The second and final piece of the S6 Integrated Truss Segment, the Long
Spacer (LS), arrived yesterday afternoon at Kennedy Space Center’s Shuttle
Landing Facility aboard NASA’s Super Guppy cargo airplane from Johnson Space
Center. The LS, bound for installation on the International Space Station,
was transported from the Super Guppy to the Space Station Processing
Facility (SSPF) airlock for storage overnight.
This morning the S6 LS segment was transferred from the Super Guppy
storage container into a highbay inside the SSPF. Both the S6 Integrated
Equipment Assembly (IEA) that arrived last week, and the LS segment, will
undergo inspections and verification tests in order to ready them for
flight. KSC will perform final integration of the LS truss segment to the
IEA and final verification and testing.
Although the two pieces of the S6 truss arrived at Kennedy Space Center
separately they will be integrated and fly as one segment to the
International Space Station aboard Space Shuttle mission STS-119 in early
2004. Together, the segment pieces weigh 26,000 pounds and measure 45 feet
long. The S6 truss is currently scheduled to launch in early 2004.
The S6 Truss Segment is the 11th and final piece of the Station’s
Integrated Truss Structure. Arrival of this segment means virtually all the
U.S. core structure components of the Station have left the factory and are
either in orbit or being readied for launch. Only one major Station core
component awaits shipment. The second connecting module, Node 2, is being
constructed in Italy.
