STS-120
From The Space Library
 | |
| Organization | NASA-Office of Space Flight (United States) |
|---|---|
| Mission type | Resupply/Refurbishment/Repair |
| Launch date | October 23, 2007 |
| Launch vehicle | Space Shuttle |
| Launch site | Cape Canaveral, United States |
| COSPAR ID | 2007-050A |
| Experiments | Here |
| Alternate Names | 32272 |
| Additional Information | Here |
| Data Collection | Here |
| Payload Mass Up | 15337.31 kg |
STS 120 is an American shuttle satellite that was launched from Cape Canaveral at 15:38 UT on 23 October 2007, on its way to the International Space Station (ISS). It carried seven astronauts (six Americans and an Italian) and several tonnes of material to the station. It docked with the ISS on 25 October. In the first spacewalk on 26 October, two astronauts moved and installed an Italian-built, 4.4 m diameter, 7.2 m long, 14.3 tonne aluminum tubular module named Harmony to facilitate connecting, in future, the European Columbus laboratory in December 07, and the Japanese Kibo laboratory in February and April of 2008. Harmony will be the passage corridor between the American Destiny labs and these future labs. On the second spacewalk, two astronauts moved a pre-installed massive truss to a different location. The truss work continued on the third spacewalk, when they noticed that there was a 90 cm long tear on the solar panel. Additionally, the rotary joint that aims another panel to the Sun was also discovered to be in need of repair/replacement. The fourth four-hour long spacewalk by a single astronaut on 3 November was confined to successfully repairing the torn solar panel with "cuff links", and ensuring full power availability. The rotary joint problem was deferred to until the next shuttle mission. The contemplated additional inspection of the shuttle tiles was also determined to be ignorable. The shuttle is scheduled to leave the station on 5 November 2007, returning to Earth by 7 November.
Mission patch: 
