Signaling the end of the shuttle program, NASA has chosen astronauts for the final scheduled flight for Discovery.

The final flight concludes 29 years of missions orbiting planet Earth.

The September 2010 flight will carry a pressurized logistics module to and a veteran crew to the International Space Station, NASA said. There are but six flights left — two for each of the shuttles, Atlantis, Discovery and Endeavour.

Veteran shuttle commander Steven W. Lindsey will command the eight-day mission, tagged STS-133. Air Force Col. Eric A. Boe will pilot Discovery, his second flight as a shuttle pilot.

Mission Specialists are shuttle mission veteran Air Force Col. Benjamin Alvin Drew, Jr., and long-duration spaceflight veterans Michael R. Barratt, Army Col. Timothy L. Kopra and Clearwater native Nicole P. Stott.

While NASA is putting the finishing touches on the shuttle program, a blue ribbon Washington panel is plotting the fate of manned space flight. Congress is debating about the gap between the Sept. 2010 end, and the beginning of the next program in 2015.

The gap means the U.S. must rely on Russia to provision the International Space Station.

Lindsey will be making his fifth shuttle flight. He served as the pilot of STS-87 in 1997 and STS-95 in 1998, and commanded STS-104 in 2001 and STS-121 in 2006.

Boe will be making his second shuttle flight. He was the pilot of STS-126 in 2008.

Drew flew as a mission specialist on STS-118 in 2007 and is currently the director of Operations at the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center in Star City, Russia.

He was born in Washington, D.C. Drew has two bachelor’s degrees and a master’s degree from the U.S. Air Force Academy and a master’s degree from Embry-Riddle University.

Barratt, a medical doctor, currently is on his first mission, aboard the space station as a flight engineer for Expeditions 19 and 20. He launched to the station on a Russian Soyuz spacecraft March 26 and is due to return to Earth on the same Soyuz Oct. 11.

Kopra just completed his first spaceflight, as a flight engineer aboard the space station for Expedition 20.

Stott is in the midst of her first mission as a flight engineer aboard the station with Barratt for Expeditions 20 and 21. She launched aboard STS-128 on Aug. 28 and is due to return at the end of STS-129, targeted for launch Nov. 12.

She considers Clearwater her hometown. She has a bachelor’s degree from Embry-Riddle University and a master’s degree from the University of Central Florida.

source: http://www.baynews9.com

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