Administration

2007 · Best.-Nr. 86168 — Washington DC: National Aeronautics and Space Administration c2007. Presumed First Edition First printing. Single sheet sticker of mission patch printed on both sides. Very good. The format is 4.5 inches by 4.5 inches. The design is one square offset over a square of equal size making an eight-pointed 'star'. The base square has the number 122 in the upper left corner the alphanumeric 1E in the upper right corner and part of a graphic design in the lower two corners that blend into the graphic on the main square. The square has an image of the earth and one of a figure of a sailing ship 'morphing' into the space shuttle One the four sides are the crew names of Eyharts o Frick o Poindexter o Walheim o Melvin o Schelgel o Love. On the reverse there is text which reads STS-122 Patch Description The primary objective of the STS-122 mission is to install and outfit the European Space Agency's Columbus laboratory module. Atlantis will rendezvous and dock with the International Space Station ISS on flight day three and Leopold Eyharts will official become a member of the ISS crew replacing Dan Tani who will return to Earth as part of the STS-122 crew. The crew will conduct three spacewalks to prepare the Columbus module and replace a nitrogen tank on the station. The STS-122 patch depicts the continuation of the voyages of early explorers to today's frontier: space. The ship denotes the travels of the early expeditions from the East to the West. The shuttle shows the continuation of that journey along the orbital patch from west to east. A little more than 500 years after Columbus sailed to the new world the STS-122 crew will bring the European laboratory module ":Columbus" to the ISS to usher in a new ear of scientific discovery. NASA and Space Flight Awareness logos. STS-122 was a NASA Space Shuttle mission to the International Space Station ISS flown by the Space Shuttle Atlantis. STS-122 marked the 24th shuttle mission to the ISS and the 121st Space Shuttle flight overall. The mission was also referred to as ISS-1E by the ISS program. The primary objective of STS-122 was to deliver the European Columbus science laboratory built by the European Space Agency ESA to the station. It also returned Expedition 16 Flight Engineer Daniel M. Tani to Earth. Tani was replaced on Expedition 16 by Léopold Eyharts a French Flight Engineer representing ESA. After Atlantis landing the orbiter was prepared for STS-125 the final servicing mission for the Hubble Space Telescope. The original target launch date for STS-122 was December 6 2007 but due to engine cutoff sensor ECO reading errors the launch was postponed to December 9 2007. During the second launch attempt the sensors failed again and the launch was halted. A tanking test on December 18 2007 revealed the probable cause to lie with a connector between the external tank and the shuttle. The connector was replaced and the shuttle launched during the third attempt on February 7 2008. Columbus is a science laboratory that is part of the International Space Station ISS and is the largest single contribution to the ISS made by the European Space Agency ESA. Like the Harmony and Tranquility modules the Columbus laboratory was constructed in Turin Italy by Thales Alenia Space. The functional equipment and software of the lab was designed by EADS in Bremen Germany. It was also integrated in Bremen before being flown to the Kennedy Space Center KSC in Florida in an Airbus Beluga. It was launched aboard Space Shuttle Atlantis on 7 February 2008 on flight STS-122. It is designed for ten years of operation. The module is controlled by the Columbus Control Centre located at the German Space Operations Center part of the German Aerospace Center in Oberpfaffenhofen near Munich Germany. The European Space Agency has spent €1.4 billion about US$2 billion on building Columbus including the experiments it carries and the ground control infrastructure necessary to operate them. National Aeronautics and Space Administration unknown