Shuttle Mission STS-134: Ready for Launch
The second-to-last Space Shuttle mission is just about ready to go, and you can watch the whole thing on NASA’s fabulous “NASA Live TV” service. 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.
Launch is scheduled for 3.47pm US Eastern time. This is NASA’s official countdown clock… the CDT time shows the “Count Down Time”, a negative number before launch, and a positive number after launch (then being the Elapsed Mission Time).
Mission Data
Mission: STS-134
Space Shuttle: Endeavour
Primary Payload: Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer and ELC-3
Launch Date: April 29
Launch Time: 3:47 p.m. EDT
Launch Pad: 39A
Landing: May 13
Landing Time: 9:28 a.m. EDT
Landing Site: Kennedy Space Center, Fla.
Mission Duration: 14 days
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 website for full and detailed mission information.
Note: There are several planned “holds” in the countdown, where the countdown is paused. For example, there is a planned hold at T-3 hours, of approximately 2 and a half hours duration. Then the countdown continues. For a detailed list of the planned countdown holds, and why they occur, see the Countdown 101 description from the NASA website.
The launch time of 3.47pm EDT is the local time at Kennedy Space Center in Florida, which is 4 hours behind UTC (Universal Coordinated Time, or GMT Greenwich Mean Time). What that means in English is the launch is scheduled for 119:19:47:00 UTC, where the 119 represents day 119 of the year.
(actually, the schedule is for 119:19:47:55 — to be precise!)
