The Final Space Shuttle Mission
The last ever 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 11.26 am July 8, 2011 (US Eastern time). Shown below is 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-135
Space Shuttle: Atlantis
Launch Date: July 8
Launch Time: 11:26 a.m. EDT
Launch Pad: 39A
Landing Site: Kennedy Space Center, Fla.
Mission Duration: 12 days
Primary Payload: 37th station flight (ULF7), multi-purpose logistics module
Spacewalks: 1
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 11.26am 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 189:15:26:00 UTC, where the 189 represents day 189 of the year.
