![]() Last shuttle flight before NASA delivers a second connecting node, or gateway, to the station so that Japanese and European partner labs can be hooked on, making the station truly multinational. That means station astronaut Clay Anderson has not had a chance over the last two months to train in person with his spacewalking partners. First time a space station crewmember will join a shuttle astronaut for a spacewalk. cargo carrier, a sort of U-Haul carrier that fits into the shuttle’s payload bay that can cart about 2268 kg (5000 pounds) of supplies and equipment to the space station. First shuttle to run off the International Space Station’s power through a connecting cable, thus extending the time it can dock at the outpost. First use by a space shuttle of a satellite navigation system, or GPS, for landing. The shuttle Endeavour, built to replace Challenger, is the last of the remaining shuttles to return to flight following the 2003 Columbia disaster. Morgan trained 22 years ago as the backup to Challenger crew member Christa McAuliffe, a social studies teacher who died along with six astronauts seconds after Challenger’s lift-off on 28 January 1986, when a booster rocket blew up.Ĭivilian fliers were banned from shuttles after the Challenger disaster and Morgan joined the astronaut corps in 1998. The primary purpose of Endeavour’s flight, which is the 119th in the shuttle programme, is to deliver and install a new beam for the station’s main support structure, replace a faulty gyroscope needed to keep the outpost positioned properly in orbit and deliver supplies.īut it is the crew that has fallen under the spotlight, partly because the five-man, two-woman team includes former elementary school teacher Barbara Morgan. ![]() It has a new piece of equipment that can tap into the power grid of the space station and could allow the shuttle to extend its 11-day mission to 14 days. The agency now monitors lift-offs with dozens of cameras, and shuttle crews scrutinise their ship’s heat-resistant tiles when they reach space.Įndeavour has undergone an extensive overhaul since its last flight in November 2002 and NASA managers say the spacecraft is virtually new. NASA and Columbia’s crew had not been aware that a falling chunk of insulation foam had knocked a hole in the ship’s protective heat shield during launch.
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