Administration

2011 · réf. 86173 — Washington DC: National Aeronautics and Space Administration 2011. Presumed first edition first printing thus. Single sheet printed on one side. Very good. The format is approximately 4.25 inches by 5.5 inches. Illustration and text on one side. The other side is blank. RARE surviving commemorative item of the last Space Shuttle launch!!! The STS-135 Launch Salute was in honor of the hundreds of thousands of men and women who have devoted their time careers and passion over the previous 40 years to the success of the Space Shuttle Program and in remembrance of the Challenger and Columbia crews who paid the ultimate price we ask you to join and raise hands as you watch Atlantis ascend into the heavens during the final space shuttle launch. At ten seconds to liftoff stand up. at liftoff join and raise hands For first ten second of flight keep hands raised. With this gesture we convey the thanks of a grateful nation and world for the legacy of space exploration that has been set for the future. NASA continues preparations for the mission that everyone hopes will never be needed: the STS-335 flight to rescue the STS-134 crew in the event that Endeavour becomes disabled during the program’s planned final flight. STS-135 ISS assembly flight ULF7 was the 135th and final mission of the American Space Shuttle program. It used the orbiter Atlantis and hardware originally processed for the STS-335 contingency mission which was not flown. STS-135 launched on July 8 2011 and landed on July 21 2011 following a one-day mission extension. The four-person crew was the smallest of any shuttle mission since STS-6 in April 1983. The mission's primary cargo was the Multi-Purpose Logistics Module MPLM Raffaello and a Lightweight Multi-Purpose Carrier LMC which were delivered to the International Space Station ISS. The flight of Raffaello marked the only time that Atlantis carried an MPLM. Although the mission was authorized it initially had no appropriation in the NASA budget raising questions about whether the mission would fly. On January 20 2011 program managers changed STS-335 to STS-135 on the flight manifest. This allowed for training and other mission specific preparations. On February 13 2011 program managers told their workforce that STS-135 would fly regardless of the funding situation via a continuing resolution. Until this point there had been no official references to the STS-135 mission in NASA documentation for the general public. During an address at the Marshall Space Flight Center on November 16 2010 NASA administrator Charles Bolden said that the agency needed to fly STS-135 to the station in 2011 due to possible delays in the development of commercial rockets and spacecraft designed to transport cargo to the ISS. "We are hoping to fly a third shuttle mission in addition to STS-133 and STS-134 in June 2011 what everybody calls the launch-on-need mission. and that's really needed to buy down the risk for the development time for commercial cargo" Bolden said. The mission was included in NASA's 2011 authorization which was signed into law on October 11 2010 but funding remained dependent on a subsequent appropriations bill. United Space Alliance signed a contract extension for the mission along with STS-134; the contract contained six one-month options with NASA in order to support continuing operations. The federal budget approved in April 2011 called for US$5.5 billion for NASA's space operations division including the shuttle and space station programs. According to NASA the budget running through September 30 2011 ended all concerns about funding the STS-135 mission. National Aeronautics and Space Administration unknown