Atlantis’ Final Flight Packed With Work

Atlantis’ Final Flight Packed With Work

KENNEDY SPACE CENTER -- “It’s coming,” said shuttle Commander Ken Ham, “and we’ve come up with a tagline for you: This is the first, last flight of Atlantis.”

That’s a bit of humor from the mission commander, but STS-132 is Atlantis’ 32nd and final scheduled trip to space.

It’s the 34th shuttle mission to the International Space Station, Atlantis’ 11th.

Atlantis is scheduled to blast off for the last time at 2:20 p.m. Friday, May 14. Watch it LIVE when it happens on News 13, Your Space Station.

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The shuttle will deliver the 17,000-pound Russian Mini Research Module, or MRM.

Once installed, the orbiting outpost will have more storage space and a new docking port for Russian Soyuz and Progress spacecraft.

Three spacewalks are on tap for the mission. Included in the tasks, astronauts will install spare batteries outside the space station.

“These batteries are not AAs,” said Mission Specialist Michael Good. “You know, my brother thinks, ‘What’s the big deal, going out there and doing a couple of batteries in space?’ But these are actually about 400-pound batteries. They’re the size of a big speaker or suitcase, and they’re way out there at the end of the P6 trusses.”

In Atlantis’ payload bay is the Integrated Cargo Carrier-Vertical Light Deployable module, containing hardware to be installed on the station’s exterior.

“On Flight Day 5, we’ll reach in with the arm, pull it out and plug it into the bottom of the Russian segment,” said Mission Specialist Piers Sellers. “And what that will give us is a kind of a long tube docking station, so that spacecraft can dock to the ISS without coming close to other structure.”

To commemorate the end of the shuttle program, the mission’s special patch will be flown up to the space station. The winning patch design was selected by a NASA panel from 85 entries from NASA employees and contractors.