Atlantis touches down at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif. Photo Credit/NASA
NASA’s final shuttle mission, a 12-day supply run to the International Space Station by the shuttle Atlantis, will launch on July 8 at 11:40 a.m., EDT, NASA announced on Friday.
The date will be re-affirmed or changed, following a formal NASA flight readiness review on June 28.
Endeavour’s final mission is currently under way. Discovery completed her final flight in March.
Veteran astronaut Chris Ferguson will lead the Atlantis flight. His crew includes pilot Doug Hurley and mission specialists Sandy Magnus and Rex Walheim.
The flight will mark the 135th trip to space for NASA’s shuttle program, which launched its first mission on April 12, 1981.
Atlantis crew, left to right, Rex Walheim, Sandy Magnus, Chris Ferguson and Doug Hurley. Photo Credit/NASA Photo
Atlantis will take supplies packed in the Raffaello Multi-purpose Logistics Module. The supplies carried by Atlantis are intended to stock the station with enough stores to keep a six person crew supplied for up to a year in case NASA’s new commercial cargo service providers encounter delays with their first missions.
The shuttle crew will also return to Earth with the space station thermal control system pump module that failed last July. Station crew members were forced to make due with a dramatic reduction in solar-generated electrical power until the pump module could be replaced with an onboard spare during a series of rapidly planned spacewalks in August.
Engineers intend to disassemble the failed pump to establish a cause for the breakdown.