STS-112
STS-112 (ISS assembly flight 9A) was an 11-day Space Shuttle mission to the International Space Station (ISS) flown by Space Shuttle Atlantis. Space Shuttle Atlantis was launched on 7 October 2002 at 19:45 UTC from the Kennedy Space Center's launch pad 39B to deliver the 28,000 pound Starboard 1 (S1) truss segment to the Space Station. Ending a 4.5-million-mile journey, Atlantis landed at 15:44 UTC on 18 October 2002 on runway 33 at the Kennedy Space Center's Shuttle Landing Facility.
Canadarm2 takes the S1 truss out of the payload bay of Atlantis, prior to its installation on the ISS | |
| Names | Space Transportation System-112 |
|---|---|
| Mission type | ISS assembly |
| Operator | NASA |
| COSPAR ID | 2002-047A |
| SATCAT no. | 27537 |
| Mission duration | 10 days, 19 hours, 58 minutes, 44 seconds |
| Distance travelled | 7,200,000 kilometres (4,500,000 mi) |
| Orbits completed | 170 |
| Spacecraft properties | |
| Spacecraft | Space Shuttle Atlantis |
| Launch mass | 116,538 kilograms (256,922 lb) |
| Landing mass | 91,390 kilograms (201,480 lb) |
| Payload mass | 12,572 kilograms (27,717 lb) |
| Crew | |
| Crew size | 6 |
| Members | |
| Start of mission | |
| Launch date | 7 October 2002, 19:45:51 UTC |
| Launch site | Kennedy LC-39B |
| End of mission | |
| Landing date | 18 October 2002, 15:44:35 UTC |
| Landing site | Kennedy SLF Runway 33 |
| Orbital parameters | |
| Reference system | Geocentric |
| Regime | Low Earth |
| Perigee altitude | 273 kilometres (170 mi) |
| Apogee altitude | 405 kilometres (252 mi) |
| Inclination | 51.6 degrees |
| Period | 91.2 minutes |
| Docking with ISS | |
| Docking port | PMA-2 (Destiny forward) |
| Docking date | 9 October 2002, 15:16 UTC |
| Undocking date | 16 October 2002, 13:13 UTC |
| Time docked | 6 days, 21 hours, 57 minutes |
|
(L-R): Sandra H. Magnus, David A. Wolf, Pamela A. Melroy, Jeffrey S. Ashby, Piers J. Sellers and Fyodor Yurchikhin | |
During the launch, the ET bipod ramp shed a chunk of foam that caused a dent ~4" wide and 3" deep into the metal SRB-ET Attach Ring near the bottom of the left Space Shuttle Solid Rocket Booster. Prior to the next mission (STS-113), an upper-level decision was made at NASA to continue with launches as scheduled. The launch subsequent to that was the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster, the ill-fated STS-107.
Space Shuttle Atlantis had been scheduled to visit the International Space Station (ISS) again on the STS-114 mission in March 2003; however, due to the loss of Columbia, all Space Shuttles, including Atlantis, were temporarily grounded. Due to rescheduling of missions, Atlantis did not fly again until STS-115 on 9 September 2006.