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Mission: STS-131
Orbiter: Discovery
Launch Pad: 39A
Launch Date: NET April 5, 2010, 06:21 EDT (10:21 UT)
Landing: April 20, 2010, Kennedy Space Center
Main gear touchdown: 09:08:35 EDT
Nose gear touchdown: 09:08:47 EDT
Wheels stop: 09:09:33 EDT
Orbital Altitude: 122 nautical miles (140 miles)
Orbital Insertion: 191 nautical miles (220 miles)
Orbital Inclination: 51.6 degrees
Crew:- Commander: Alan Poindexter; Pilot: James Dutton; Mission Specialists:- MS1 Richard Mastracchio, MS2 Dorothy M. Metcalf-Lindenburger, MS3 Clayton Anderson, MS4 Stephanie Wilson, MS5 Naoko Yamazaki (JAXA).
Primary Payload: Multi-Purpose Logistics Module: Leonardo.
Cape Canaveral weather forecast
11:30 a.m. CDT Tuesday, April 6, 2010
Mission Control Center, Houston, Texas
STS-131 Mission Control Center Status Report #03
Space shuttle Discovery and its seven-member STS-131 crew head toward Earth orbit and rendezvous with the International Space Station. Credit: NASA
The Discovery astronauts used much of their workday checking out the shuttle’s thermal protection system and preparing for the scheduled early Wednesday docking with the International Space Station.
Mission Specialists Rick Mastracchio and Clayton Anderson spent more than three hours before their lunch break getting their spacesuits ready for transfer to the station. They are scheduled to do three 6.5-hour spacewalks during Discovery’s stay at the orbiting laboratory.
Fellow crew members, Commander Alan G. Poindexter, Pilot James P. Dutton Jr. and Mission Specialists Dorothy Metcalf-Lindenburger, Stephanie Wilson and Japanese astronaut Naoko Yamazaki, rotated on the three-member team doing the heat shield checkout. They used the shuttle’s robotic arm and its Orbiter Boom Sensor System extension to look at the Reinforced Carbon-Carbon on the spacecraft’s nose and wing leading edges, and some of its heat-resistant tiles.
Because of a problem with Discovery’s Ku-Band antenna system, used for high-data-rate communications and radar, they recorded their survey on tape. The data will be transmitted to experts on the ground using the station’s Ku-Band system. Pilot astronauts are trained in rendezvous and docking without radar.
The station’s Expedition 23 crew, Russian Commander Oleg Kotov and Russian Flight Engineers Alexander Skvortsov and Mikhail Kornienko, Japan’s Soichi Noguchi and NASA Flight Engineers T.J. Creamer and Tracy Caldwell Dyson, are to welcome Discovery’s astronauts after their Wednesday morning docking.
The next shuttle status report will be issued after crew wakeup, scheduled for 7:21 p.m. CDT Tuesday or earlier if events warrant.
– courtesy of NASA
- 04/19/10: Space Shuttle Discovery lands at Kennedy Space Center.
STS-131 Commander Alan G. Poindexter guided Discovery to an 8:08 a.m. CDT landing at the Kennedy Space Center’s Shuttle Landing Facility in Florida. Weather had caused postponement of the first day’s landing attempts, and a rain shower within 30 miles of the runway brought a wave-off of the first of today’s opportunities. Showers moved off to permit landing on the second. - NASA - 04/19/10: STS-131 crew spends an extra day in orbit.
Space shuttle Discovery’s crew is prepared to return home Tuesday, as mission managers closely monitor weather that could affect their entry and landing at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. - NASA - 04/19/10: Space Shuttle Discovery: today's landing waived off.
Space shuttle Discovery will spend another day in orbit after two landing opportunities at Kennedy Space Center in Florida were foiled by clouds and rain in the area. Forecasts call for Florida conditions to improve Tuesday and for generally good weather in California. - NASA - 04/18/10: STS-131 crew prepares for landing.
The astronauts onboard space shuttle Discovery are getting ready to conclude their successful mission to the International Space Station, weather permitting, with a planned landing at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida Monday at 7:48 a.m. CDT. - NASA - 04/18/10: Crew powers up Discovery’s flight control system; tests flaps and rudder.
This morning, Poindexter, Dutton and Metcalf-Lindenburger powered up Discovery’s flight control system and tested the flaps and rudder that will control the shuttle’s flight once it enters the Earth’s atmosphere. Next they test-fired the reaction control system jets that will control the shuttle’s orientation before it reaches the atmosphere. All seven crew members stowed items in Discovery’s cabin in preparation for re-entry and landing. - NASA
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