14 DAY TRIAL // On April 29, the space shuttle Endeavor will take off to the International Space Station on its final flight, STS-134. This mission will also mark the last time ever that an astronaut with the European Space Agency ever flies in an American orbiter.
NASA has only a single flight scheduled to take off after Endeavor returns, and that mission will be carried out by Atlantis. Dubbed STS-135, the flight will have an all-American crew, without any foreign astronauts in the mix.
As such, it's ESA astronaut Roberto Vittori who will have the honor of being the last-ever European representative on an American space shuttle. He is part of a six-astronaut crew that will fly to the ISS, and install a new particle detector on the orbital facility.
At this point, Endeavor is scheduled for launch at 19:47 GMT, for a 14-day mission to space. After spending two days in low-Earth orbit, it is scheduled to reach the space lab on May 1.
NASA decided to go with four spacewalks in 14 days mix, rather than the usual, 3 extravehicular activities (EVA) spread over 11 days. After the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS) instrument is installed on the station, Endeavor will return to Earth, and will be decommissioned.
Vittori is currently at its third visit to the space facility. He did two other flights, in 2002 and 2005 respectively, but both of those flights were carried out aboard a Soyuz space capsule. This is his third visit to LEO, but the first aboard a shuttle.
According to ESA, the astronaut is the first-ever ESA member to carry out three trips to the station. Once in orbit, he will have the chance to meet up with Italian astronaut Paolo Nespoli, who also works with ESA. The latter arrived in space aboard a Soyuz on December 17.
“This last Shuttle flight of an ESA astronaut will not mean the end of ESA’s presence on the Station, which will continue at least through 2020,” a press release made available by the agency says.
“Two ESA astronauts are training for future 6-month missions on the orbital outpost: André Kuipers will be launched in November this year and Luca Parmitano in December 2013, both in Soyuz spacecraft,” the statement goes on to say.
With the landing of STS-134, the long and fruitful collaboration that NASA and ESA had in operating the space shuttles will come to an end. The first time the two agencies signed an agreement to use the orbiters together was back in 1981.