrays. Mission Control in Houston deployed the radiator, and the stage is set for solar array wing deploy on Friday at 10:58 a.m. EDT.

Today’s spacewalk lasted six hours, seven minutes. It was Swanson’s third spacewalk and Arnold’s first, and the 121st spacewalk in support of station assembly, totaling about 762 hours.

By Marc S. Posner
SOAR Magazine

The crews of space shuttle Discovery and the International Space Station are now working together as one team that will install solar arrays and other equipment over the next several days. The space travelers joined up earlier today when Discovery docked with the ISS.

The shuttle’s crew is comprised of Commander Lee Archambault, Pilot Tony Antonelli, along with Mission Specialists Joseph Acaba, John Phillips, Steve Swanson and Richard Arnold. Also aboard Discovery is Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Koichi Wakata, who will take over for Sandra Magnus.

Serving aboard the International Space Station are Commander Mike Fincke and flight engineers Yury Lonchakov and Magnus, who will return home after some four months in orbit when the shuttle completes its 13-day mission later this month.

Wakata is scheduled to return to Earth during the next station shuttle mission, STS-127, currently targeted to launch in June 2009.

Former science teachers Acaba and Arnold, both of whom are now fully-trained NASA
astronauts, are making their first journey to orbit. They, along with Swanson, will conduct three spacewalks during the mission. During those excursions, the astronauts will install the fourth and final set of the station’s solar arrays — increasing the power-generating capabilities of the orbiting outpost, and allowing the crew capacity to double from three to six members.

Along with the S6 Truss element and solar array wings, Discovery’?s crew is delivering a new distillation assembly to get the station?s water recycling system up to full operation.