STS-130/(20A) Mission Thread

[MeteorWayne]

As we have done in the past, this topic is being created to discuss the mission after launch. It will remain locked until then. After launch the Pre-Launch discussion will be closed, and this ine opened.

Endeavour’s 13-day mission will deliver and assemble the last U.S.-built modules onto
the International Space Station, giving the laboratory a room with quite a view. The
mission kicks off the final year of shuttle flights, with five missions planned through September.

Node 3, known as Tranquility, will provide additional room for crew members and many
of the space station’s life support and environmental control systems. Attached to the
node is a cupola, which is a robotic control station with six windows around its sides and
another in the center that will provide a panoramic view of Earth, celestial objects and
visiting spacecraft.

Tucked away inside Tranquility and Endeavour’s middeck will be a ton of
equipment, supplies and experiments for the space station. Included are a new distillation
assembly and fluid control pump assembly for the urine processing assembly, an external filter
assembly for the water processing assembly, a new bed for the carbon dioxide removal
assembly, laptop computers, crew provisions, health care supplies, spacewalk tools and
others.

Endeavour, commanded by spaceflight veteran George Zamka, is scheduled to lift off from
Kennedy Space Center at 4:39 a.m. EST on Sunday, Feb. 7, and arrive at the orbiting
complex in the early morning hours Tuesday, Feb. 9.

While docked to the station, Endeavour’s crew will conduct three spacewalks and extensive
robotic operations to install Tranquility and then relocate its cupola.

The above is from the STS-130 Press Kit

http://www.nasa.gov/pdf/420302main_sts130_press_kit.pdf

Meteor Wayne

 

[EarthlingX]

I will drop here some pictures from the launch :

I have more, but that is enough from me, i think ..

 

[bdewoody]

Well I went over to the Cape and watched her go up. Night launches are always an exciting site. I was amazed at the number of people who got up or stayed up to go watch the launch. It was really crowded. Of course the city of Titusville has allowed a private developer to ruin one of the best vantage points on the mainland to watch launches for the public. But oh well there won't be that many more to watch for a long time anyway.

 

[Zipi]

Mission overview:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1nk3QB3g7dk[/youtube]

Spacevidcast Launch Video:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_OQdTjOJjq4[/youtube]

Let's post official NasaTV Youtube here as well when it appears to Youtube... But these should be enough at the moment.

 

[Testing]

Went to sleep with the tube on thinking that the launch would wake me.
Wrong.

 

[Zipi]

Here is the official NasaTV Youtube video: (amazing qood quality with 720p)
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-aDSv494v4[/youtube]

And maybe a little late for this video, but what the heck... Here it is:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7LHk4TcT3s[/youtube]

 

[Zipi]

A couple of screen captures from "A Splendid Endeavour!" official NasaTV launch video (time is about 2:53):

As you can see some piece of intertank foam has been liberated.

 

[EarthlingX]

Thank you Zipi
Streaming video slightly sux, as you can see on those pictures ..
.. but this is awesome ...

 

[babea]

I always like the "Go at Throttle up" command.

 

[babea]

Thanks for the awesome screen shots

 

[Zipi]

Thank you Zipi
Streaming video slightly sux, as you can see on those pictures ..
.. but this is awesome ...

About streaming video... I quess it is pretty much all what is get from ET.

And I do think even NASA won't have much better quality video (yes they have some real still shots) than they published at Youtube since it is 720p HD quality. That liberation event were rather quick and if you take still shots from video images tend to be always more or less blurry. I didn't use the best quality stream available since I wanted to keep those shots at sensible size for forums like this. :geek:

 

[EarthlingX]

Thank you Zipi
Streaming video slightly sux, as you can see on those pictures ..
.. but this is awesome ...

About streaming video... I quess it is pretty much all what is get from ET.

And I do think even NASA won't have much better quality video (yes they have some real still shots) than they published at Youtube since it is 720p HD quality. That liberation event were rather quick and if you take still shots from video images tend to be always more or less blurry. I didn't use the best quality stream available since I wanted to keep those shots at sensible size for forums like this. :geek:

Of course. That's why i go with jpg. Not to mention free hosting limitations ..
There will be very HD photos on NASA site, if they are not already, so no problem. I got that NASA video from YouTube and it's 'oh momma!'
Still have to go through the videos, see what i have, because while it was going on, i had not much time, was very busy clicking ..


btw. That arrows, that would be ice ?
It doesn't look that bad, but i did not recheck it specifically on the videos ..

 

[Zipi]

btw. That arrows, that would be ice ?
It doesn't look that bad, but i did not recheck it specifically on the videos ..

Quote from Spaceflight Now:

Live television views from a camera mounted on the side of the ship's external tank showed what appeared to be a relatively long piece of foam insulation falling from the tank about two minutes into flight. Bill Gerstenmaier, chief of NASA's space flight operations, said the debris did not appear to strike the shuttle's heat shield.

"At about two minutes, we saw a piece of intertank stringer foam come off," he said. "It's probably about a quarter inch thick, maybe about a foot or so long. It didn't appear to impact the orbiter and we see no damage to the orbiter. It's something similar to what we've seen before."

Whole launch article: http://www.spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/s ... index.html

 

[EarthlingX]

It's at 2:53 min into NASA video, just before SRB separation.

 

[3488]

Excellent launch, very well done to all concerned.

Three screen dumps from the ET cam @ ET sep.

Andrew Brown.

 

[EarthlingX]

You have any from the launch ? :roll:
These are lovely
One of the best moments, and you managed to catch that moment with the sparkles ..

 

[3488]

Hi EarthlingX, how are these??? :mrgreen:

BTW I had to shrink some of the Saturn moon Hyperion images on the Cassini Mission thread, so they would fit. Can I send you the full sized ones?

Back to STS 130 Endeavour.

ET cam view during the final seconds of the countdown.

Endeavour SSMEs ignite.

SRBs ignite.

T+15 Seconds.

T+23 Seconds.

ET cam view of SRB separation. This was not easy to capture as it is very quick. Notice the SRB on the left beginning to fall away.

SRB separation from ground camera @ Canaveral.

Andrew Brown.

 

[EarthlingX]

Saving ..
That T+15 sec is from the official video ? I missed that reflection on the water .. ?
Separation was very flashy, yea .. got a bunch of blacks ..
This is the only moment, i think, when the whole SRB can be seen

They are in my PhotoBucket folder : http://s623.photobucket.com/albums/tt31 ... STS130LA2/
if that's ok ?

Zipi would know: if possible, open source, video program, which can work with these formats and can export frames as pictures ? I tried VirtualDub, but it doesn't have a support for this format, or i'm missing something, still need to check for plugins and extensions ..

 

[OBX_NC]

Picture of STS-130 passing off of North Carolina's Outer Ban

Hi all!

I wanted to share this with everyone asap since the excitement is still alive! ... very happy to find this community Nice to meet everyone I've never posted a picture before, so I don't know if I'm doing correctly... lol.

So, this was the very first time I've ever seen the shuttle, and it was amazing! I decided to try to grab a shot of WHATEVER I ended up seeing here in eastern North Carolina, and this is what I came away with! Pretty cool, huh?

This is a composite image of six different ten second camera exposures as the shuttle passed over the Atlantic off of Cape Hatteras, NC. That probably gives you an accurate idea of the T time... which (I'm very layman...) I believe was appx. T+7? Correct?

Anyway, I hope you all enjoy the shot. A lot of love went into trying to make something turn out... I'm pretty pleased with the result.

Again, nice to meet you all.

AH

 

[strandedonearth]

Oh wow, that SRB ignite pic is gorgeous. Is there a hi-res pic available somewhere? That will make an awesome desktop wallpaper. The posted pic, of course, is a little too fuzzy when blown up to desktop size.

Congrats to all involved for another magnificent launch!

 

[Zipi]

Offtopic to this thread, but if somebody likes sparks here you can find those:
http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index. ... ach=109712
(it is super SloMo SSME ignition video from STS-126)

This is a little more offtopic for this thread, but since EarthlingX asked, you can try this application: http://youtubedownload.altervista.org/

Ok. Enough OT for me to this thread... At least for this posting. :lol:

 

[EarthlingX]

Offtopic to this thread, but if somebody likes sparks here you can find those:
http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index. ... ach=109712
(it is super SloMo SSME ignition video from STS-126)

This is a little more offtopic for this thread, but since EarthlingX asked, you can try this application: http://youtubedownload.altervista.org/

Ok. Enough OT for me to this thread... At least for this posting. :lol:

Thank you
Downloaded and saved, checked, problem solved, works with VirtualDub, needed VFW codec enabled.

There are at least 2-3 very nice photos from the launch on the NASA web site, worth checking, very HD and lovely.
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/shutt ... index.html

This slow motion video is from NASA ? Is there one for the STS-130 ?

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/shutt ... index.html
Tue, 09 Feb 2010 04:59:46 AM GMT+0000

The STS-130 crew is using Endeavour’s robotic arm, orbiter boom extension and specialized cameras to capture detailed video of the spacecraft’s heat shield. The inspection gives experts on the ground 3-D views of the shuttle’s heat shield to ensure no damage occurred during liftoff.

at 2010.02.09 09:16 GMT+00:00

Elapsed mission time:
01:00:00:00

 

[MeteorWayne]

The ISS and Endeavour are now very close to each other, only about 2 minutes apart. If you have a good pass coming up see them together (relativeley speaking)

I have one coming up in about 40 minutes, but it's low in the north for me, exactly in the direction of the ridge that the NJAA Observatory is on, so I dont think I'll be able to spot the shuttle, though the ISS should be high enough.

http://heavens-above.com/

BE SURE TO PROPERLY SELECT YOUR LOCATION!!

Docking is scheduled for just after midnight EST 12:06 AM.
05:06 GMT/UTC

 

[nimbus]

Re: Picture of STS-130 passing off of North Carolina's Outer Ban

Hi all!

I wanted to share this with everyone asap since the excitement is still alive! ... very happy to find this community Nice to meet everyone I've never posted a picture before, so I don't know if I'm doing correctly... lol.

So, this was the very first time I've ever seen the shuttle, and it was amazing! I decided to try to grab a shot of WHATEVER I ended up seeing here in eastern North Carolina, and this is what I came away with! Pretty cool, huh?

This is a composite image of six different ten second camera exposures as the shuttle passed over the Atlantic off of Cape Hatteras, NC. That probably gives you an accurate idea of the T time... which (I'm very layman...) I believe was appx. T+7? Correct?

Anyway, I hope you all enjoy the shot. A lot of love went into trying to make something turn out... I'm pretty pleased with the result.

Again, nice to meet you all.

AH

Nice pic and welcome!

STS-130 also was honored on APOD:

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap100209.html

 

[EarthlingX]

OBX_NC : that is a nice photo, just low res ..


ESA article about launch and the mission:
Node-3 and Cupola: European technology to complete the ISS

8 February 2010
ESA PR 02-2010 Space Shuttle Endeavour was launched at 10:14:08 CET today and is heading for the International Space Station carrying two sophisticated European modules: Node-3 (Tranquility) and Cupola. Their installation will mark the completion of the non-Russian part of the ISS, with more than a third of the pressurised Station elements designed and built in Europe.