STS-135 Crew Visit to NASA Ames
Subject: STS-135 Crew Visit, August 22, 2011.
From: Centerwide Announcement
Date: Wednesday, August 17, 2011
TO: Resident Staff
FROM: Gary L. Martin, Director, New Ventures and Communications Directorate
SUBJECT: STS-135 Crew Visit, August 22, 2011.
The Ames community is invited to hear from the members of space shuttle Atlantis’ final mission in the Ames Syvertson Auditorium, Building 201 at 1:00 PM PDT, Monday, August 22. Four veteran astronauts, including Commander Chris Ferguson, Pilot Doug Hurley, and Mission Specialists Sandra Magnus and Rex Walheim of the STS-135 mission will share their experiences and take questions from the audience on the flight that brought the illustrious Space Shuttle Program to a close. Their presentation will be followed by a reception in the lobby of Building 200.
Background: On July 8, 2011, space shuttle Atlantis rose from a plume of fire and parted the high clouds on its way to the International Space Station and to its place in history. The liftoff marked the last time a space shuttle would soar toward the heavens.
The 13-day STS-135 mission was the 33rd and final flight for Atlantis, which spent 307 days in space, orbited Earth 4,848 times and traveled 125,935,769 miles.
In addition to carrying supplies to the space station, space shuttle Atlantis flew a system to study robotic spacecraft refueling and returned a failed ammonia pump module to help NASA improve pump designs for future systems. There were 11 payloads that Ames was involved with. Of the 11 payloads with Ames involvement, 9 were biosciences related and 2 were technology related.
This was Ferguson, Magnus, and Walheim’s third spaceflight and Hurley’s second. Ferguson has logged more than 28 days in space; Magnus has logged more than four months in space and Walheim has logged more than 24 days in space including five spacewalks; Hurley has logged more than 4,000 hours in 25 different aircraft.
For more information about the STS-135 mission, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/shuttle
