Twenty-Four Days and Counting

Twenty-four days and counting till STS-134 and the final mission of Space Shuttle Endeavour! It's only twenty-four days till the crew (above) will rocket into space. Here I thought I'd write a little article on STS-134, the crew, and what it's doing.

STS-134 is posed to launch at 3:47pm EDT April 29, 2011. The launch will be covered by NASA TV; so be sure to watch it if you can! The mission is commanded by Mark Kelly--you may (correctly) remember him  as the husband of Congresswomen Giffords. In the above picture, Mark Kelly is the rather bald guy fourth from left. Kelly's pilot, Greg Johnson, was the pilot on  STS-123 as well.

The STS-134 Mission Specialists are Greg Chamitoff (far left), Roberto Vittori (second from left), Andrew Feustel (third from left), and Michael Fincke (far right). Chamitoff was on Expedition 17/18 on the International Space Station, traveling there on STS-124 and departing on STS-126. Vittori is from Italy, and has made several trips to the International Space Station. Fincke has logged a whole year in space already, and over 26 of those hours on six spacewalks. Between Feustel, Chamitoff, and Fincke, four spacewalks will occur on the STS-134 mission.

The payload of Endeavour on STS-134 will comprise the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer-2, as well as many spare parts for the International Space Station once the shuttle fleet retires.

A great place to learn more about STS-134 is to view NASA's Interactive feature for the flight; click here to view it!

~Photobug