When people talk about a meteorologist cooking up a weather forecast, they may be more right than they realize, said one of the forecasters NASA counts on to predict conditions ahead of a launch.

“I compare forecasting a lot to cooking, to be honest,” said Joel Tumbiolo, a meteorologist with the Air Force’s 45th Weather Squadron, the unit that handles forecasting for rockets launched at the Eastern Range on the Atlantic Coast of the United States. “In cooking, you have recipes that you follow, but to be a good cook you have to have a certain taste and feel for it, and I feel there’s a lot of that in weather forecasting.”

The weather team monitors conditions from the ground level to a few thousand feet in the air, a region the rocket will fly through in a minute or two at most. But even a low-hanging cloud can be enough to call off a launch.

“If those couple minutes don’t go right, bad things happen,” Tumbiolo said. “You always wonder, ‘How can a rocket going at that velocity be affected by a cloud?’ But we’ve learned through trial and error that it does affect it.”

The launch teams quickly learn the impact of weather on a countdown, said Omar Baez, launch director for NASA’s Launch Services Program, or LSP.

“Weather is one of those things you never think about coming into the rocket business and you quickly learn how it affects our business,” Baez said. “And it’s not just during the launch phase.”

Weather conditions dictate many of the activities around the launch site, not only the launches themselves. For instance, high winds can prevent crews from hoisting a spacecraft onto the top of a rocket. Thunderstorms can stop all activities on the launch pad. So getting a prediction wrong for even minor preparation work can result in a launch delay down the road.

Florida weather doesn’t make it any easier on forecasters. From the thunderstorm that appears almost out of nowhere on a sunny afternoon to invisible winds thousands of feet up, the state’s weather patterns offer plenty of seeming contradictions.

“In a recipe, if you have A, B, C and D, you get a certain result,” Tumbiolo said. “In weather, you can have all the data that tells you something’s going to happen and at the end of the day having something totally different happen. Not only does that challenge me, it interests me.”

Learning to expect and predict frequent changes is perhaps the most important lesson. That is a significant departure from the conditions he saw growing up in the Midwest, where whatever conditions were to the west would reliably become the conditions to the east in a short time.

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NASA transferred title and ownership of space shuttle Enterprise to the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum during a ceremony on Sunday, Dec. 11, at the museum in New York City. The transfer is the first step toward Intrepid receiving Enterprise in the spring of 2012.

“NASA is proud to transfer the title of space shuttle Enterprise to the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum,” said NASA Administrator Charles F. Bolden. “The U.S.S. Intrepid had a rich history with NASA’s mission, and Enterprise – the pathfinder for the Space Shuttle Program – belongs in this historic setting. Enterprise, along with the rest of our shuttle fleet, is a national treasure and it will help inspire the next generation of explorers as we begin our next chapter of space exploration.”

Bolden announced April 12 that Intrepid was one of four institutions nationwide to receive a shuttle. Enterprise, which was the prototype vehicle and used in NASA’s approach and landings tests, will move from the Smithsonian National Air & Space Museum’s Udvar-Hazy Center to New York. The shuttle will be flown from Washington to JFK International Airport atop NASA’s 747 Shuttle Carrier Aircraft. It then will be transported during the summer of 2012 by barge to the Intrepid museum complex located at Pier 86 of the Hudson River Park, and placed on the Intrepid’s flight deck under a protective covering. The public will have the ability to see the shuttle while visiting the museum.

At the Dec. 11 ceremony, NASA Deputy Administrator Lori Garver said, “As we take our first steps on a path toward a new era of space exploration, we want to ensure that the treasures of our past achievements inspire generations of leaders – the people who will visit asteroids, walk on Mars and launch the next science satellites to explore our solar system and peer beyond it. It’s NASA’s pleasure to transfer to Intrepid the title to the space shuttle Enterprise. With the last flight of the Space Shuttle Program in July, the shuttle era came to an end, but that won’t stop these marvelous spacecraft from inspiring millions of people from around the world who will visit them in the geographically diverse areas that will house them. The orbiters won’t stop being part of the fabric of America.”

Enterprise rolled out of the Palmdale, Calif., manufacturing facility in September, 1976 and was used to test critical phases of landing and other aspects of shuttle preparations. The Approach and Landing Test, or ALT, program involved both ground tests and flight tests. Enterprise conducted 16 flight tests, from taxi to active free flight. The ground tests included taxi tests of the 747 shuttle carrier aircraft with the Enterprise mated to it to determine structural loads and responses and assess ground handling and control characteristics up to flight takeoff speed. The taxi tests also validated 747 steering and braking with the orbiter attached. A ground test of orbiter systems followed the unmanned captive tests. All orbiter systems were activated as they would be in atmospheric flight in final preparation for the manned captive flight phase. Five captive unmanned flights of the Enterprise mounted on its carrier with its systems inert were conducted to assess the structural integrity and performance handling qualities of the mated craft.

Three manned captive flights followed with astronauts operating the orbiter’s flight control systems while the Enterprise remained atop the 747. These flights were designed to exercise and evaluate all systems in the flight environment in preparation for the free flights.

NASA astronauts Fred Haise, Gordon Fullerton, Joe Engle and Dick Truly took turns flying the 150,000-pound spacecraft from February through November 1977 and demonstrated that the orbiter could fly in the atmosphere and land like an airplane.

At Marshall Space Flight Center between March 1978 and March 1979, Enterprise was mated with the external tank and solid rocket boosters and was subjected to a series of vertical ground vibration tests.

At Kennedy Space Center, it was brought to the launch complex, stacked on the mobile launch platform and used to train for maintenance and crew escape procedures.

In later years, Enterprise made an appearance at the Paris Air Show, with stops in Germany, England, Italy and Canada. Enterprise also was put on display in April 1984 at the World’s Fair in New Orleans. Enterprise has been to more NASA centers and other places around the world than any other orbiter. In 1985, NASA transferred Enterprise to the National Air & Space Museum.

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Testing continues at NASA Langley Research Center as the 18,000-pound (8,164.6 kg) Orion test article took its seventh splash into the Hydro Impact Basin Dec. 1.

Orion, NASA’s next deep space exploration vehicle, will carry astronauts into space, provide emergency abort capability, sustain the crew during space travel, and ensure safe re-entry and landing.

The testing, which began in this summer, simulates different water landing scenarios and takes into account different velocities, parachute deployments, entry angles, wave heights and wind conditions that Orion may face when landing in the Pacific Ocean.

“We are doing several of these tests to look at the operational envelope for the Orion landing conditions and the analysts need as much data as we can possibly give them,” said Lynn Bowman, SPLASH project manager. “In order to do it in as few cases possible, we have to look at these critical cases, which is not your average landing scenario or sea condition.”

The Dec. 1 test was all about the heat shield and how much it would flex after hitting the water at a slightly different angle. Sea conditions simulated a low-wind swell case.

The test article was only two feet above the water before it dropped pancake-style into the water. It traveled about 7 mph (11.26 kph).

There are more than 150 sensors on the test article that record data during each test drop. The results of these initial tests will help improve the design for the actual flight vehicle.

The last drop of the year is tentatively scheduled for Tuesday, Dec. 13.

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About a decade ago, scientists discovered something about the “black earth” in the Amazon River Basin of Brazil that surprised them. They knew it was extremely fertile, unlike other soils in the region.

They discovered that this black earth, or “terra preta” in Portugese, gets its richness from charred wood called biochar that was added by indigenous people to their farmlands over 700 years ago.

The discovery sparked interest in biochar as both a medium for enriching soil and as a way to fight global warming by reducing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

“We’ve been taking carbon stored underground for billions of years and putting it into the atmosphere,” says Doris Hamill, a business development manager in the Strategic Relationships Office at NASA Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va. Making biochar is “basically the reverse of what we’ve been doing.”

Plants take carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere and change it into plant matter. But when the plant dies, it is eventually broken back down to carbon dioxide. If that plant matter is converted into biochar, the carbon in it doesn’t break down any further. Biochar’s big benefit is its longevity — it can last for thousands of years, said Hamill, who is working with local municipal officials to encourage use of the material in Virginia’s Hampton Roads region.

“The best thing to do with biochar is put it into the soil, and it’s very happy to be there. And when it’s in the soil, it does a lot of good things,” said Hamill. “It stays there for a long time, and provides a home for soil bacteria and other microbes that improve soil. Even small amounts of biochar are very, very good for the soil.”

Make Your Own

Biochar can be created by anyone with a couple of steel barrels, some wood and a match. A biochar “pyrolyzer” built by Langley’s fabrication shop consists of a large barrel with a smaller barrel upside-down inside. Biomass to be converted to biochar is placed in the smaller barrel. Wood and other organic fuel goes around it inside the larger barrel to supply the heat for charring.

Fire it up, close it up, hang out for a while, and you have biochar.

While you’re waiting, you can ponder the pyrolysis process, in which water and other chemicals are driven out of the wood in an oxygen-free environment that lets the material char but not go up in flames. This same basic process was used to make charcoal three thousand years ago and is used today to make advanced composite materials for NASA missions.

“It’s a very simple product,” Hamill said. “There’s no trick, there’s no magic, there’s no technology involved.”

The biochar can then be augmented with fertilizer or other materials that enrich soil. Mixing biochar with the kind of fertilizer you can buy in a lawn and garden store reduces the amount you need to use by more than half, said Hamill, because it holds the fertilizer instead of letting it wash away. It also helps hold water in the soil.

For a variety of reasons, large-scale biochar production doesn’t make sense economically yet, she said. That’s why Hamill is out in the community encouraging people to make their own.

Appearing At EarthFest

She’s worked with the city of Hampton for about a year on a community biochar project. Master gardeners are testing different materials and mix ratios to enrich the biochar.

“We’ve come up with an initial small-scale method which involves a blender and some tablespoons and other kitchen things to produce something you could easily hand somebody to use,” said master gardener Carol King.

For the many homeowners plagued by pine cones and gum balls, zapping them into useful biochar is the perfect solution, King said. “So this could be wildly popular!”

Hamill and her collaborators also are working on a “starter kit” that includes an instructional video, plans for making and using a pyrolyzer, safety tips and a global-warming primer.

A next step is involving 4-H students in a biochar project at Bluebird Gap Farm in Hampton. The students will gather wood, make biochar, mix it with nutrients, and add it to plots of vegetation. They will see how plants enriched with biochar grow compared to those that do not.

Another Langley employee, engineer Gregory Hajos, plans to crew a biochar exhibit at EarthFest, a NASA public event Oct. 23 at Sandy Bottom Nature Park in Hampton.

Hamill undertook the biochar project “on the side” as a way of using NASA resources to benefit the community, while fulfilling a personal goal — “a desire,” she said, “to help save the world from global warming.”

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NASA has developed a contest to raise students’ awareness of technology transfer efforts and how NASA technologies contribute to our everyday lives.

NASA is collaborating with Hasbro using the correlation between the popular TRANSFORMERS brand, featuring its leader OPTIMUS PRIME, and spinoffs from NASA technologies created for aeronautics and space missions that are used here on Earth. The goal is to help students understand that NASA technology ‘transforms’ into things that are used daily. These ‘transformed’ technologies include water purifiers, medical imaging software, or fabric that protects against UV rays.

The Innovative Partnerships Program Office at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., in conjunction with NASA’s Office of Education, has designed a video contest for students from third to eighth grade. Each student, or group of students, will submit a three- to five-minute video on a selected NASA spinoff technology listed in the 2009 Spinoff publication. Videos must demonstrate an understanding of the NASA spinoff technology and the associated NASA mission, as well as the commercial application and public benefit associated with the “transformed” technology. Video entries are due by December 31.

The videos will be posted on the NASA YouTube channel, and the public will be responsible for the first round of judging. The top five submissions from each of the two grade groups (third-fifth and sixth-eighth) will advance for final judging. A NASA panel will select a winning entry from each group, and the students will receive a glass OPTIMUS PRIME Spinoff Award at the Space Foundation’s National Space Symposium in 2011. The innovators of the NASA technology highlighted in the winning videos also will receive trophies, along with their commercial partners.

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Their emergencies happened hundreds, if not thousands, of miles from one another, but the captain whose vessel had become disabled near Kamalino, Hawaii, the pilot who crashed onto the Knik Glacier near Anchorage, Alaska, and the hiker who suffered a compound fracture while hiking near Merritt, Washington, all share a common experience: They were plucked to safety in the weeks leading up to the Labor Day weekend due to NASA technology.

With these rescues, the total number of people saved so far this year because of technologies NASA created for the international Search and Rescue Satellite-Aided Tracking (SARSAT) program is 186. “We had 195 saves last year in the U.S.,” said LT Shawn Maddock, the SARSAT Operations Support Officer for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the agency that manages the SARSAT program in the U.S. “We’re on pace to exceed that number this year.”

“That’s the beauty of this program,” said NASA Search and Rescue Mission Manager Dave Affens. In the 30 years since the system began operations, it has saved more than 28,000 lives worldwide and 6,420 in the U.S. “Our motto here is ‘taking the search out of search and rescue,’ so we want to reduce that part to a minimum,” he added.

Although Affens takes personal pleasure knowing that his work contributed to thousands of lives saved, perhaps the one rescue that he believes most clearly demonstrates the value of space-based search and rescue system is the one involving 16-year-old Abby Sunderland, who was saved in June after floating helplessly in the Indian Ocean about 2,000 miles from Madagascar after a violent storm had damaged her 40-foot vessel, Wild Eyes. “Without NASA technology, she may have lost her life. This case was more interesting than most because we contributed to every aspect of it,” Affens said.

In the ultimate display of NASA spin-off technology, Abby’s life was changed with a small yellow device the size of a BlackBerry™. Fortunately, she was carrying a MicroPLB Type GXL handheld device — developed under a NASA Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program award to Microwave Monolithics Inc. (MMInc.) in Simi Valley, California. The company had given Abby the device before she tried to break the record of sailing non-stop around the world, previously held by her older brother.

NASA had provided Microwave Monolithics with the specifications to design the beacon, which relayed her distress signal to a SARSAT satellite, 22,500 miles away in space. When Abby activated the beacon, the satellite, equipped with NASA-developed repeater technology, then relayed the signal to the U.S. via the international satellite-aided search and rescue network now comprised of 40 participating nations. Eight minutes later, the U.S. Coast Guard’s Pacific Area Command in Alameda, California, contacted her parents using information she provided when she registered her beacon with NOAA. And less than an hour later, two NOAA weather satellites, launched by NASA, used NASA technology to pinpoint her location.

“We developed the concept of detecting distress signals by the satellite, relaying it to ground stations where the locations were calculated. We then launched the distress-detection device on a NOAA weather satellite, tested the concept, and approved the system for operational use,” Affens explained.

Ultimately, a French fishing vessel, which was 400 miles from Abby’s location when the distress signal was detected, was directed to her location to perform the rescue.

Affens and his team are now developing new technology to further take the “search out of search and rescue” with new technology that is sure to increase the number of rescues and lives saved in which SARSAT has assisted, he said.

Engineers at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, along with NOAA, the Coast Guard, and the Air Force, are developing a new search and rescue system that will detect and locate distress signals from beacons in less than five minutes. The current system, which places repeaters on weather satellites, can actually take up to an hour or more to locate the distress signal depending on the position of the satellite.

The Distress Alerting Satellite System, or DASS, will be more efficient because the repeater technology will be placed on the Air Force’s Global Positioning System (GPS), instead of NOAA weather satellites. Using the constellation of 24 GPS spacecraft operating in mid-Earth orbit, “we would be able to identify distress signals faster and with a greater level of precision,” Affens said.

The new GPS-based system is now being tested. Currently 10 of the 20 GPS satellites are flying the proof-of-concept DASS equipment and an additional 12 are planned. Goddard is testing the technology before transitioning to a final system after 2015, which will be deployed on the Air Force’s Block III GPS satellites. “The bottom-line here is that within one minute, we’ll know where the distress signals come from,” said Mickey Fitzmaurice, a space systems engineer for NOAA’s SARSAT program. “It is the future.”

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With a desire to learn more about aerospace technology, eight teachers gave up part of their summer vacation this year to come to NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif., and become students themselves. The teachers visited Ames as part of the Simulation-Based Aerospace Engineering Teacher Professional Development Program with hopes of learning about technology so they could increase their students’ enthusiasm in science, technology, engineering and math.

“Enthusiasm is contagious. We’re hoping that these teachers go home with a passion for technology that they can share with their students,” said Tom Clausen, Education Specialist at NASA Ames.

Many of the teachers came to Ames from schools that were falling behind academically, and the teachers hoped to be a part of helping students at those schools learn effectively.

“Our school, Wakefieild Middle School, has been labeled as underachieving,” said Denise LaClair from Tucson, Ariz. “I want Wakefield Middle School to become one of the premiere schools in Tucson,and I want to have a role in helping achieve this dream.”

LaClair is interested in learning new techniques to help students learn and fully understand complex concepts.

“It is amazing how research is showing educators new ways of presenting material and making it relevant to students and applying that in my classroom to engage all students in discovery and learning. Seeing a student’s eyes light up with understanding, use appropriate vocabulary in context, or tell me how much they love programming the rotor in my class really makes my day,” said LaClair.

LaClair is not alone in her love of teaching. The teachers who attended the program all said they enjoyed seeing the reaction of a young student who suddenly understands a concept.

“I enjoy working with young minds and seeing their reactions when they learn concepts. I enjoy helping support my students during such an important time in their development,” said Carolyn Jones from Sahuaro High School in Tucson, Ariz.

These teachers know that the students they are teaching are our future technical work force.

“I enjoy being in a position to impact young people today who will make an impact on the world tomorrow,” said John Sterling from Thomas Jefferson Middle School in Miami, Fla. “I have a unique opportunity to change lives,” added Clara Hall Brown from Miami Central Senior High School in Miami, Fla.

These eight teachers learned about this opportunity different ways – through flyers, their principals, or friends at other schools. They came with the same motivation – to learn more about how to teach their students as effectively as possible. They left with a new understanding of how to approach technical concepts in the classroom.

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How can you participate in space exploration? How can armchair astronauts interact instantly with NASA? What does an Earth flyby look like from an asteroid’s point of view? These are just a handful of the questions that will be answered at the 2011 South By Southwest Interactive Conference (SXSW) if NASA’s three proposed panels make the cut.

Audience voting counts for 30 percent of whether or not a panel gets selected from the nearly 2,400 panels up for consideration. In previous years, about 100 panels made the schedule for the five-day event.

Here’s how to vote:

1. Register (for free) at the PanelPicker website.

2. Click the links below to read brief descriptions of NASA’s proposed panels and vote.

Voting is open now through Friday, Aug. 27, 2010.

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There’s power in numbers. And with tens of thousands Boy Scouts and leaders celebrating 100 years of ‘Scouting in America,’ this year’s event is a 10-day dream come true.

“‘Fun’ is the watchword of the jamboree,” said Robert J. Mazzuca, the Boy Scout’s Chief Scout Executive, of the event that is being held July 26-Aug. 4.

Scouting is endemic to NASA’s astronaut corps, with more than 200 astronauts having been Boy or Girl Scouts. While scouting may not always lead to a career as an astronaut, both organizations promote leadership and teamwork.

Held every four years in Virginia, this year’s jamboree features NASA traveling exhibits from the Glenn Research Center and Marshall Space Flight Center. There are also interactive displays featuring the history of NASA and aviation with scientists, engineers and other NASA staff are on hand to answer questions. Also at this year’s Jamboree are such exhibits as Robots on the Road, Lunar Quest, Stennis Space Center’s Astro Camp and a model of the James Webb Telescope.

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Space shuttle Atlantis thundered away from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center on May 5, 2010 at 2:20 p.m. The on-time liftoff under a picturesque Florida sky was a perfect beginning to Atlantis’ last scheduled mission, STS-132. The Final Planned Flight of Atlantis Delivers New ‘Dawn’

shuttle carried a six-person crew on a journey to deliver a new Russian module and several critical spare parts to the International Space Station.

“There are thousands of folks out there that have taken care of this bird for a long time,” Commander Ken Ham said after Atlantis was cleared for launch. “We’re going to take her on her 32nd flight, and if you don’t mind, we’ll take her out of the barn and make a few more laps around the planet.”

Tucked into the shuttle’s payload bay was the Russian-built Mini Research Module-1 known as “Rassvet,” meaning “dawn.” Nearly 20 feet long and weighing more than 17,700 pounds including its cargo, the module features eight workstations designed for a variety of science experiments and educational research.

The ambitious tasks ahead would be taken on by a crew of experienced space fliers. Ham was joined by Pilot Tony Antonelli, Mission Specialists Garrett Reisman, Michael Good, Steve Bowen and Piers Sellers.

During the astronauts’ first full day in orbit, the standard inspection of the orbiter’s protective thermal coverings was completed using a backup camera system when a snagged cable temporarily prevented use of the intended laser and digital cameras. Both the primary and backup systems are part of the orbiter boom sensor system that attaches to the shuttle’s robotic arm.

Atlantis docked with the International Space Station on May 16, two days after liftoff. Ham guided the orbiter through a graceful backflip known as a “rendezvous pitch maneuver,” giving station crew members the chance to take nearly 400 photos of the shuttle. Finally, the two spacecraft linked up at 10:28 a.m. EDT as the pair sailed 220 miles above the South Pacific Ocean.

The hatches between shuttle and station were opened at 12:18 p.m. and the six STS-132 astronauts were welcomed aboard by the station’s six residents: cosmonauts Oleg Kotov, Expedition 23 commander, Alexander Skvortsov and Mikhail Kornienko, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Soichi Noguchi, and U.S. astronauts T.J. Creamer and Tracy Caldwell Dyson.

“We’ve been here before, but it’s bigger than we remember — and, speaking for myself, better than I remember,” Ham said as docked operations officially began. “I love this place!”

The combined crew got right to work, using the station’s Canadarm2 robotic arm to remove a cargo carrier from Atlantis’ open payload bay to the station’s mobile transporter. Mounted on the carrier were important new equipment and spares to be installed during the mission’s three spacewalks, including a backup space-to-ground antenna and six 375-pound batteries.

The first of the mission’s three spacewalks started the next morning at 7:54 a.m. when Reisman and Bowen switched their spacesuits to battery power and floated out of the station’s Quest airlock. Riding the station’s robotic arm, Reisman carried the boom for the new antenna from the cargo pallet up to the Z1 truss and returned to the cargo pallet to grab the six-foot-wide

The pair then installed the antenna on the waiting boom, where it will help provide two-way data, voice and video communications for station residents. Reisman and Bowen added a spare-parts platform to the station’s Dextre robotic arm and loosened the bolts holding the new batteries to the cargo carrier before wrapping up the 7-hour, 25-minute outing.

Installation of the Rassvet research module was the crew’s next assignment. Ham and Antonelli used Atlantis’ robotic arm to lift the nearly-20-foot-long component from the shuttle’s payload bay, then handed it off to the station’s robotic arm. Reisman guided the new module into the Earth-facing port on the Zarya module, achieving a flawless docking with one millimeter of clearance on either side of Rassvet’s docking probe.

“Looks like a pretty good docking,” Sellers reported to Mission Control. “Straight down the middle, got capture and contact.”

Good joined Bowen for the second spacewalk, which got off to a head start at 6:38 a.m. May 19. First, Bowen fixed the snagged cable that had interfered with the early inspection of Atlantis’ heat shield. After adjusting the cable and using a plastic tie to keep it in place, Mission Control announced the fix was successful.

Next, the astronauts installed four of six new batteries on the station’s port 6 truss, the station’s backbone, transferring the old batteries to the cargo carrier for the return trip to Earth. Good and Bowen tightened the bolts on the new space-to-ground antenna before coming back inside as the 7-hour, 9-minute spacewalk ended.

Hatches between the station and Rassvet were opened the following day, as Atlantis and crew finished the mission’s first week and enjoyed a few hours of off-duty time.

The final two port 6 truss batteries were installed during the mission’s third and final spacewalk. Good and Reisman swapped out the remaining batteries and installed a backup ammonia coolant line between the port 4 and port 5 truss segments. They also left a new power and data grapple fixture inside the Quest airlock. The fixture will be installed by the station crew on the exterior of the Zarya module this summer.

With all the mission’s major tasks accomplished, Good and Reisman headed back to the airlock after working outside the station for 6 hours and 46 minutes.

The astronauts finished transferring equipment and supplies from Atlantis to the space station as the docked portion of the STS-132 mission drew to a close.

“Thank you, Ken, and thank you to the whole crew,” said station Commander Kotov as the Atlantis and station crews prepared to part ways. “Thank you for an excellent job, for your patience, for your work — for everything.”

Ham answered, “Through our entire docked timeframe here, we were a 12-person crew that operated together, and that was the only way we got everything done. …We’ve had a great time together.”

Atlantis undocked from the station May 23 at 11:22 a.m. after a weeklong stay at the orbiting complex. The shuttle circled the station at a distance of 400 to 600 feet and finally pulled away with a separation burn an hour and 15 minutes later.

The late inspection of Atlantis’ protective skin went off without a hitch, and the shuttle was cleared to land.

Atlantis touched down at 8:48 a.m. May 26, gliding smoothly along Kennedy’s Runway 33 after 186 orbits and nearly 12 full days in space. With Ham and Antonelli at the controls, the orbiter returned to its home port for what was planned to be the last time. During its 25 years of spaceflight, Atlantis completed 32 missions and traveled more than 120 million miles.

“We’ve all flown on Atlantis now, and some of us have flown on her a couple of times. She’s a great ship,” Antonelli said hours after landing, adding that it was a “real honor” to be on what may be its last flight. “We’re happy to bring her back home to you here in Florida.”

Anna C. Heiney
NASA’s John F. Kennedy Space Center

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