"WE'RE BACK, BABY!" Those were the words that astronaut Scott Kelly uttered on the phone last week to his brother, fellow astronaut Mark Kelly, who was the pilot onboard Discovery for mission STS-121. Around 6:14 AM, Pacific Daylight Time (PDT) today, Discovery landed at Kennedy Space Center in Florida...successfully completing STS-121 and thus the second and final Return to Flight test mission. Assuming everything goes well in the upcoming 6 weeks, the next space shuttle to launch will be Atlantis...on an assembly mission (designated STS-115) to attach the next metal truss segment and solar panel wings to the International Space Station.
The International Space Station (ISS) in its current configuration (July 6, 2006).
The highlighted parts represent the segments that will be delivered to the ISS on mis-
-sion STS-115: The Port 3/Port 4 truss and solar array wings.
An artist's rendition of the ISS in orbit after shuttle flight STS-115.
How the ISS will hopefully look when it's completed in 2010.
An artist's rendition of the completed ISS.
Below is a timeline of events to take place prior to the August 28th launch of Atlantis (obviously, the schedule may change):
DATE.......EVENT
07/25/06...Atlantis rollover to the Vehicle Assembly Building (tentative...now July 24)
07/27/06...P3/P4 Truss payload transported to Launch Pad 39B (tentative...now July 26)
08/02/06...Shuttle stack rollout to Launch Pad 39B
08/02/06...P3/P4 Truss to be installed inside Atlantis' payload bay (tentative...now Aug. 5)
08/07/06...Crew flies out to Kennedy Space Center
08/08/06...Terminal Countdown Demonstration Test (TCDT) begins
08/09/06...Astronaut Q & A at Launch Pad 39B
08/10/06...TCDT ends with dress-rehearsal countdown
08/11/06...Pre-flight briefings at the Johnson Space Center
08/15/06...Flight Readiness Review (FRR) begins
08/16/06...FRR ends; official launch date announced
08/25/06...Countdown begins...now August 24
08/28/06...Launch (now August 27 at 1:30 PM, PDT, because of schedule issues related to a Russian Soyuz flight to the space station in mid-September)
09/07/06...Shuttle launch window closes
Schedule courtesy of SpaceflightNow.com
A photo of the P3/P4 truss structure (right), taken on May 12, 2005. Prior to the
Columbia disaster, STS-115 was originally suppose to be flown on May 23, 2003, on-
-board the shuttle Endeavour. Endeavour is currently grounded for maintenance at
the Kennedy Space Center, and should fly again by next summer (on STS-118).
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