![]() Bush in May 1989.Įndeavour's name was inspired by the 18th century sailing ship assigned to chart the South Pacific under British explorer Capt. The winner was announced by President George H.W. The NASA Orbiter-Naming Project received 6,154 entries, representing more than 70,000 students. NASA opened the competition with the provision the proposals were drawn from nautical tradition. "There was a little contest that decided how we're going to name it," recalled Kelly.Įndeavour was christened through a contest initiated by Congress in response to the concern by students over the loss of Challenger. NASA's tribute art for space shuttle Endeavour depicting OV-105 and its 25 mission patches. Largely assembled from spare parts pre-fabricated during the development of Discovery and Atlantis, NASA's fifth orbiter, or OV-105, was completed in 1991. ![]() "It was decided that to build a new one would actually be more cost-effective to do, build a brand new orbiter, and that became Endeavour." "At the time the thought was, well, maybe we could modify Enterprise, which was the approach and landing test orbiter," said Kelly. Initially NASA considered retrofitting its prototype orbiter to take Challenger's place. "After the Challenger accident, Congress appropriated money to build. "Endeavour was the replacement for Challenger," Kelly recounted. "It hasn't been around as long as Discovery and Atlantis, but it has done some pretty major things," Kelly said about Endeavour during an earlier NASA interview.Įndeavour inherited its legacy from NASA's second-to-fly orbiter, which tragically was lost 73 seconds into its 10th launch in January 1986. EDT (1947 GMT) on Friday, April 29 for a two-week mission. Kelly and his five STS-134 crew members are scheduled to launch onboard Endeavour at 3:47 p.m. After 25 flights, we will hopefully land here and then Endeavour is done with its service to the country," added Kelly. "We are going to take Endeavour out for a couple more, probably about five or six million more miles. Visit for complete coverage of Endeavour's final mission STS-134 or follow us and on Facebook. ![]() You can follow senior writer Clara Moskowitz on Twitter ClaraMoskowitz. Endeavour will deliver a $2 billion astrophysics experiment to search for antimatter and dark matter, and a platform full of spare supplies for the station. She had traveled from her Houston hospital to Kennedy Space Center for the launch.Įndeavour is due to carry six astronauts on one final visit to the International Space Station. Giffords was shot in the head during an assassination attempt in January, but has reportedly made great strides in recovery. "I think it was great that he came down today."Īlso hoping to view the launch was Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., who was here to watch her husband Mark Kelly fly aboard Endeavour as its commander. "Even though we scrubbed, the president elected to continue with his visit to the Kennedy Space Center with his family, and I think he really enjoyed it," said Bob Cabana, director of the Kennedy Space Center. The Obamas visited the Kennedy Space Center anyway, and took a tour of the facility where the shuttle Atlantis is being prepped for its last launch on June 28. ![]() Two heaters that are supposed to keep the power unit from freezing on orbit failed, which would have rendered the APU useless once Endeavour reached space.Įngineers have yet to isolate the root cause of the problem, but inspections conducted Saturday point toward a failed avionics box, which powers the heaters that protect the critical unit.įixing the problem will likely take some time, partly because the broken element is in a hard-to-reach area of the shuttle's aft section.įriday's attempted launch was to be witnessed by a crowd that had swelled up to 750,000, as well as President Barack Obama and his family. "We don't like lifting off without redundancy especially in a critical system." "This was a pretty straightforward scrub," said launch director Mike Leinbach during a press conference Friday afternoon.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |