14 DAY TRIAL // The STS-132 shuttle mission, first scheduled for May 13th, 2010, now seems to have been moved forward to April, NASA officials have announced. They have also said that they've determined the seven members of the crew that will fly the shuttle Atlantis to the International Space Station, to deliver the Russian-built Mini-Research Module 1, as well as the Integrated Cargo Carrier-Vertical Light Deployable (ICC-VLD). In addition, next year's mission will also carry numerous other materials to the ISS, including spares for a large number of devices, comprising the robotic arms.
“Navy Captain Ken Ham will command the shuttle Atlantis for this 11-day mission. Navy Cmdr. Tony Antonelli will serve as the pilot. Mission specialists are Navy Capt. Steve Bowen, Karen Nyberg, Garrett Reisman, and Piers Sellers,” a press release on NASA's website says. Ham served as the pilot on the STS-124 shuttle mission of 2008, which delivered the Pressurized Module (PM) of the Japanese Experiment Module (JEM), called Kibo, to the ISS. “He received a bachelor's degree from the U.S. Naval Academy and a master's degree in aeronautical engineering from the Naval Postgraduate School,” the release adds.
Navy Cmdr. Tony Antonelli will be the pilot of the upcoming STS-132 mission. He was also in charge of flight control for this March's shuttle mission to the ISS, STS-119. During the flight, the seven-astronaut crew assisted the crew of Expedition 18 in assembling the fourth starboard Integrated Truss Segment (S6), and the fourth set of solar arrays and batteries to the station. “He holds a bachelor's degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a master's degree in aeronautics and astronautics from the University of Washington,” NASA explains.
All the other five crew members have some degree of expertise in space flight, and most of them are at their second mission. Reisman, for example, was a flight engineer on the space station, having served for a total of three months, during Expeditions 16 and 17. Nyberg served as a mission specialist on STS-124, together with Ham. Sellers, on the other hand, will take off on his third mission in 2010, having already participated in STS-112 (2002) and STS-121 (2006).
The Mini-Research Module 1 (MRM1), also known as the “Docking Cargo Module,” will complete the construction of the Russian part of the space station. It will carry outfitting equipment from NASA for the Multipurpose Laboratory Module, a spare elbow joint for the European Robotic Arm, as well as a radiator. This is the latest addition to the ISS launch manifesto, and, when the plan was approved, it implied a reshaping of the way in which new modules would be added to the station. As a result, NASA's Node 3, now known as Tranquility, will most likely dock on the port hatch of the Unity module.