While we were galavanting around Europe, the second-to-last shuttle mission was underway. It was one of the longest shuttle missions in years — I worked three shifts in Mission Control before leaving on vacation, left the country for 12 days, and still got back before the mission ended with a successful landing in Florida a week ago.
I supported the Orbit 3 shift. There’s not much that goes on during that shift for a Rendezvous Officer, since Orbit 3 covers the crew’s sleep period and most of the rendezvous planning has already been completed prior to launch. I did enjoy my shifts though, since it was the last time I will ever support a shuttle mission from the “front room” of Mission Control. (I will support the final shuttle mission next month, but from the back room as a supporting member of the team.)
I can’t believe there is only one space shuttle flight left…
Here are some of my favorite highlights from the mission:
This is a long but great ascent imagery highlights video. Mark Kelly’s pre-launch words (at ~3:30 into the video) gave me chills. And the sound of a shuttle launch (just after that at ~4:00) is something that’s hard to describe — you just have to hear it. I watched this whole video and it kinda made me want to cry. I *heart* the space shuttle.
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The photo below is amazing, but you really need to check out the associated videos on the NASA site. (I can’t figure out how to embed them here.) It’s a fancier version of an HDR (high dynamic range) image, made by combining the best parts of 6 different exposures of the same scene. Better yet, the cameras shot photos at 250 frames per second. Go watch the time-lapse videos on the NASA site — they are amazing.
On May 23, with the shuttle docked to the ISS, the Soyuz 25S crew undocked and took an unprecedented set of photos showing the shuttle docked to the ISS. No Soyuz had ever undocked while the shuttle was there — in fact, doing so was ground-ruled out for years due to concerns about clearance and jet plume — so a photo like this had never been taken. The photos were finally released yesterday after a couple weeks of anxiously awaiting them from Russia, and the view is SPECTACULAR. The video is a timelapse of NASA TV screenshots, which gives a great view of how the photo was taken. The Soyuz undocked and flew out to a point ~200 meters from the ISS, and then the entire ISS rotated to give the amazing side view. (You can see more photos on the NASA website.)
AMAZING.
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The photo below isn’t from the shuttle mission, but I’m including it anyway because I love it. It shows NASA Astronaut Cady Coleman peeking out the window of the Soyuz descent module at the ground crew after their successful landing in Kazakhstan.
This photo posted on spaceweather.com shows the shuttle passing over while doing a “water” dump (which is code for emptying the toilet) — but that pee sure does look pretty!
This video was taken from the Yucatan peninsula. Since the shuttle landed at night, observers on the ground underneath the landing trajectory had a wonderful view of the plasma trail, which is always created during reentry but isn’t visible during the day. I saw the plasma trail myself when one of the shuttle missions in the late 1990s flew over Houston during reentry while I was co-oping — it’s another amazing view that not many people get to see.
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Great collection of videos.
I may have seen the same plasma trail you did when we were co-oping, I remember stumbling out of my apartment at 0500 wondering if I would see anything and recognize it. Seeing the red and orange trail stretching across the sky from the hypersonic orbiter made me jump up and down and laugh with exhilaration. Definitely one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen.
I saw 2 while co-oping. One was early in the morning — I remember watching it on my own near the house I was living in, and it was partially obscured by clouds.
The other one was in the evening and we watched from out behind Bldg 14, then raced to the MCC lobby to watch it land on NASA TV. That was the one in that photo you often see of the trail over the Saturn V.