TCEP Space

To watch NASA Television transmissions live, just click on one of the two photographs of the space shuttle: Columbia taking off on 1 March 2002 beginning mission 109, to connect using the Real Media Player; or Endeavour landing on 19 June 2002 after completing mission 111, to connect using the Windows Media Player.

 

NASA Television Programme Schedule

Live event coverage times

Times shown are Eastern Standard Time

Greenwich Mean Time = EST + four hours

The Orbital Tracker complete with explanation of information shown, displays where the International Space Station and a space shuttle when in orbit are currently located, superimposed over an outline map of the world. There are now also three levels of magnification available for each spacecraft plot, each showing atlas extracts in colour.

Next sighting times provides you with a list of the next dates and times when the International Space Station should be visible in the sky over the location in the world you select.

Space shuttle Atlantis launched on mission STS-122 on 7 February 2008 to add the European Space Agency's Columbus Laboratory to the International Space Station.

The launch of Endeavour on mission STS-123, has been postponed until 11 March 2008 because of the five week period needed to prepare the pad for launch.

The launch of Discovery on mission STS-124 was targeted for 24 April 2008.

The next mission using the space shuttle Atlantis is STS-125, was due to begin on 28 August 2008 to service the Hubble Space Telescope.

Endeavour is due to launch on 16 October 2008 to deliver equipment to the International Space Station.

Discovery is due to launch on 4 December 2008 to deliver the final set of solar arrays to the International Space Station.

Space shuttle Endeavour launched to begin mission STS-118 on 8 August 2007 at 6:36 pm Eastern Standard Time.

The second Return To Flight mission, STS-121 using space shuttle Discovery, launched from Cape Canaveral in Florida on 4 July 2006.

Space Shuttle Columbia's Science Mission

The launch of Space Shuttle Columbia on Space Transportation System mission 107, the first flight of the Spacehab Research Double Module delayed from July 2002, took place on Thursday 16 January 2003 at 1539GMT. Mission 107 is the first in 2003 and was scheduled to take sixteen days to complete.

Tragically, Columbia failed to complete re-entry into the earth's atmosphere on the return flight path to the Kennedy Space Centre. Communications contact with the space shuttle ceased at 1400 GMT on Saturday 1 February 2003.

The final report of the Columbia Accident Investigation Board into the loss of the space shuttle was published on 26 August 2003. The report is available on the CAIB website.

Mission 107 was the twenty-eighth flight of the Space Shuttle Columbia and the one hundred and thirteenth flight in NASA's Space Shuttle program. This international mission was devoted to space research, the first dedicated research mission to be flown by the Shuttle in almost three years. The European Space Agency and NASA had dedicated websites for the mission's experiments.

Columbia carried in its payload bay the Spacehab Research Double Module, a pressurised environment accessible to the crew. The module and the Shuttle's mid-deck held most of the mission's more than eighty experiments, involving more than seventy scientists world-wide, investigating space, life and physical sciences.

The seven crew members of the space shuttle Columbia who died in the tragedy are, pictured seated front row in the photograph above, Commander Rick Husband, Mission Specialist Kalpana Chawla, and Pilot William McCool; and pictured standing back row in the photograph, Mission Specialists David Brown, Laurel Clark, and Michael Anderson, and Payload Specialist Ilan Ramon with the Israel Space Agency.

Wikipedia page for STS-107.

Space Shuttle Endeavour

The launch of the space shuttle Endeavour on mission STS-113 to deliver the Expedition Six crew and the Port One Truss segment to the International Space Station, occurred on Sunday 24 November 2002 at 0050GMT.

This was the nineteenth flight for Endeavour, which landed at the Kennedy Space Centre, Florida, on Saturday 7 December 2003 at 1937GMT, after completing mission STS-113, having travelled 5.74 million miles during 215 orbits of the earth. The total mission elapse time was 13 days, 18 hours, 47 minutes and 38 seconds to wheel stop.

Next Missions

Space Shuttle Atlantis was scheduled to launch on 1 March 2003 on a twelve day mission STS-114 to the International Space Station for crew rotation and logistics, whilst Endeavour was next due to launch on 23 May 2003 on a ten day mission STS-115 to deliver the Port Three and Port Four solar arrays. These missions are now not likely to occur until 2005.

Maintenance

Space Shuttle Discovery continues to undergo an engineering evaluation, following the discovery of a surface crack found during standard Orbiter Maintenance and Modification inspections. The crack, located on a 2.25-inch diameter metal ball, is associated with the Ball Strut Tie Rod Assembly inside Discovery's 17-inch liquid oxygen line.

Launches had previously been postponed for essential repairs to be carried out on the orbiters.

The Expedition Seven crew launched from Baikonour Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan, on board the Soyuz TMA-2 spacecraft on 26 April 2003 and docked with the International Space Station on 28 April.

After a week of joint operations, the Expedition Six crew returned to Earth on 4 May 2003 on board the Soyuz TMA-1 spacecraft and landed in Northern Kazakhstan at 0307GMT. The spacecraft had been docked at the space station since November 2002.

The Expedition Seven crew comprises two astronauts, instead of the normal compliment of three, due to the absence of space shuttle flights and the consequential need to prolong consumable supplies.

 

Expedition Seven Commander Yuri Malenchenko and Flight Engineer Ed Lu, who is NASA ISS Science Officer during this mission, lifted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan, at 0354GMT on Saturday 26 April and docked with the International Space Station at 0556GMT on Monday 28 April.

Return Spacecraft

The Soyuz TMA-1 taxi spacecraft docked with the International Space Station at 0501GMT on Friday 1 November, having been launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan in dense fog on 30 October 2002.

The taxi crew undocked the old Soyuz TM-34 spacecraft already at the station at 2044GMT on Saturday 9 November 2002. The spacecraft landed at 0004GMT on Sunday 10 November on the steppes of Kazakhstan.

The crew, which comprised Russian Commander Sergei Zaletin, European Space Agency Flight Engineer Frank deWinne from Belgium and Russian Flight Engineer Yuri Lonchakov, performed science experiments during their stay on board.

A new Soyuz spacecraft is delivered to the International Space Station every six months to provide an assured return capability for the station crew in the event that a problem would force them to come home prematurely. The new Soyuz TMA spacecraft is designed to accommodate larger or smaller crewmembers, and is equipped with upgraded computers, a new cockpit control panel and improved avionics.

Progress Unmaned Re-Supply Craft

The Progress Ten Re-Supply spacecraft launched on Sunday 2 February 2003 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 1259GMT. The cargo ship linked up to the aft docking port of the Zvezda Service Module at 1449GMT following a flawless automated approach to the International Space Station. Progress Ten brought a ton of food, fuel and supplies for the Expedition Six crew on board the ISS. At the time of docking, the ISS was two hundred and forty statute miles high over central Asia.

Completion of Mission STS-112 By Space Shuttle Atlantis

 

 

Mission STS-112 began at 1946GMT on Monday 7 October 2002 when the Space Shuttle Atlantis successfully launched from the Kennedy Space Centre, Florida.

Atlantis docked with the International Space Station at 1517GMT on Wednesday 9 October 2002.

 

Click on the photograph of Atlantis lifting off to replay the launch using Windows Media Player. Click Real Format or Quicktime Format for these.

Whilst at the space station, Mission Commander Jeff Ashby, Pilot Pam Melroy and Mission Specialists Sandy Magnus, Piers Sellers, David Wolf and Fyodor Yurchikhin, worked with the Expedition Five crew based at the station to continue the outward expansion of the orbital outpost. The shuttle crew conducted three spacewalks to install the fourteen ton Starboard One Truss and connect it to the Starboard Zero Central Truss, previously delivered, also by space shuttle Atlantis, on mission STS-110 in April. Eventually, the space station will have a structural framework made up of eleven segments, totalling 108.5 metres (356 feet) in length, on which the Mobile Transporter with the Canadarm2 robot arm will run.

Mission Specialist Piers Sellers prepares to attach an S-band antenna to the International Space Station's Starboard One Truss during his first spacewalk, which began at 1521GMT and concluded at 2222GMT on Thursday 10 October 2002.

During the seven hour and one minute long excursion, Astronauts David Wolf and Piers Sellers attached fluid, data and electrical lines to the Truss, which was installed onto the International Space Station shortly before the start of the spacewalk. Other tasks completed by the spacewalkers included releasing locks on a radiator beam, deploying an antenna and releasing restraints on a handcar located on the new Truss section.

Click on the photograph to replay part of the first spacewalk using Windows Media Player or click Real Format or Quicktime Format.

 

The space shuttle Atlantis landed on Friday 18 October 2002 at 1544GMT.

Space Shuttle Atlantis touched down at Kennedy Space Centre, Florida at 1544GMT on 18 October, completing a successful mission to the International Space Station to install and activate the Starboard One Truss. The total mission duration was ten days, nineteen hours and fifty-eight minutes.

The landing was the sixtieth by a shuttle at the Kennedy Space Centre, concluded the fifteenth shuttle flight to the space station and was the twenty-sixth flight of Atlantis.

Click on the photograph to replay the landing using Windows Media Player or click Real Format or Quicktime Format.

International Space Station

The Progress Nine unmanned Russian re-supply craft successfully docked with the aft docking port of the Zvezda Service Module of the space station on Sunday 29 September 2002 at 1701 Greenwich Mean Time, as the two spacecraft flew over Central Asia, after a four-day flight following its launch from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. The spacecraft delivered almost a ton of food, fuel and supplies to the Expedition Five on board the space station and also for the subsequent Expedition Six crew.

On Monday 16 September 2002, the NASA Administrator named Expedition Five Crew Astronaut Doctor Peggy Whitson, a biochemist, as the first NASA ISS Science Officer.

The second spacewalk of the two spacewalks by the Expedition Five crew based at the space station took place on Monday 26 August 2002. The first of the spacewalks was completed on 16 August 2002.

Space shuttle Endeavour landed on 19 June after completing mission STS-111.

Outline details of future shuttle and other manned space missions are available to read in the Consolidated Launch Manifest.

Photographs and videostreams courtesy of NASA.

Copyright Richard West. Page updated 2 February 2013.