On May 14th, 2010 Space Shuttle Atlantis lifted off for what may be the last time. If you have not yet seen it, head on over to Spacevidcast.com and check out not only the HD launch video, but also the 7 hour pre and post launch event that we produced live on Ustream.tv. And if you’re an Spacevidcast epic subscriber you also have access to over 2GB of additional content such as videos, PDFs, mission reports, animations and more!

We mentioned a couple weeks ago that STS-132 may not be the final mission for Space Shuttle Atlantis. If Endeavour has problems on what is currently slated to be the final Space Shuttle mission ever, STS-134, and needs to be rescued, Atlantis would be the standby Launch On Need vehicle. That part is set and chances are we won’t need to use Atlantis for that rescue mission. However, there is talk of NASA adding one more shuttle flight in the form of STS-135. Since Discovery and Endeavour would have already flown, the next logical choice would be… Atlantis!

After the launch of Space Shuttle Atlantis on STS-132 there was a Post-Launch briefing. As soon as the question and answer period came up, talk of STS-135 began. Rather than cut this up, we’re going to show you the entire question, answer, followup question and followup answer — uncut.

So lets recap. Right now there is no funding for STS-135 which means no mission. NASA would like to get that sorted out no later than July of this year to see if they can’t fly Atlantis one more time in the June 2011 time frame. If Atlantis does fly in June 2011 that means that the Space Shuttle program would then be 30 years old which is not only a great year to end on, but what a great space shuttle to take us out!


  1. U5K0 says:
    May 23, 2010 at 11:45 pm

    why don’t they just get the ATV and HTV launches postponed and light up the shuttle when it’s already on the launch pad?

    Reply
  2. bbboooommmm says:
    May 24, 2010 at 8:10 am

    i hope it’S gonna happend but would the nasa start working on the space elevator after the retirement of the space shuttle ??? p.s. excuse me for my typing i’m french

    Reply
  3. spacevidcast says:
    May 24, 2010 at 9:03 am

    @bbboooommmm While anything is possible, I’m not sure that a space elevator is in the cards for NASA right now. They do have their Centennial Challenges that have awards for companies who can develop certain milestones needed for a space elevator, but I don’t know of any NASA project that directly works on one.

    Reply
  4. spacevidcast says:
    May 24, 2010 at 9:06 am

    @U5K0 I don’t think the LON mission will actually put the shuttle on the pad unless required for launch. It only takes around 30 days from rollout to launch, so they could just keep the orbiter in the OPF or VAB. They would have around a 120 day window which is 2 months extra time.

    They want those extra cargo loads to go to the ISS first so they can use the impressive downmass that the shuttle provides to take down extra items that would not yet be on Station, as I understand it.

    Reply
  5. FirewalkR says:
    May 24, 2010 at 1:38 pm

    Weird, I seem to recall that a while ago STS-133 was going to be the final mission, after 134 (some kind of scheduling delay on 133 iirc). Was there a recent change or was it always this way?

    Reply
  6. spacevidcast says:
    May 24, 2010 at 2:22 pm

    @FirewalkR There was a recent change. The order used to be STS-132, STS-134, STS-133. However, due to a problem with the payload for STS-134 they had to bump it back to NET November, 2010. So now the order will be STS-132, STS-133, STS-134 and possibly STS-135.

    Reply
  7. Jeph says:
    August 19, 2010 at 9:31 pm

    Discovery deserves to be the last orbiter to fly, but I guess Atlantis deserves SOMETHING big to notch on her post. She didn’t launch Hubble, she didn’t do either RTF, didn’t launch Senator John Glenn, and wasn’t the orbiter to fly the 100th shuttle mission. Just sayin’. ;)

    Reply