STS135 NASATweetup Announcements

Today was a very exciting or very disappointing day, depending on which side of the crowd you ended up. Along with 5500 other NASA Tweeps, I put my name in a lottery to take part in a two day event the day before and the day of the launch of STS135 Atlantis. 150 lucky Tweeps got an email today announcing that they had won the Tweetup lottery. The rest of us, got:

Dear Michael Wilkinson,
 
We regret to inform you that you were not selected for the NASA Tweetup nor the wait list. Thank you for your interest in attending the NASA Tweetup in conjunction with the launch of space shuttle Atlantis on the STS-135 mission. We value your interest in space and wish we had room to invite all 5,500+ who applied! Thank you for your ongoing support of our nation’s space program and the men and women -- including astronauts living in orbit -- who work at NASA.

I'm still trying to find a way to see the launch in person. Haven't given up all hope yet!

STS-135 Fact Sheet

http://www.spaceflight101.com/uploads/6/4/0/6/6406961/sts-135_fact_sheet.pdf

Expedition 28 Launch

New Crew Members Prepare for Launch 


Expedition 28 Flight Engineers Mike Fossum, Sergei Volkov and Satoshi Furukawa are scheduled to launch from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 4:12 p.m. EDT Tuesday (2:12 a.m. Wednesday, Baikonur time) aboard the Soyuz TMA-02M spacecraft. They will arrive at the station Thursday to join the Expedition 28 crew. NASAtv will carry the launch live. Coverage begins Tuesday at 3:30 pm EDT. 

World Science Festival Video : Astronaut Diary: Life in Space

World Science Festival Video : Astronaut Diary: Life in Space

A panel of astronauts shared their experiences of working and living in space at World Science Festival 2010.

77min video

Exp 28 Mission Summary.pub

http://www.nasa.gov/pdf/545617main_exp28_mission_summary.pdf

Touchdown! Endeavour has returned to Earth!

Main gear touched down at 2:34:51 amET. Nose gear touchdown came at 2:35:04 & wheels stop came at 2:35:36. Welcome home Mark Kelly, Greg Johnson (Box), Greg Chamitoff (Taz), Mike Finke (Spanky), Drew Feustel, and Roberto Vittori (Ricky Bobby).

Over a total of 25 missions, Endeavour has logged 299 days in space and 122,883,151 miles traveled. Endeavour landed for the final time after 248 orbits around Earth and a journey of 6,510,221 miles.

Mike Finke now holds the US record for space time at 382 days!

Watch a clip of the landing from NASA's YouTube Channel.

Landing and Rollout

It's a busy day at NASA today. Space Shuttle Endeavour is scheduled to land at KSC at 2:35 am EDT Wednesday morning. The crew will wake up at 5:56 p.m. to make final preparations for landing, including closing the payload bay doors at 10:49 p.m. and a de-orbit burn at 1:29 a.m. At the same time, ground crews will be busy with the Rollout of Space Shuttle Atlantis. Atlantis will leave the VAB at 8:00 p.m. on the crawler at and head to launch pad 39A. NPR did an interesting profile on the "Crawler Crew."