STS-128 (ISS assembly flight 17A) was a NASA Space Shuttle mission to the International Space Station (ISS) that launched on August 28, 2009. Space Shuttle Discovery carried the Multi-Purpose Logistics Module Leonardo as its primary payload. It was Discovery's 37th flight. Leonardo contained a collection of experiments for studying the physics and chemistry of microgravity. Three spacewalks were carried out during the mission, which removed and replaced a materials processing experiment outside ESA's Columbus module, and returned an empty ammonia tank assembly. The mission's first launch attempt was delayed due to weather concerns, including multiple weather violations in NASA's launch rules, beginning over two hours before the scheduled launch. The second launch attempt, scheduled for August 26, 2009, at 01:10:22 EDT, was called off the previous evening due to an anomaly in one of the orbiter's fuel valves. The launch finally took place on August 28, 2009, at 23:59 EDT. Discovery landed on September 11, 2009, at Edwards Air Force Base, which was the last landing of a shuttle to occur at the California site.
Crew
Crew seat assignments
Mission payload
Multi-Purpose Logistics Module (MPLM) Leonardo
The primary payload of STS-128 was the Multi-Purpose Logistics Module Leonardo to assist with establishing a six-man crew capacity by bringing extra supplies and equipment to the station. The Multi-Purpose Logistics Module contained three racks for life support, a crew quarter to be installed in Kibo, a new treadmill (COLBERT) that will temporarily be placed in Node 2 and later in Node 3, and an Air Revitalization System (ARS) that will temporarily be placed in Kibo and later in Node 3.
Leonardo Specifications
Length: 21 feet (6.4 m) Diameter: 15 feet (4.6 m) Payload Mass (launch): 27,510 pounds (12,480 kg) Payload Mass (return): 16,268 pounds (7,379 kg) Empty Weight: 9,810 pounds (4,450 kg)
Lightweight Multi-Purpose Carrier (LMC)
The shuttle carried a Lightweight Multi-Purpose Experiment Support Structure Carrier (LMC) with Ammonia Tank Assembly (ATA). The new ammonia tank replaced an empty tank during an EVA.
TriDAR The shuttle flew the first test flight of the TriDAR, a 3D dual-sensing laser camera, intended for potential use as an autonomous rendezvous and docking sensor. The TriDAR successfully tracked the ISS position and orientation from the shuttle during docking operations.
Other science packages It also contained three racks dedicated to science, FIR (Fluids Integrated Rack) and the first Materials Science Research Rack (MSRR-1) to be placed in Destiny and MELFI-2 (Minus Eighty Laboratory Freezer for ISS) to be placed in Kibo. The FIR enabled detailed study of how liquids behave in microgravity, a crucial detail for many chemical reactions. One experiment, for instance, examined how mixtures known as colloids behave without being stirred by sedimentation and convection. Another using the Light Microscopy Module (LMM) will examine how an ideal heat pipe works without the distortions of gravity.
Mission experiments The STS-128 mission (as did STS-125 and STS-127) took part in crew seat vibration tests designed to help engineers on the ground understand how astronauts experience launch. They will use the information to help design the crew seats that will be used in future NASA spacecraft. STS-128 repeated the Boundary Layer Transition (BLT) Detailed Test Objective (DTO) experiment that was done by the same shuttle during STS-119. In this experiment, one of the thermal protection systems was raised to create a boundary layer transition in which the air flow becomes turbulent beyond a certain speed. During STS-119 the tile was raised 0.25 inches (6.4 mm) above the others, tripping the flow at Mach 15 during reentry. In the modification being done, the tile has been raised 0.35 inches (8.9 mm) to trip at Mach 18 producing more heat. Discovery undertook the testing of a catalytic coating which was meant to be used by the Orion spacecraft. Two TPS tiles located in the protuberance downstream from the BLT tile had been fully coated with the catalytic material in order to understand the entry heating performance. The tiles were instrumented to collect a wide variety of data.
Mission milestones The mission marked:
159th NASA crewed space flight 128th Space Shuttle mission since STS-1 37th flight of Discovery 30th shuttle mission to the ISS 103rd post-Challenger mission 15th post-Columbia mission 32nd shuttle night launch NASA's first Space Shuttle launch to take place during two calendar days 25th anniversary of Discovery's first flight, STS-41-D (August 30, 1984)
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