Payette had cookies stolen while in orbit

Julie Payette returns to CSA headquarters to a reception numbering three hundred, welcoming her back after her 16 days stay in orbit an on-board the International Space Station.

Max Harrold
Montreal Gazette

Longueuil — A fellow astronaut stole her maple cookies, and Julie Payette borrowed the only sweater of Canadian crew mate Bob Thirsk while working last month aboard the chilly space shuttle, 350 kilometres above the Earth.

With behind-the-scenes tidbits and off-world snapshots from her history-making, task-packed 16-day mission to space July 15 to 31, Payette commanded everyone’s attention Friday at the Canadian Space Agency’s headquarters on the South Shore.

It was Payette’s first time back at the mothership of Canada’s space program since the mission, and about 300 CSA employees cheered her as they lined the agency’s modest yet soaring atrium.

“Bravo,” CSA head of operations Benoît Marcotte told Payette. “What a superbly successful mission.”

Payette said she was grateful for the team’s efforts. In space, she took a group photo of the Longueuil workers against a porthole with the Earth seen below.

Payette, 45, served as the flight engineer on the crew of the space shuttle Endeavour, which flew to the International Space Station.

The crew completed the construction of the Kibo Japanese Experiment Module, also known as the space porch, and installed scientific experiments on it.

Payette didn’t do any of the five spacewalks during the mission, but she played a crucial role at the controls of three robotic arms that grappled equipment stowed in shuttle’s payload bay and then handed it off to another robot arm that then placed it in position with spacewalking astronauts assisting.

Asked if she had any close calls during the robotic operations, Payette said yes.

“I can assure you there usually are when you are handing off pieces of equipment that weigh 600 or 700 pounds and you are bringing them within centimetres of a billion-dollar space station.”

Read the full feature article HERE.

Gestures add-up: Bonham 4-H Flag flies on STS-127

Bonham Journal - “ USDA’s National 4-H Headquarters and NASA will send the 4-H flag, depicting the familiar 4-H Clover, into space aboard the Space Shuttle Endeavour...next launch attempt is targeted for July 11 at 7:39 p.m. EDT."

Background HERE.

A crowded Atlantic Missile Range

CAPE CANAVERAL - While no final decision has been made yet, NASA officials are shooting at launching the space shuttle Endeavour on a mission to the international space station on Wednesday at 5:40 a.m.

Robert Block - The Write Stuff
Cape Canaveral

Single-Shot launch opportunity for delayed Endeavour bumps Wednesday's launch of LRO-LCROSS

As late as one week ago NASA said the launch of Endeavour (STS-127) would have to wait if a delay Saturday of it's scheduled launch caused the Space Shuttle mission to bump up against Wednesday afternoon's scheduled launch of LRO & LCROSS.

Forty-eight hours are needed for Patrick Air Force Base personnel to set-up tracking for two very different launch configurations, down the Atlantic Missile Range. The Space Shuttle, of course, is manned and it's mission to the International Space Station requires an insertion into low earth orbit at a very precise, northerly inclination.

A single Space Shuttle mission is also more expensive than any single unmanned mission to the Moon, with delays potentially costing far more.

Faced with just such a delay, by Sunday evening NASA managers had changed their tune, saying they were no longer quite so sure about dropping the Shuttle mission for the twin lunar probes.

At their briefing NASA managers said a decision would come on Monday.

Before a half-hour had passed, however, both CNN and Reuters were reporting a decision had been made.

The joint launch Wednesday afternoon of Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) and Lunar CRater Remote Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) on board their Atlas V booster is being bumped, Reuters said. NASA will to try for a "one-time" 5:40 am (EDT) launch window for Endeavor, early Wednesday morning June 17.

LRO and LCROSS could be launched as late as Saturday. If not, both lunar missions originally bumped to December, to March, finally to next Wednesday lose favorable launch windows to the plain of the Moon's orbit for at least one lunar orbit, or July 13.

A liquid hydrogen leak delayed the scheduled launch of Endeavour on Saturday. The Shuttle crew has remained in quarantine as ground operations at Kennedy Space Center "work the problem."

NASA, of course, is under pressure (a fatal situation in the past) with concerns arising over stacking Shuttle missions for the remainder of the program, still scheduled to come to a close at at the end of the next federal fiscal year, October 31, 2010.

NC Native finally gets his flight

On Launch Pad 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, STS-127 Mission Specialists Tom Marshburn, Tim Kopra and Dave Wolf hold onto the slidewire basket as they practice emergency exit procedures.
Image credit: NASA/Kim Shiflett
View High Res. HERE.

Jill Michaels
Mooresville Tribune

The patient in spirit shall become the patient in orbit.

After years of doctoring astronauts assigned to space shuttle and space station crews, doctor-turned-astronaut Tom Marshburn will finally get his opportunity to fly in circles around Earth.

The Statesville native will be aboard STS-127 Endeavour when it launches on Saturday.

Marshburn, 49, will reap the best of all worlds: flying on the shuttle, visiting the International Space Station for nearly two weeks, floating with the station's first six-member crew and performing three spacewalks to support space station construction.

"I've always been interested in the space program, ever since I was 6 or 7 years old," Marshburn told the R&L after his crew's pre-flight news conference May 28 in Houston. A book about Apollo 13 by Henry S.F. Cooper titled "Thirteen: The Flight That Failed" sparked his interest.

The youngest of seven children, Marshburn spent part of his childhood near Bost Street and Davie Avenue.

"For 17 years, my father was the preacher at the First Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church," he said.

The future astronaut moved to Atlanta when he was almost 9 years old.

But he made it clear that he considers Statesville his hometown.

Read the story HERE.

STS-127

Moon over Endeavour (UPI)

KSC (UPI) - NASA says it's planning the final events prior to space shuttle Endeavour's STS-127 June mission to the International Space Station.

STS-127 will be the 32nd construction flight to ISS, the last of a series of three flights dedicated to the assembly of the JAXA Kibo laboratory. NASA officials say Endeavour will be moved from Launch Pad 39B to pad 39A Saturday, with the STS-127 crew's Terminal Countdown Demonstration Test between May 31-June2.

Endeavour had, of course, been stationed at 39B in on stand-by as STS-400, an emergency rescue operation if necessary during the repair mission to the Hubble Space Telescope by the crew of Atlantis.

The launch of STS-127 is presently scheduled for June 13 at 7:17 a.m. EDT.

STS-127 Mission Specialist Julie Payette
of the Canadian Space Agency

Canadian Space Agency astronaut Julie Payette, will embark on her second space voyage on-board Endeavour (STS-127), destined for the International Space Station, launching June 13.

On the flight Payette will operate three robotic arms during a "robotics-intense mission," the Shuttle's Canadarm, the ISS Canadarm2 and the JAXA arm on the Kibo module.

"Canadian robotic technology will be used almost every day of this assembly mission," says CSA.

Details on the mission, HERE.