STS-134 Shuttle Reentry & Landing
Shuttle mission STS-134 is alomost over, with reentry and landing planned for the next few hours. Landing is planned for 2.35am EDT (1 June 2011 – Kennedy time), but the fun viewing starts a couple of hours before that, with reentry preparations and the reentry process.
You can watch the whole thing on NASA’s fabulous “NASA Live TV” service, and it is usually very interesting watching. I’m showing this on my big screen at Ivan’s SkyRocket Cafe, so don’t miss it! You can have a nice bowl of “Mir-Cat Stew” while you watch.
The time at Kennedy Space Center is shown in a box on the right hand side of this screen… refresh the page to update the clock. The “deorbit burn” is scheduled for 1.29am (Kennedy time), assuming a “go” decision is reached for the reentry process.
From NASA’s website
The shuttle crew begins deorbit preparations at 9:26 p.m. and should close Endeavour payload bay doors at 10:49 p.m. By 1:19 a.m. Wednesday Entry Flight Director Tony Ceccacci will poll his team for a “go” or “no-go” on the deorbit burn; assuming the decision is “go,” Commander Mark Kelly will fire Endeavour’s engines at 1:29 a.m. to slow the orbiter enough for it to fall out of orbit and begin the last leg of its trip, concluding with a touchdown on runway 15 at the Kennedy Space Center’s Shuttle Landing Facility at 2:35 a.m.
You can view live coverage of the mission from NASA’s Live TV stream, which you can watch here at Junior Flyer: Ivan’s SkyRocket Cafe – NASA Live TV
Or, visit NASA’s Shuttle website for full and detailed mission information.
Sunrise Number 1 – by Stormy Mondays
A competition was held by NASA for an original song to be used to inspire the STS-134 prior to reentry… here is the winner. (well done to the band Stormy Mondays!)
