# Shuttle Discovery arrives at the space station for the last time (Pix)



## David Baxter PhD (Feb 27, 2011)

*Shuttle Discovery arrives at space station for last time *
by MARCIA DUNN, _Globe and Mail_
Saturday, Feb. 26, 2011

Cape Canaveral, Fla.? Space shuttle Discovery arrived at the International Space Station on Saturday, making its final visit before being parked at a museum.

?What took you guys so long?? asked the space station's commander, Scott Kelly.

Discovery should have come and gone last November, but it was grounded by fuel tank cracks. It blasted off Thursday with just two seconds to spare after being held up by a balky ground computer.

?Yeah, I don't know, we kind of waited until like the last two seconds,? said shuttle commander Steven Lindsey.

The linkup occurred 220 miles above Australia.

Discovery ? flying on its final voyage ? will spend at least a week at the orbiting outpost. It's carrying a closet-style chamber full of supplies as well as the first humanoid robot to fly in space.

The compartment will be attached permanently to the space station early next week.

Altogether, there are 12 people aboard the joined spacecraft, representing the United States, Russia and Italy. And in a historic first, four of the five major partners have vessels docked there right now, including cargo ships from Japan and Europe. The entire conglomeration has a mass of 1.2 million pounds, including the shuttle.

It took longer than usual for the hatches to open because of a slight misalignment between the shuttle and station that needed to be corrected. The two skippers shook hands when the doors finally swung open, and there were hugs all around.

It was a quick reunion. The astronauts rushed off to see how far they could get Saturday evening with the installation of a platform holding a spare radiator for the station. The giant shelf was carried up aboard the shuttle.

They worked late, but finally got the platform installed, eight hours after the docking.

Earlier in the day, just before pulling up, Discovery performed a slow 360-degree backflip so space station cameras could capture any signs of launch damage. At least four pieces of debris broke off the fuel tank during liftoff, and one of the strips of insulating foam struck Discovery's belly.

NASA managers do not believe the shuttle was damaged. That's because the foam loss occurred so late in the launch, preventing a hard impact. The hundreds of digital pictures snapped by two space station residents should confirm that; experts on the ground will spend the next day or two poring over all the images.

As a precaution, every shuttle crew since the 2003 Columbia disaster has had to thoroughly check for possible damage to the thermal shielding, which must be robust for re-entering Earth's atmosphere.

Discovery ? the first to perform the somersaulting maneuver, back in 2005 ? is the first in the fleet to be retired this year. Endeavour and then Atlantis will close out the 30-year shuttle program by midsummer.

Discovery is the oldest of the three and the most traveled, with 143 million miles logged over 39 flights and 26 years.

The robot launched aboard Discovery ? Robonaut 2 or R2 for short ? will remain at the space station, all boxed up for at least another few months. It's an experimental machine from the waist up that will be tested before attempting simple jobs inside the orbiting complex. The idea is for R2 to eventually serve as an astronaut assistant.

?We're here!? Robonaut said in a Twitter update following Saturday's docking. It actually was posted by a human colleague on the ground. ?Home sweet home!?


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## David Baxter PhD (Feb 27, 2011)

Videos of the flight:


*Final lift-off for Discovery*
*Discovery's last space station visit*
*Challenger disaster, 25 years later*



_Space Shuttle Discovery launch as seen from United flight 304 on February 24th, 2011._


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## Retired (Feb 27, 2011)

The last launch of Discovery was viewed by an estimated one and a half million people in the tiny City of Titusville, Florida and surrounding area.  Ordinarily, Titusville is a sleepy little City or big town that rarely sees more than a half dozen cars at a traffic light and to travel from one end of the City to the other takes about ten or fifteen minutes.

Following the launch on Thursday, traffic was at a crawl throughout the town, as the thousands of cars driven by folks unfamiliar with where they were going were tryng to leave.  Ordinarily locals would have bypassed the heavy traffic by taking side streets through the residential areas to get home in about twnty minutes; but with cars now carrying GPS, drivers now flooded the side streets, and with no traffic lights in residential areas, the City came to gridlock.

Trips that usually took fifteen minutes, took three four and five hours that night.  Once people managed to get on I-95, they discovered the southbound lanes to be stopped because of a serious accident that closed the interstate south of town!

Locals who stayed home and watched the launch from their backyard avoided the chaos, but those who wanted to see the entire launch, including the dramatic ignition phase, endured hours in a traffic jam.

The forecast for the final two launches in April and June expect at least doubel the number of spectators that came for Discovery, on Thursday <sigh>.


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## Retired (Mar 3, 2011)

Sorry to be a little late in providing pictures of the launch od Shuttle Discovery last Thursday.  We've been involved in a number of activities that have occupied our time, so I'v now assembled the photos we took of the Discovery launch.  This is what you would have seen, had you been in Titusville, Florida, looking across the Indian River to launch pad 39A, at a distance of about six miles...the closest vantage point possible, as all access roads to Kennedy Space Center are closed during the launch.

Notice in the final slides, the booster tank separation can be seen as they begin to fall away from the Shuttle Discovery.  The very last slide shows how the plume following the launch assumes a shape that is caused by variations in upper level winds.

The attached slide show of 26 photos, is in a pdf  format for easier viewing.  When the pdf document loads it will ask you if you wish to view it in full screen mode..select yes, as full screen mode will launch as a slide show.  If you choose "No", you can still select Full Screen Mode from the View menu in Adobe Reader.

Hope you enjoy the slide show.


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## David Baxter PhD (Mar 3, 2011)

Pretty cool, Steve.


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## Retired (Mar 3, 2011)

One of our other friends took a video with her iPhone, and I'm trying to figure out how to get a copy.  Now that was especially interesting, because it shows the launch from our perspective in real time.  Stay tuned...


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## Andy (Mar 3, 2011)

Thanks for sharing that Steve:2thumbs: That's really cool. Is it loud? Or could you hear anything from where you were is a better question i guess...


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## Retired (Mar 3, 2011)

> Is it loud? Or could you hear anything



On that particular day, the sound of the shuttle's booster rockets could be heard where we were standing, on the shore of the Indian River, direct line of sight to the launch pad, six miles away; however due to the distance, the sound only began by about the third or fourth picture in the slideshow,  being quiet until then.  The sound is a dull roar, like the sound of a large jet engine taking off.

We have watched launches that were completely silent, because the wind was blowing toward the East, thereby carrying the sound out to sea, and at other times, the sound was so loud, we could hardly hear ourselves talk due to incoming winds.

You may have read the ;oud double sonic boom that occurs when the shuttle comes in to land at KSC.  That noise rattles windows and bones, and causes unsuspecting tourists to scream as they are startled by the sound equal to a shotgun blast ten feet away!


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## Andy (Mar 3, 2011)

That's really cool. It seems kind of hard to fathom if you've never seen it live.
I have heard of the double sonic boom. I just checked it out on you tube and it does sound like a shot gun but again I am sure it's louder live and as you say, you can feel it, something a camera doesn't capture.

It would be quite the experience.


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## Retired (Mar 3, 2011)

Update:  Space shuttle Discovery mission extended again by one day. Landing now set for March 9


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