STS-135
STS-135 (ISS assembly flight ULF7) was the 135th and final mission of the American Space Shuttle program. It used the orbiter Atlantis and hardware originally processed for the STS-335 contingency mission, which was not flown. STS-135 launched on July 8, 2011, and landed on July 21, 2011, following a one-day mission extension. The four-person crew was the smallest of any shuttle mission since STS-6 in April 1983. The mission's primary cargo was the Multi-Purpose Logistics Module (MPLM) Raffaello and a Lightweight Multi-Purpose Carrier (LMC), which were delivered to the International Space Station (ISS). The flight of Raffaello marked the only time that Atlantis carried an MPLM.
Atlantis lands at the Kennedy Space Center on July 21, 2011, bringing the Space Shuttle program to an end. | |
| Names | Space Transportation System-135 |
|---|---|
| Mission type | ISS logistics |
| Operator | NASA |
| COSPAR ID | 2011-031A |
| SATCAT no. | 37736 |
| Mission duration | 12 days, 18 hours, 28 minutes, 50 seconds |
| Distance travelled | 8,505,161 km (5,284,862 mi) |
| Spacecraft properties | |
| Spacecraft | Space Shuttle Atlantis |
| Crew | |
| Crew size | 4 |
| Members | |
| Start of mission | |
| Launch date | July 8, 2011 15:29 UTC |
| Launch site | Kennedy, LC-39A |
| End of mission | |
| Landing date | July 21, 2011, 09:57 UTC |
| Landing site | Shuttle Landing Facility |
| Orbital parameters | |
| Reference system | Geocentric |
| Regime | Low Earth |
| Inclination | 51.6° |
| Docking with ISS | |
| Docking date | July 10, 2011 15:07 UTC |
| Undocking date | July 19, 2011 06:28 UTC |
| Time docked | 8 days, 15 hours, 21 minutes |
|
Official crew portrait of Walheim, Hurley, Ferguson, and Magnus. | |
Although the mission was authorized, it initially had no appropriation in the NASA budget, raising questions about whether the mission would fly. On January 20, 2011, program managers changed STS-335 to STS-135 on the flight manifest. This allowed for training and other mission specific preparations. On February 13, 2011, program managers told their workforce that STS-135 would fly regardless of the funding situation via a continuing resolution. Until this point, there had been no official references to the STS-135 mission in NASA documentation for the general public.
During an address at the Marshall Space Flight Center on November 16, 2010, NASA administrator Charles Bolden said that the agency needed to fly STS-135 to the station in 2011 due to possible delays in the development of commercial rockets and spacecraft designed to transport cargo to the ISS. "We are hoping to fly a third shuttle mission (in addition to STS-133 and STS-134) in June 2011, what everybody calls the launch-on-need mission... and that's really needed to [buy down] the risk for the development time for commercial cargo", Bolden said.
The mission was included in NASA's 2011 authorization, which was signed into law on October 11, 2010, but funding remained dependent on a subsequent appropriations bill. United Space Alliance signed a contract extension for the mission, along with STS-134; the contract contained six one-month options with NASA in order to support continuing operations.
The federal budget approved in April 2011 called for US$5.5 billion for NASA's space operations division, including the shuttle and space station programs. According to NASA, the budget running through September 30, 2011, ended all concerns about funding the STS-135 mission.