Astronomy Down Under

STS-115 launch date set

18 Aug at 13:12 by Wilson

NASA has decided to launch the Space Shuttle Atlantis on 27 August at 4:30pm (Eastern US time; that’s 28 August 8:30am Melbourne time), on mission STS-115. The main purpose of this mission is to restart the construction of the ISS by installing a new truss that will include new solar arrays, batteries and associated electronics, over the course of three space walks. The new structure will add some 16 metric tons to the mass of the station.