NASA moves up launch of next shuttle mission, STS-118, to August 7th

William Atkins
Friday, 29 June 2007 20:30

Science - Space

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The Space Shuttle Endeavour and its astronaut crew will be launched from the Kennedy Space Center, Florida, at Launch Pad 39A. It will deliver another truss segment (the starboard S5 section) to the International Space Station, along with the External Stowage Platform 3.

The STS-118 mission is the 22nd shuttle mission to the ISS and the second shuttle mission in 2007.

The crew of STS-117 and the Space Shuttle Atlantis just returned from space after its hectic, but very successful, mission to the Space Station. Forced to land in California due to bad weather in Florida, Atlantis is scheduled to be flown back to the Kennedy Space Center on Friday, June 29, 2007.

The crew of STS-118 is U.S. Navy Commander Scott J. Kelly, who will command the seven-person crew. U.S. Marine Corps Lt. Colonel Charles O. Hobaugh will be Space Shuttle Endeavour’s pilot. Returning to space for their second missions are astronauts Richard A. Mastracchio and Dr. Dafydd (“Dave”) R. Williams of the Canadian Space Agency (CSA). Barbara R. Morgan, Tracy E. Caldwell, and Benjamin Alvin Drew are the flight’s other mission specialists.

The STS-118 will be the second flight of NASA’s reformulated “Teacher-In-Space Project (TISP)”, now called the Educator Astronaut Program. Unfortunately, the first one ended in disaster when Space Shuttle Challenger blew up and its STS-51L crew perished shortly after liftoff on January 28, 1986.

Barbara Morgan, as backup, and Christa McAuliffe, who was selected as NASA's first teacher-in-space, went through a five-month training program in 1984 for the TISP program.  Now, Morgan is considered a fully-certified astronaut, with the classification as Educator Mission Specialist, NASA’s first astronaut with that designation.

The completion of STS-118 will leave 12 flights in the Space Shuttle “Space Transportation System” (STS) program. The program will end in 2010, however, two other flights, now called Contingency Logistic Flights, may fly in 2010, along with a third flight, if additional flights are needed to finish the construction of the International Space Station.

Biographies of each of the STS-118 astronauts, along with other information about the mission, are found at the NASA website: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/shuttle/shuttlemissions/sts118/.