STS-131

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Mission emblem
Mission emblem
Mission dates
Mission: STS-131
COSPAR-ID : 2010-012A
Crew: 7th
Begin: April 5, 2010 at 10:21:22 AM UTC
Starting place: Kennedy Space Center , LC-39A
Space station: ISS
Coupling: April 7, 2010 at 07:44 UTC
Decoupling: April 17, 2010 at 12:52 UTC
Duration on the ISS: 10 d, 05 h, 08 min
Number of EVA : 3
Landing: April 20, 2010 at 13:08 UTC
Landing place: Kennedy Space Center, Runway 33
Flight duration: 15d 2h 47min 10 s
Earth orbits: 238
Track height: 360 km
Covered track: 10.0 million km
Payload: MPLM Leonardo
LMC with ammonia tank
Team photo
v. l. No. Richard Mastracchio, Stephanie Wilson, James Dutton, Dorothy Metcalf-Lindenburger, Alan Poindexter, Naoko Yamazaki, Clayton Anderson
v. l. No. Richard Mastracchio, Stephanie Wilson, James Dutton, Dorothy Metcalf-Lindenburger, Alan Poindexter, Naoko Yamazaki, Clayton Anderson
◄ Before / After ►
STS-130 STS-132

STS-131 ( english S pace T ransportation S ystem) is the mission designation of a space flight of the US Space Shuttle Discovery (OV 103) of NASA . It was the 130th space shuttle mission and the 38th flight of the Discovery.

The launch took place on April 5, 2010 at 10:21:22 UTC.

team

The team was named on December 5, 2008.

This was the last space shuttle flight with space newbies.

STS-131 on March 3, 2010

Mission overview

During the STS-131 (ISS-19A) mission, the Leonardo logistics module and the LMC carrier were used to bring cargo to the ISS . Among other things, this included an ammonia tank, which was brought back to earth with STS-128 and now refilled and brought back to the station. The replacement of the tank and various maintenance work on the station were carried out as part of three space exits.

Mission history

Start, rendezvous and pairing

The start of the Discovery for the STS-131 mission took place in perfect weather on April 5, 2010 at 10:21 UTC as planned. Due to the start shortly before sunrise, the shuttle was illuminated by the sun soon after it took off. Shortly before, the ISS had flown over the launch site. At around 13:15 UTC, after opening the cargo bay hatch and unfolding the Ku-band antenna, it emerged that the data transmission to the TDRS was not working. As a result, the shuttle did not have sufficient real-time transmission options during the inspection of the heat shield using the Orbiter Boom Sensor System ; the data was instead stored on board the Discovery.

On the third day of the flight, final course corrections were made by firing the left OMS engine for 10 seconds . The Discovery then carried out the rendezvous pitch maneuver , during which the crew of the ISS took photos of the heat protection tiles. At 7:44 UTC, the Discovery docked successfully to the Harmony ISS module despite the failure of the radar , and at 9:11 UTC the hatches between the station and the orbiter were opened. Immediately after the ISS crew had been welcomed, the data from the rendezvous pitch maneuver and the inspection of the heat shield of the previous day began to be transmitted to NASA. The intact Ku-band antenna of the ISS was used for this.

Working on the ISS

On the fourth day of the flight, Stephanie Wilson and Naoko Yamazaki lifted Leonardo with the robotic arm of the ISS ( SSRMS ) from the loading bay of the Discovery and docked it on Harmony. About seven and a half hours later, the hatches between Leonardo and the ISS were opened and began to unload the eight tons of cargo. Rick Mastracchio and Clayton Anderson made preparations for their spacecraft operation the next day of the flight, during which, among other things, a new ammonia tank was to be installed at the station.

On the fifth day of the flight, Rick Mastracchio and Clayton Anderson performed the first spacecraft mission. The ISS's robotic arm lifted the new ammonia tank out of the Discovery's payload bay and attached it to a temporary position on the ISS's support structure . This procedure is necessary because the SSRMS cannot reach both the payload bay and the final position from one base, but has to change the base while the tank is in the intermediate position. In addition, an experiment was removed from the outer structure of the Japanese module Kibō and a defective gyroscope of the ISS navigation system was replaced.

On the sixth day of flight it was announced that the mission would be extended by one day. This left enough time to examine the heat protection tiles and transmit the data to Earth while the shuttle was still docked on the ISS. The Discovery's defective Ku-band antenna made it necessary to use the ISS antenna. More cargo from Leonardo was transported to the station, including the Window Observational Research Facility (WORF), which was attached to the Earth-facing window of the US Destiny module . Rick Mastracchio and Clayton Anderson made preparations for their next spacecraft mission, during which the new ammonia tank will be moved to its final location.

return

Landing on April 20, 2010

The first two landing opportunities on April 19 in orbits 222 and 223 at 12:48 UTC and 14:23 UTC could not be used because clouds were too low at KSC . The third option in orbit 237 on April 20 at 11:33 UTC at KSC had to be canceled due to the risk of rain and fog. Finally, the fourth landing option was used. The brake was fired at 12:06 p.m. for a landing at 13:08 UTC at KSC.

See also

Web links

Commons : STS-131  - album with pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ NASA Assigns Astronaut Crews for Future Space Shuttle Missions. NASA, December 5, 2008, accessed December 7, 2008 .
  2. ↑ Chris Bergin: Downstream processing and planning - preparing the fleet through to STS-135. NASASpaceflight, April 26, 2009, accessed October 13, 2009 .