Space Shuttle Atlantis Launch At 2:28 PM ET To Be Tweeted Live

by Yuliya Talmazan | November 16, 2009 at 09:55 am

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Space Shuttle Atlantis STS-129 will launch at 2:28 PM ET from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida for its last mission of the year. The shuttle launch will be Tweeted live from Cape Canaveral by 100 Twitter users who were the first ones to sign up for the Tweetup on NASA's website on October 16. The spots filled up in the first 20 minutes. The hashtag for the occasion is #nasatweetup.

Among Twitterers who will be Tweeting Atlantis launch live today are Oliver Hine, whose Tweets are available here -- http://twitter.com/oliverhine, Steve Wake -- at http://twitter.com/stevewake, and Laura Burns at http://twitter.com/moonrangerlaura. NASA estimates the collective following of the 100 Twitter users who will be Tweeting Atlantis launch live is over 150,000.

Some of NASA's astronauts have been Tweeting from space, including Mike Massimino at http://twitter.com/Astro_Mike, Leland Melvin at http://twitter.com/Astro_Flow, and Ron Garan at http://twitter.com/Astro_Ron. One of Mission STS-129 crew members will also be Tweeting from space -- Dr. Robert L. Satcher can be followed at http://twitter.com/ZeroG_MD.

Meanwhile, there is a 70% chance that the shuttle launch will proceed as planned.

The shuttle's crew includes commander Charles O. Hobaugh, pilot Barry E. Wilmore, mission specialists Robert L. Satcher Jr., Mike Foreman, Randy Bresnik and Leland Melvin.

The six astronauts will take off aboard SS Atlantis for an 11-day mission on International Space Station. Three space walks will be performed during the mission, which will deliver critical spare parts to the Station to load up the ISS with spare parts while space shuttles are still flying. In total, 27,250 pounds of equipment will be delivered with Atlantis -- two gyroscopes, EXPRESS Logistics Carrier 1 and 2, nitrogen tanks, ammonia tanks, power control unit, battery charge/discharge unit and other equipment.

“You’ll see this theme in some of the flights that are going to come after ours as well,” said Brian Smith, the lead space station flight director for the mission. “This flight is all about spares – basically, we’re getting them up there while we still can.”

US Space Shuttle program is scheduled to be retired in 2010 after only six more space shuttle flights. However, there are discussions to delay the retirement of the shuttle fleet until 2013.

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