Just over 7 hours 30 minutes until launch of the Space Shuttle Atlantis on its 32nd and final mission into Space.

STS-132 will bring the Russian Mini-Research Module to the International Space Station, as well as other miscellaneous equipment.

The mission is planned to last 12 days and consists of 3 EVAs.

As I type, it is dawn at the launch pad at Cape Kennedy in Florida.

To watch the 3rd Space Shuttle flight of 2010, and one of only 3 Shuttle missions remaining, either tune in your TV or...
watch online in full HD at SpaceVidCast.com

Atlantis was first launched on STS-51-J in 1985. It was the fourth Shuttle orbiter to go into service. Behind Columbia, Challenger & Discovery.

To read more about STS-132, visit Wikipedia here.
Or, to read more about Atlantis' history, visit Wikipedia here.

Good Luck & God Speed Atlantis.

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- Luke.

Beautiful launch

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lets hope it does well enough to land one last time

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In a rich man's house there is no place to spit but his face.
Diogenes Of Sinope

It's the end of an era if we believe what we are hearing. Whatever happened to keeping the shuttle fleet going until 2015?

I think It was mainly talk, President Obama wants to buy rides on Russian space shots and make Constellation, extinct. It would be highly wasteful & shortsighted(politically motivated too?) as NASA just proved the escape rocket for the capsule works perfectly.

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The T1 Trust, PRR T1 Class 4-4-4-4 #5550, 1 of America's First HST's

lets hope it does well enough to land one last time

Since they seem to have lost the camera's to inspect the heat shield tile ...

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lets hope it does well enough to land one last time

Since they seem to have lost the camera's to inspect the heat shield tile ...

I think NASA has another Shuttle on standby(It's too bad Enterprise doesn't have tiles or engines, It could go to the Rescue, As It was planned to make It a working Shuttle at one time, penny pinchers decided not to as a new one would be cheaper as some parts had changed since It was built), But without the camera, They may have to rely on the stations camera.

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The T1 Trust, PRR T1 Class 4-4-4-4 #5550, 1 of America's First HST's

What about the life span of the ISS itself? It was 30 years with a FOS of 2.

Bottom line is that 2013 marks the 15th anniversary of ISS first element launch and beyond that point components will begin to exceed their design lifetimes. That does not mean those components will immediately fail, because there is always a factor of safety designed in. However, it does mean that the component failure rate will gradually start growing after that point and the station will become progressively more expensive to maintain.

And with out the heavy lift capability of the shuttles I think we might see the ISS do a very spectactular fireworks display when the US decides we cant aford it any more.
My opinion is untill we can afford it forget the Moon and Mars and use the ISS as a staging point for the shuttles to make hubble repairs and or an astroid flyby.

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Old James