STS-133 (ISS assembly flight ULF5) was the 133rd mission in NASA's Space Shuttle program; during the mission, Space Shuttle Discovery docked with the International Space Station. It was Discovery's 39th and final mission. The mission launched on February 24, 2011, and landed on March 9, 2011. The crew consisted of six American astronauts, all of whom had been on prior spaceflights, headed by Commander Steven Lindsey. The crew joined the long-duration six person crew of Expedition 26, who were already aboard the space station. About a month before lift-off, one of the original crew members, Tim Kopra, was injured in a bicycle accident. He was replaced by Stephen Bowen. The mission transported several items to the space station, including the Permanent Multipurpose Module Leonardo, which was left permanently docked to one of the station's ports. The shuttle also carried the third of four ExPRESS Logistics Carriers to the ISS, as well as a humanoid robot called Robonaut. The mission marked both the 133rd flight of the Space Shuttle program and the 39th and final flight of Discovery, with the orbiter completing a cumulative total of a whole year (365 days) in space. The mission was affected by a series of delays due to technical problems with the external tank and, to a lesser extent, the payload. The launch, initially scheduled for September 2010, was pushed back to October, then to November, then finally to February 2011.
Crew
NASA announced the STS-133 crew on September 18, 2009, and training began in October 2009. The original crew consisted of commander Steven Lindsey, pilot Eric Boe, and mission specialists Alvin Drew, Timothy Kopra, Michael Barratt, and Nicole Stott. However, on January 19, 2011, about a month before launch, it was announced that Stephen Bowen would replace original crew member Tim Kopra, after Kopra was injured in a bicycle accident. All six crew members had flown at least one spaceflight before; five of the crew members, all but commander Steven Lindsey, were part of NASA's Astronaut Group 18, all being selected in the year 2000. The mission commander, Steven Lindsey, handed over his position as Chief of the Astronaut Office position to Peggy Whitson in order to lead the mission. For the first time, two mission crew members were in space when a crew assignment announcement was made, as Nicole Stott and Michael Barratt were aboard the ISS as part of the Expedition 20 crew. During STS-133, Alvin Drew became the last African-American astronaut to fly on the Space Shuttle, as no African-Americans were among the crews of STS-134 and STS-135. Having flown onboard Atlantis' STS-132 mission, Bowen became the first and the only NASA astronaut to be launched on two consecutive missions, until Doug Hurley launched aboard Crew Dragon Demo-2 in May 2020, after having previously launched on STS-135.
Crew seat assignments
Mission payload
Permanent Multipurpose Module
STS-133 left Leonardo (named after the famed Italian Renaissance inventor Leonardo da Vinci), one of the three Multi-Purpose Logistics Modules (MPLMs), on the space station as a Permanent Multipurpose Module (PMM). PMM Leonardo added much-needed storage space on the ISS, and was launched with a near-full load of payloads. The construction of the Leonardo MPLM by the Italian Space Agency commenced in April 1996. In August 1998, after the completion of primary construction, Leonardo was delivered to the Kennedy Space Center (KSC). In March 2001, Leonardo made its first mission on Discovery as part of the STS-102 flight. The liftoff of Leonardo inside Discovery's payload bay on STS-102 marked the first of seven MPLM flights prior to STS-133. With the landing of Discovery after the STS-131 mission, Leonardo was transferred back to the Space Station Processing Facility at Kennedy Space Center. Leonardo began receiving modifications and reconfigurations immediately to convert it for permanent attachment to the space station and to facilitate on-orbit maintenance. Some equipment was removed to reduce the overall weight of Leonardo. These removals resulted in a net weight loss of 178.1 lb (80.8 kg). Additional modifications to Leonardo included the installation of upgraded multi-layer insulation (MLI) and Micro Meteoroid Orbital Debris (MMOD) shielding to increase the ability of the PMM to handle potential impacts of micrometeoroids or orbital debris; a Planar Reflector was installed at the request of the Japanese Space Agency (JAXA). Following berthing to the space station, the contents of Leonardo were emptied and moved to appropriate locations on the ISS. Once JAXA's Kounotori 2 (HTV-2) arrived in February 2011, Leonardo's now-unnecessary launch hardware was transferred to HTV2 for ultimate destruction in Earth's atmosphere. Activities to reconfigure Leonardo following STS-133 spanned multiple station crew increments.
ExPRESS Logistics Carrier 4
The Express Logistics Carrier (ELC) is a steel platform designed to support external payloads mounted to the space station starboard and port trusses with either deep space or Earthward views. On STS-133, Discovery carried the ELC-4 to the station to be positioned on the starboard 3 (S3) truss' lower inboard passive attachment system (PAS). The total weight of the ELC-4 is approximately 8,235 pounds. The Express Logistics Carrier 4 (ELC-4) carried several Orbital Replacement Units (ORUs). Among these were a Heat Rejection System Radiator (HRSR) Flight Support Equipment (FSE), which takes up one whole side of the ELC. The other primary ORUs were the ExPRESS Pallet Controller Avionics 4 (ExPCA #4). The HRSR launching on ELC4 was a spare, if needed, for one of the six radiators that are part of the station's external active thermal control system.
Robonaut2
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