STS-131

Launch, orbit & landing data: Designation  36507 / 10012A Launch date - time  05 Apr 2010 - 10:21 UT Launch site  KSC, LC39A Launch vehicle  Space Shuttle Orbiter  Discovery F-38 Primary payload  MPLM 1-07 (Leonardo F7) Mass (kg)   Earth orbit on Apr 5.47:    - Perigee / Apogee  227 x 259 km    - Eccentricity  0.002    - Inclination  51.65°    - Period  89.37 min Docking date - time  07 Apr 2010 - 07:44 UT Target spacecraft/port  ISS/ PMA-2 port on Harmony Docking orbit on Apr 7.51:    - Perigee / Apogee  342 x 350 km    - Eccentricity  0.0006    - Inclination  51.65°    - Period  91.45 min Undocking date - time  17 Apr 2010 - 12:52 UT Landing date - time  20 Apr 2010 - 13:08 UT Landing location  KSC, Runway 33 Flight Duration (d:hr:min)  15d 02h 47m (15.116 days) Nbr orbits  238 Landing crew  launch crew

Crew

Mission details:

• STS-131 was rolled out to the launch pad on Mar 4, 2010; it is scheduled for launch in April.
• Launch has been delayed from March 18 to April 5, 2010 due to cold weather in Florida.
• Space Shuttle OV-103 Discovery was launched at 10:21 UTC on Apr 5, 2010 on flight STS-131, ISS mission 19A. Discovery reached a 57 x 227 km orbit at 10:30 UTC and with the OMS-2 burn at 11:00 UTC raised the perigee out of the atmosphere to 227 x 259 km x 51.6 deg. After a further burn (NC1) at 13:07 UTC Discovery was in a 252 x 337 km orbit. Mission STS-131 will carry the Leonardo MPLM logistics module and the Lightweight MPESS carrier, to deliver cargo and supplies to the Station.
• Shortly after launch the shuttle Discovery's Ku-band antenna system, used as a radar dish during rendezvous operations and to transmit video and data to and from the ground through NASA communications satellites, suffered a malfunction of some sort. Loss of the antenna operations did not impact mission safety or success. Discovery made a safely rendezvous and dock with the station and successfully complete all of its planned mission objectives without use of the Ku-Band antenna, if needed. A malfunction of Discovery's Ku-band antenna system means that there will be less live video than usual.
• STS-131 cargo manifest:

    Name                             Bay location   Mass (kg,guess)
  
    Orbiter Docking System           1-2            1800
     with EMU 3008, 3017 suits                       260?
    APC/SPDU                         4 port           18?
    ROEU 751A umbilical              7 stbd          127
    MPLM Leonardo                    7-12          12371
    Lightweight MPESS Carrier        13             1764
    RMS                              Sill            410
    OBSS                             Sill            382
    -----------------------------------------------------
                                             Total 15332 kg
  

  
  
  
  
• Following a two day solo flight Discovery docked to the ISS on 07.04.2010. Joint operations with the ISS expedition 23.
• The thirteen astronauts of STS-131 and Expedition 23 equal the record for humans in space at one time with Caldwell-Dyson, Metcalf-Lindenburger, Wilson and Yamazaki breaking the record for the number of women in space at once, and Yamazaki and Noguchi marking the first time two Japanese astronauts have flown simultaneously.
• On April 08, 2010 the Leonardo Multipurpose Logistics Module was relocated from Discovery's payload bay to a port on the Harmony node. The Italian-built module's more than 17,000 pounds of cargo includes four experiment racks along with the final private crew quarters. This is the final roundtrip to the station for the 21-foot-long, 15-foot-diameter Leonardo. Once back on Earth, the module will be reconfigured with increased shielding on the outside for the STS-133 mission in September 2010 when it will be left on the station as a permanent module.
• Astronauts Mastracchio and Anderson made three spacewalks in suits EMU 3017 and 3008) from the Quest airlock on Apr 9, 11 and 13.
  
  

  EVA Mastracchio

  EVA Mastracchio

  
  
• First EVA by Mastracchio and Anderson on 09.04.2010 (6h 27m). The crew inside used the station's robotic arm to remove a new ammonia tank assembly (ATA) from shuttle's payload bay and temporarily stow it to the ESP-2 on the station. Ammonia is used to move excess heat from inside the station to the radiators located outside. Then the ATA was moved to the Mobile Base System (MBS) on the truss. The spacewalkers then retrieved a seed experiment outside the Japanese laboratory. Next, the pair installed a grapple bar to the new ammonia tank on the station's truss. The pair also replaced a failed gyroscope that is part of the station's navigation system. They also accomplished several "get-ahead" tasks, removing 11 out of 12 p-clamps slated for a future spacewalk.
• Meanwhile mission managers extended the flight by one day to enable a standard late inspection of the shuttle heat shield to occur while the shuttle is docked to the International Space Station.
  
  

  EVA Mastracchio & Anderson

  EVA Mastracchio & Anderson

  
  
• Second EVA by Mastracchio and Anderson on 11.04.2010 (7h 26m).
  During EVA-2 the astronauts removed the old ATA from S1 and handed it to the robot arm which temporarily placed it on one of the truss CETA carts. The SSRMS then picked up the the new ATA from the MBS, moved it to near S1 and handed it to the astronauts who bolted it to the truss. The old ATA was then moved from the CETA cart to the MBS.
• The astronauts than ran into problems bolting the 1,700-pound structure down, however, put the astronauts well behind schedule and caused Mission Control to postpone hooking up the fluid lines to the new tank until a future EVA. Finally, after multiple attempts over an hour and a half, Anderson drove a recalcitrant bolt home to clear the problem. The station's arm then temporarily stowed the old tank on another part of the station's structure until the mission's third spacewalk.
• Third and final EVA by Mastracchio and Anderson on 13.04.2010 (6h 24m). First they finished the complicated change out of the large ammonia tank assembly. Using the station's arm, the crew moved the old tank into the shuttle's payload bay for return to Earth. The spacewalkers also removed the grapple bar from the old ammonia tank and stowed it on a spare parts platform. Finally Mastracchio and Anderson retrieved debris shields from the Quest airlock to return to Earth. Due of the delays, the planned installing a plate and camera light on the Dextre robot, the removal of thermal covers on Dextre and replaceement of a burned out light on a truss camera were not carried out.
  

  Spacewalk timing details:
             Quest     Hatch Battery Hatch   Quest
             depress   open  power   closed  repress
  EVA-1 Apr  9 0527    0530   0531    1156   1158
  EVA-2 Apr 11 0525?   0528   0530    1253   1256
  EVA-3 Apr 13 0605?   0612   0614    1235   1238
  

  
  
  

  EVA Anderson

  
  
• Meanwhile, the Leonardo module was moved from the payload bay to the zenith CBM port on the Harmony module between 0322 and 0424 UTC on Apr 8. Among the cargo transferred from Leonardo was the Crew Quarters 4 rack, the MELFI-3 freezer, the WORF (Window Orbital Research Facility) which will be placed over Destiny′s window to host observation experiments, the MARES exercise device, and EXPRESS Rack 7.
  Following some discussions the flight controllers have decided not to add a possible fourth spacewalk plus an additional one-day mission extension to the shuttle Discovery′s mission to replace a nitrogen tank in the International Space Station′s ammonia coolant system, concluding the system can safely operate for an extended period despite a stuck valve preventing normal pressurization.
• On April 15, 2010 at 20:25 UT, Wilson and Yamazaki using the SSRMS, unberthed Leonardo from Harmony; it was left hanging overnight and then berthed back in Discovery′s bay at 0708 UTC Apr 16.
  The operation to move the Leonardo Multi-Purpose Logistics Module (MPLM) from the International Space Station back to space shuttle Discovery’s cargo bay for return to Earth has been delayed due to a problem with the mechanism that holds the MPLM in place.
• Next Wilson, Metcalf-Lindenburger and Discovery Pilot Dutton teamed up to begin the late inspection of the shuttle's thermal protection system. Working in shifts with some help from Commander Poindexter and Yamazaki, they used Discovery's robotic arm and the orbiter boom sensor system to look at reinforced carbon-carbon of the wing leading edges and the nose cone, as well as and the heat-resistant tiles.
• The inspection, scheduled for about seven hours, was finished almost three hours ahead of schedule. It was done while the shuttle was still docked so the images could be sent down by the station's high-data-rate system. Discovery′s high-data-rate Ku band antenna is not working.
• Due of bad weather in Florida the landing was delayed one day.
  
  

  Landing STS-131

  
  
• The hatches between Discovery and PMA-2/Harmony were closed at 1030 UTC on Apr 17 and the Shuttle undocked at 1252 UTC. It made a loop around the Station at about 160m distance and then departed at 1401 UTC.
  On Apr 20 Discovery fired its OMS engines at 1203 UTC to reduce its velocity by 92m/s, changing its orbit from 322 x 345 km to around 13 x 344 km.
  Orbiter OV-103 landed on runway 33 at Kennedy Space Center at 1308:35 UTC after 15 days 2 hours 47 min 10s of flight of which 15 days 2 hours 20 min were in space (above 80 km).

Astrophilately covers:

Machine Launch cancel KSC. Credit: J. Vd Dr.

Landing cancel KSC + new red cancel. Credit: J. Vd Dr.