#space shuttle
A massive 19 million pounds (8.6 million kilograms) of Space Shuttle, support and transport hardware, inch toward Launch Pad 39A from the Vehicle Assembly Building. The fully assembled Space Shuttle Endeavour, minus its payloads, weighs about 4.5 million pounds (2 million kg.); the mobile launch platform on which it was stacked and from which it will lift off weighs 9.25 million pounds (4.19 million kg.) and the crawler-transporter carrying the platform and Shuttle checks in at around 6 million pounds (2.7 million kg.). Once at the pad, the Shuttle and launch platform will be positioned atop support columns to complete preparations for the second Shuttle launch of 1995. Primary payload of Mission STS-67 is the Astro-2 astrophysics observatory, carrying three ultraviolet telescopes that flew on the Astro-1 mission in 1990. STS-67 also is scheduled to become the longest Shuttle flight to date, lasting 16 days.
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Attached to the “robot arm” the Hubble Space Telescope is unberthed and lifted up into the sunlight during this the second servicing mission designated HST SM-02.
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Performing his own in-space version of “look, Ma, no hands” is STS-119 Mission Specialist Joseph Acaba. The shuttle version of the bike, deployed here on Discovery’s mid deck, is called the ergometer and is one device that provides astronauts a chance to exercise while in space.
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Smoke plume produced after the explosion of the space shuttle, Challenger - January 28, 1983
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Personal Essay | Remembering the Challenger
Thirty-one years ago, today, I sat in front of the television with my mom—full of that mix of excitement and impatience common to three-year-olds—to watch footage from a shuttle launch during the lunchtime news. See, even at that young an age, I was in love with space, thanks to a book about the solar system that Mom would read to me. I was certain that I would grow up and become an astronaut. I…
