Final Flight of the Space Shuttle Endeavour (STS-134)

Final Flight of the Space Shuttle Endeavour (STS-134)

Author: Todd H. Poole (www.toddhpoole.com)
Photography & Videography Post: http://toddhpoole.com/projects/photovideo/2011/05/final-flight-of-the-space-s...

DILLER - George Diller/STS-134 NASA Commentator
HERRING - Kyle Herring/STS-134 Ascent Commentator
KELLY - Mark E. Kelly/STS-134 Commander
WILMORE - Barry Wilmore/STS-134 CAPCOM

0:00 DILLER: Start of launch to the International Space Station. Godspeed Endeavour.
0:15 DILLER: Now arming the sound suppression water system.
0:27 DILLER: Standing by for the handoff to Endeavor's onboard computers.
0:39 DILLER: T-minus 31 seconds. And the handoff has occurred.
0:45 DILLER: 25.
0:50 DILLER: 20.
0:54 DILLER: Firing chain is armed. Sound suppression water system is armed.
1:00 DILLER: Go for main engine start. 8, 7, 6, 4, 3, 2, 0. And liftoff for the final launch of Endeavor.
1:10 DILLER: Expanding our knowledge, expanding our lives in space.
1:20 KELLY: Houston, Endeavour, roll program.
1:23 WILMORE: Roger, roll Endeavour.
1:25 HERRING: Houston is now controlling. Endeavour beginning to rollover onto its back. The roll program out of the way as Endeavour begins the heads-down position on course for a 56.1 degree, 136 by 36 statue mile orbit.
2:12 Crossing the threshold of the shuttle's acoustic cone. (NOTE: Noise from Endeavour, now traveling at roughly 1,600 km/h (1,000 mph, which is about Mach 1 at sea level), radiates downwards in the shape of a cone. The higher the shuttle gets, the larger the cone's radius. At this point in time, Endeavour is at an altitude of 11 km (6.8 mi), but observers are only now just hearing the engines. I cannot adequately describe the sound or its feeling. The loud, deep, rumble of Endeavour and her engines hits your chest far deeper than the thunder of any storm I've ever heard. You can literally *feel* the power in those boosters. It was awe inspiring.)
2:19 HERRING: Three engines now throttling down as Endeavour passes through the area of maximum dynamic pressure on the vehicle in the lower atmosphere. Approaching one minute into the flight.
2:33 WILMORE: Endeavour "go" at throttle up.
2:37 KELLY: Roger, "go" at throttle up.
2:41 HERRING: Endeavour's three main engines now back at full throttle. All three engines in good shape. Endeavour's already traveling 1,300 mph, at an altitude of 11 miles downrange from the Kennedy Space Center, now 12 miles.
3:02 HERRING: At liftoff, Endeavour fully fueled weighed four and a half million pounds. It's already lost half that weight in propellent now; burned that weight. Next event is burnout and separation of the twin solid rocket boosters. That upcoming here shortly at the two-minute, three-second point. Those boosters are burning 11,000 pounds of fuel per second.
3:32 HERRING: And standing by for separation of the solid rocket boosters.

Copyright 2011 Todd H. Poole. Licensed to the public under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0).

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• Space Shuttle
• Space Shuttle Endeavour
• Endeavour
• OV-105
• launch
• shuttle launch
• STS-134
• 39-A
• Mark E. Kelly
• Gregory H. Johnson
• Michael Fincke
• Roberto Vittori
• Andrew J. Feustel
• Gregory Chamitoff
• AMS-02
• ELC3
• ULF6
• liftoff