By Matt Phillips
Special to Review
It’s not everyday someone from your own backyard lifts off into space.
When 1983 Lake Orion High School graduate Dr. Andrew Feustel became an astronaut, he began making preparations for a trip to space.
Last Thursday, after numerous delays, NASA officials gave the official word the mission STS-125 is ‘ready for flight?.
They have moved up the launch schedule by one day. It’s now officially set for Monday, May 11, 2009 at 2:01 p.m.
‘We have been waiting for this day for such a long time, that it’s really exciting to be just days away from getting this mission off the ground? Feustel stated during a telephone interview from his home in Houston.
He added, ‘It’s such an honor to be a part of this tremendous opportunity.?
While the crew has been extremely busy with additional training and preparation, their journey from now through the conclusion of the mission will become strictly regimented, as every step has been carefully choreographed by NASA.
According to Feustel, the entire crew will go into quarantine from Monday, May 4 through Friday, May 8 at Johnson Space Center in Houston. ‘The quarantine is required to keep us in a controlled environment and avoid exposure to any sickness before flight. During this time we will also get a physical exam and conduct crew meetings to reconfirm all mission procedures.?
The crew will then travel to the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida where they will conduct some final rehearsals while remaining under quarantine conditions.The entire crew will undergo another physical exam. Also, during this time, the crew is beginning to ‘sleep shift.? This process involves acclimating the astronauts bodies to the work day they will experience in space.
‘While ‘sleep shifting? for this mission is minor, some missions must prepare for a schedule up to 12 hours different from what we typically consider normal,? Feustel said.
Serious work on the ground will get underway on Friday as the official countdown will begin at 4 p.m. and various ground personnel will begin their final preparations.
On Saturday, the crew will break away for a beach barbecue with their families.
According to Feustel, this is a tradition many astronauts partake in before their flight. The entire crew gets all their families together on the beach for a meal and quality time before the launch.
On Sunday, as the astronauts make their final preparations, the ground crew will be busy with final fueling, cleaning and inspections.
The launch day, wake up call for the astronauts will come at 6 a.m.. As the ground crew starts final countdown procedures the astronauts will receive one more physical exam before getting ‘suited up? at 9:46 a.m. EDT.
By 10:26 a.m., the crew begins boarding the shuttle and their hatch will close at 11:41 a.m.
As the crew, both in the shuttle and on the ground, go through final system check and configurations, the launch clock continues to tick. NASA has every step of the launch detailed down to the second, from the engines to start position at T -03 minutes and 30 seconds, to the closing of the astronaut visors at T-02 minutes 00 seconds, to the activation of the sound suppression water at T-00 minutes and 16 seconds to ignition and liftoff at T- 00 minutes and 00 seconds.
The shuttle at liftoff weighs 4.5 million pounds, so it takes every ounce of thrust from the two solid rocket boosters and the three main engines to propel this craft into space.
While most people think the main source of thrust comes from the large orange cylinder the shuttle is attached to, that is not the case.
That external tank is basically a huge gas tank that supplies 530,000 gallons of liquid nitrogen and liquid oxygen to the three main engines on the actual shuttle to provide enough force to carry the ship beyond earth’s atmosphere.
At T+20 seconds the shuttle begins its standard ‘roll? as the engines reach for full power which comes at T+60 seconds into launch.
At T+2 minutes the shuttle is 28 miles high (about 5 times higher than the typical commercial airplane flies) and the solid rocket boosters separate.
At T+9 minutes, the fuel in the main tank is exhausted. It then separates from the shuttle and will burn up on its decent back through the atmosphere as the shuttle’s main engines will now provide the power necessary to guide it through space to its rendezvous with the Hubble Telescope.
For the next 11 days, the space shuttle Atlantis and its seven person crew will carry out the last servicing mission to the Hubble Telescope to update and repair one of the world’s greatest scientific devices.
It’s extremely difficult to totally comprehend the size and scope of space travel and even the goals of this mission, but to the hundreds of men and women who are responsible for this mission, it’s a job, a career and a dream.
For more information or to watch all of the events surrounding Mission STS-125, please check out these Web sites:
For status report on the launch, www.nasa.gov; http://www.nasn.gov/shuttle; for the countdown http://countdown.ksc.nasa.gov/shuttle/countdown/cdt; for live streaming video www.nasa.gov/ntv; Hubble Telescope http://hubble.nasa.gov.