NASA To Retire Atlantis by 2008

SirBruce writes "As reported by Space.com, Spaceflight Now, and elsewhere, NASA is now planning to retire the Space Shuttle Atlantis by 2008, after just 5 more flghts. By doing so, they would avoid a costly and time consuming scheduled overhaul, and could still fly the remaining 12 missions (17 total) with Discovery and Endeavour, which are just now completing their ODMPs (orbiter maintenance down period). Atlantis would be kept for spare parts to keep Discovery and Endeavour flying until the shuttle program is shut down in 2010."

Shuttle Shutdown just in time

[Anonymous Coward]

Further evidence that the Mayan calendar ending on 2012 is a signal of immense change. Obviously we aren't going to need the shuttle anymore.

Re:Whats next?

[Himring]

I believe they plan on replacing the Shuttle with the CEV (Crew Exploration Vehicle). Which they claim will have the best technologies from the Apollo and Space Shuttle programs. There is a moon landing targeted for 2018.

Crew Exploration Vehicle [nasa.gov]

Smithsonian

[Anonymous Coward]

The Smithsonian's Udvar-Hazy Center [si.edu] already has the shuttle OV-101, Enterprise [si.edu].

And being in the Smithsonian is no guarantee that it will remain intact. You will find that at least one of the leading edge panels on the Enterprise is a replacement mock up. Alas, it seems like they needed the real one for some destructive impact testing.

Not staying up on news?

[WindBourne]

For the last year, we have been discussing how the shuttle will be relaced by the CEV. It is a semi-disposable capsule (based on the old apollo system). It will have 2 launchers;

1. A Crew Launch vehicle that will lift the CEV and small loads of about 20-25K lbs.
2. A Heavy lift vehicle that will lift very large loads (~200K lbs). It will send in a single launch as much payload as 6 shuttles currently can.

The rockets are disposable.

I would not be surprised to see a future admin use private rockets to get crew and small loads to the ISS. Why? Just to keep us with the capacity to have multiple crew launch systems.

Re:Um...

[Naito]

no.
Enterprise hardly had any parts that were useful to the real shuttles. Endeavour was built from a brand new set of spares that NASA wanted built "just in case". They were entirely new parts, not reused ones from Enterprise.

Re:Um...

[squidguy]

Enterprise never carried any propulsion parts as all that was needed was boilerplate parts of the same mass for the drop tests. Mod parent up. This is entirely correct. Enterprise was mostly a shell, other than the cockpit, hydraulic systems, APU, flight controls and airframe. No engines or exo-atmospheric / on-orbit gear to speak of. Also remember that Enterprise whoilly consists of original equipment...it has never been upgraded so at this point in the lifecycle, very little could be used on the other orbiters.

Re:ISS in jeopardy?

[Lumpy]

This of course leaves no way to get to the newly constructed ISS to do research,

so all those Russian missions that dock there with crew and supplies are faked on the moon landing sound stages in Nevada then?

The United states is not the only country with a crew module that can make it to the ISS.

Re:A chance for a change. . .

[orac2]

if we ever get to the point where we just let them fail and replace them with another one.

Actually, except for a few satellites recovered/serviced by the shuttle (the total number of which could be counted on the fingers of one hand!), this is in fact the modus operandii for all satellites since sputnik. Generally, if it's an important enough constelation, a few 'spares' will even be kept on orbit so that service can be maintained even in the even of a premature failure, without waiting for a new satellite to be built and launched. Satellites towards the end of their lives are usually junked by either parking them in higher orbits, or deorbited and burn up in the atmosphere (for those too big to burn up completely, there's a big patch of the Pacific that's become a orbital graveyard of sorts)