STS-134

Launch, orbit & landing data: Designation  37577 / 11020A Launch date - time  16 May 2011 - 12:56:28 UT Launch site  KSC, LC39A Launch vehicle  Space Shuttle Orbiter  Endeavour F-25 Primary payload  AMS-02 & ELC-3 Launch Mass (kg)  2 052 443 kg Docking date - time  18 May 2011 - 10:14 UT Target spacecraft/port  ISS/ Docking orbit on :    - Perigee / Apogee   km    - Eccentricity      - Inclination  °    - Period   min Undocking date - time  30 May 2011 - 03:55 UT Landing date - time  01 June 2011 - 06:34:51 UT Landing location  KSC, runway 15 Flight Duration (d:hr:min)  15d 17h 39m Nbr orbits  249 Landing crew  launch crew

Vittori path

Payload path

Crew

Mission details:

AMS-2 photographed during Exp.50 in 2017

ELC-3 photographed during Exp.48 in 2016

• Work to replace a powerful magnet in a physics experiment named AMS bound for the International Space Station has forced NASA to move a summer flight (target launch date was July 29, 2010) by the shuttle Endeavour to mid November.
• May 2010: The final Shuttle mission, STS-134, will use orbiter OV-105 Endeavour, now in OPF 2. Its launch will probably slip to early in 2011.
• NASA announced on January 13, 2011 that astronaut Rick Sturckow will serve as a backup commander for the STS-134 space shuttle mission to facilitate continued training for the crew and support teams during STS-134 Commander Mark Kelly's absence. Kelly's wife, Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, was critically wounded in a shooting on Jan. 8 in Tucson, Arizona.
• Space Shuttle OV-105 Endeavour was launched on mission STS-134 on May 16, 2011. It flew to orbit using solid rocket motors RSRM-113 and External Tank ET-122. The RSRMs fell back to the Atlantic and were recovered, after arcing into the mesosphere. ET-122, which had been repaired after suffering significant damage in its New Orleans factory during Hurricane Katrina, reached a 57 x 227 km marginal orbit; after apogee around 1336 UTC, it reentered at first perigee over the South Pacific at around 1405 UTC. Endeavour fired its OMS engines at apogee, entering a 231 x 324 km x 51.6 deg orbit at 1336 UTC. After a series of rendezvous burns, it is approaching the International Space Station for a docking planned on May 18.
• Endeavour will deliver a set of spare equipment to the Station on the ELC-3 carrier, and install the massive AMS-02 particle detector which will search for antimatter. The STORRM lidar is a test of rendezvous and docking technology to be used on the future Orion spaceship; MISSE experiments are temporarily attached to the Station to study the effects of exposing various materials to space. STP-H3 is a set of US Defense Dept. experiments in the Space Test Program series, including experimental thermal control systems and space environment sensors.

• STS-134 Cargo Bay Manifest --------------------------- Mass External Airlock/ODS 1800? kg EMU spacesuits 3004, 3018 260? RMS arm 201 410? Orbiter Boom Sensor System 382? Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer 6917 STORRM 17? PPSU-2 electronics box 17? SPDU 17? ROEU 755 umbilical for ELC-3 90 ROEU 751 umbilical for AMS-02 78 MISSE carriers (3) 171 MISSE 8 experiment 45 Express Logistics Carrier: ELC-3 plus support hardware 3207? Cargo Transport Container 476 SASA-2R S-band antenna 116 SASA-3R S-band antenna 116 SPDM Arm 3/OCTM 342 SPDM support hardware 269 HPGA oxygen tank 552 ATA-2 ammonia tank 772 STP-H3 experiment package 500? ------------------------------------- Total 16554 kg

  STS-134 Launch configuration

  
  
• Crew of STS-134 are NASA's Mark Kelly, Greg H. Johnson, Mike Fincke, Greg Chamitoff, Andrew Feustel, and the European Space Agency's Roberto Vittori. Crew of the Space Station are Russian Space Agency astronauts Dmitri Kondratev (commander), Andrey Borisenko, Aleksandr Samokutyaev, NASA astronauts Cady Coleman and Ron Garan, and ESA astronaut Paolo Nespoli. Nespoli and Vittori are both Italian, and Vittori is the first Italian astronaut to make three flights.
• Endeavour docked with the Station at 1014 UTC on May 18, 2011. The ELC-3 cargo pallet was unberthed at 1327 UTC and installed on the Station's truss at 1609 UTC. The Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer experiment was installed on the Station on May 19, being unberthed at 0659 UTC and bolted to the S3 truss by 0946 UTC.
• On May 20 Greg Chamitoff and Drew Feustel depressurized the Quest airlock at about 0704 UTC and began the first STS-134 spacewalk. Two packages, MISSE 7A and 7B, were retrieved from the ELC2 pallet. MISSE packages are used to study how various materials and electronic components are affected by exposure to space. A new package, MISSE 8, was installed on ELC2. The astronauts also made preparations for servicing the Station's ammonia cooling system, connecting jumper lines on the P3/P4 truss. The spacewalk was ended when Chamitoff's suit developed a faulty CO2 sensor and the airlock was repressurized at 1329 UTC.
• A second spacewalk, by astronauts Fincke and Feustel, was carried out on May 22, with Quest depressurization at 0559 UTC. The astronauts serviced the ammonia cooling loop on the P6 truss, supplying it with ammonia from the tank on P1, and lubricated the Solar Alpha Rotary Joint on P3/P4 that allows the solar arrays to rotate. The spacewalk lasted over eight hours.
• On May 25 at 0538 UTC the Quest airlock was depressurized for EVA-3. Feustel and Fincke installed a Power Data Grapple Fixture on Zarya. The PDGF can be used as a base for the SSRMS robot arm, allowing it to be used for work on the Russian part of the Station.
• On May 27 Fincke and Chamitoff began what is scheduled to be the final spacewalk from the Shuttle to install the Enhanced Inspection Boom Assembly (EIBA), formerly the Orbiter Boom Sensor System (OBSS), on the S1 truss. The OBSS began the day on the end of the Shuttle's RMS arm. The SSRMS (Station robot arm) grappled the OBSS at 0419 UTC; the RMS released it at 0450 UTC; the SSRMS moved the OBSS close to S1; the astronauts took hold of the OBSS at 0527 and the SSRMS released it at 0539, with the astronauts then fixing it to the truss and completing the installation by 0542 UTC. The Shuttle grapple fixture was then removed and replaced with a Station-style PDGF Power and Data Grapple Fixture, which allows OBSS to switch from being the end of the SSRMS to being its base. This work was complete at 0918 UTC and the OBSS officially became the EIBA. The OBSS systems were added after the Columbia accident to allow the Shuttle extra reach to inspect heat shield tiles. Three were built; one of them remains installed on Atlantis for its final flight this summer and the third remains with Discovery.

• STS-134 spacewalk timings (UTC = GMT)
   EVA  Depress  Hatch open  Batt.Power  Hatch close Repress   RP-BP  RP-DP
   1    0704     0710        0710        1324        1329 UTC   6:14  6:20
   2    0559     0603        0605        1406        1412       8:07  8:13
   3    0538     0542        0543        1233        1237       6:54  6:59
   4    0408     0415        0415        1132        1139       7:24  7:31
  

• Endeavour undocked from the Station at 0355 UTC on May 30, 2011. The Shuttle then performed a re-rendezvous with the Station, coming to a distance of 290m at 0822 UTC. The rendezvous demonstrated a co elliptic approach, familiar from Apollo days but not normally used with Shuttle, and tested the STORRM laser sensor developed for the new Orion spaceship.
• On Jun 1, 2011 at 0529 UTC Endeavour fired its two OMS (Orbital Maneuvering System) engines for 2 min 38s to reduce its velocity by 90 m/s, lowering perigee into the Earth's atmosphere. Atmosphere entry interface at 120 km occurred at 0603 UTC, and Endeavour landed on Runway 15 at KSC at 0634:51 UTC.

Astrophilately covers:

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

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