4/27/2011 – U.S AIR FORCE ACADEMY, Colo. (AFNS) — An Air Force Academy graduate will pilot the Space Shuttle Endeavour and carry an Air Force Academy physics experiment into space.
Endeavour is scheduled to launch April 29 at 3:47 p.m. EDT from Cape Canaveral for NASA’s STS-134 mission. Piloting the crew of STS-134 is retired Col. Gregory H. Johnson, a 1984 Academy graduate.
“We have four mission specialists, (we’re) doing four spacewalks, we have a lot of robotic arm operations and so I’m kind of the head arm operator overall,” Colonel Johnson said, “overseeing what we’re doing with both the shuttle and the space station robotic arms, and I’ll be taking part in both sides of that endeavor, moving the robotic arms, moving the pieces and parts around, inspecting the shuttle prior to reentry and after launch.”
The shuttle is scheduled to dock at the International Space Station May 2 to begin transferring several experiments and supplies to the space station.
Among those experiments is Canary, one of the latest creations of the Academy’s Space Physics and Atmospheric Research Center. Canary is a 10 centimeter cube that will be bolted to the exterior of the space station. It is designed to investigate the interactions of approaching spacecraft and the background plasma environment around the space station.
Canary is one of four scientific experiments in the payload of Space Test Program Houston 3, which is managed by officials from the Department of Defense Space Test Program office at Johnson Space Center in Houston.
The shuttle is scheduled to land May 14 at Kennedy Space Center. This will be Endeavour’s final planned mission. The entire space shuttle fleet is slated for retirement and only one planned space shuttle mission remains: Atlantis is slated to launch June 28 and land July 10.
Additional information on the latest space shuttle mission and its crew is available online at: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/shuttle/shuttlemissions/sts134/index.html.
