Space Shuttle Mission Schedule

NASA Space Shuttle TV Schedule Transfer to Outlook Calendar1

This project was hosted on CodePlex which Microsoft closed and later decommissioned. Development on this project ended with wheel stop of the final flight of the Space Shuttle.

Project Description

The NASA Space Shuttle TV Schedule Transfer to Outlook Calendar provides an easy method for you to transfer NASA’s Space Shuttle mission schedules, published in Excel, to your Outlook Calendar.

With the retirement of CodePlex and eventual shutdown of CodePlex, this project has moved to SpaceShuttleTVSchedule on GitHub. Since the NASA Space Shuttle fleet was retired in July 2011, there has not been a need to update this project. I encourage all to visit the fleet at their retirement homes:

  • Discovery at Smithsonian Air and Space Museum-Udvar-Hazy
  • Atlantis at the Kennedy Space Center Visitors Complex
  • Endeavour at the California Science Center

On July 21, 2011, 5:57 AM EDT, landing announcer: “Having fired the imagination of a generation, a ship like no other, it’s place in history secured, the space shuttle pulls into port one final time. It’s voyage at an end.”

Atlantis Commander Chris “Fergie” Ferguson: “Mission complete, Houston. After serving the world for over 30 years, the space shuttle has earned its place in history. It’s come to a final stop.”

Houston CAPCOM, astronaut Barry “Butch” Wilmore: “We copy your wheels stopped, and we’ll take this opportunity to congratulate you, Atlantis, as well as the thousands of passionate individuals across this great, space-faring nation who truly empower this incredible spacecraft, which for three decades has inspired millions around the globe, Job well done.”

Atlantis Commander: Chris “Fergie” Ferguson: “Hey thanks, Butch, great words, great words. You know, the space shuttle has changed the way we view the world and it’s changed the way we view our universe. There are a lot of emotions today, but one thing is indisputable – America’s not going to stop exploring. Thank you Columbia, Challenger, Discovery, Endeavour and our ship, Atlantis. Thank you for protecting us and bringing this program to such a fitting end. God bless all of you, God bless the United States of America.”

“It was an honor to be a guest of NASA to be at the first and only @NASATweetup for a Space Shuttle landing. To see a Space Shuttle’s launch and landing was something I never expected.” Ralph Hightower, Idea Man, Chief Architect and Developer. “I was surprised hearing the twin sonic booms when the Space Shuttles announce their return to Earth. On television, the twin sonic booms sound like a muffled *boom.boom. In person, it sounds like BANG! BANG!, as if a gun was fired.”

Ralph Hightower’s view of the liftoff of Atlantis from the NASA Causeway, July 8, 2011. Camera: Canon A-1, 70-205mm zoom lens @ 205mm, Kodak Ektar 100 film. Copyright 2011, Ralph Hightower.

At 11:29 AM EDT, July 8, 2011, Space Shuttle Atlantis launched her final mission, ending 30 years of Space Shuttle flights. Ascent Commentator Rob Navias: “And liftoff. The final liftoff of Atlantis, shoulders of the Space Shuttle, America will continue the dream.” “Houston now controlling the flight of Atlantis as the Space Shuttle spreads its wings one final time for a sentimental journey into history.”* At MECO (Main Engine Cutoff): *“Booster officer confirms Main Engine Cutoff. For the last time the Space Shuttle Main Engines have fallen silent as the shuttle slips into the final chapter of a storied 30 year adventure.”

My interview with the local CBS affliliate WLTX: Ralph Hightower Wins NASA Tweetup to See Space Shuttle Atlantis Landing. The day before landing, I stopped by WLTX’s studio to appear live on their morning show in the 6 AM time slot on my drive down to Florida for the @NASATweetup STS-135 Landing Tweetup.

Mission Schedules

With the close of the Space Shuttle era, I uploaded my collection of the full set of Space Shuttle mission schedules, including as many revisions that are published during a particular mission, that I have. Head over to the Download page and download Mission Schedules.

Thirty years of Space Shuttle flights ended on July 21, 2011 at 5:57 AM EDT. STS-135. Atlantis official launch date was July 8, 2011 at 11:26:46 AM EDT for a 12 day mission to the International Space Station. Atlantis will carry the Raffaello multipurpose logistics module to deliver supplies, logistics and spare parts to the International Space Station. The mission also will fly a system to investigate the potential for robotically refueling existing spacecraft and return a failed ammonia pump module to help NASA better understand the failure mechanism and improve pump designs for future systems. After some drama with the weather not cooperating and at T-31 when the O2 vent hood signaled it hadn’t fully retracted at the launch pad, Atlantis and her crew of four, CDR Chris Ferguson, PLT Doug Hurley, MS1 Sandy Magnus, and MS2 Rex Walheim, rocketed into history at 11:39 AM EDT to close out the Space Shuttle program.

My Flickr Photo Set “STS-135: Final Launch of Space Shuttle Atlantis”

Where as the launch of Atlantis was filled with drama, the landing of Atlantis had none. There were no weather contrainst from bringing Atlantis home on July 21, 2011. The skies were crystal clear, or in the words of NASA Astronaut, Rick Sturckow, who was flying weather recon in the Shuttle Training Aircraft, “severe clear”. At the runway viewing site for NASA’s first and only Tweetup for a Space Shuttle landing, I was surprised by the twin sonic booms; they were sharp, crisp, and clear. On television, the twin sonic booms sounds like a muffled “boom. boom.” In person, the twin sonic booms sound like “BANG! BANG!”

My Flickr Photo Set “STS-135 Landing: Atlantis Pulls into Port One Final Time” Since the last Space Shuttle has entered retirement, this program also goes into retirement with the Space Shuttle fleet. I hope that you have found the program as useful as I have. If you are on Twitter, there are a number of different Tweetups to follow for the launch of Atlantis of the @NASA

FinalFour @NASA_Astronauts to launch on the Space Shuttle: Commander Christopher Ferguson @Astro_Ferg, Pilot Douglas G. Hurley @Astro_Doug, Mission Specialist Sandra H. Magnus @Astro_Sandy, and Mission Specialist Rex J. Walheim @Astro_Rex:

  1. @NASATweetup/sts-135-launch 150 Twitters, selected at random by NASA tweeted coverage of prelaunch activities and tours of KSC and tweet their experiences from the press site, 3 miles from the launch pad, at the iconic countdown clock.
  2. @CausewayTweetup/sts135-causewaytweetup An informal gathering of those who tweeted from the A Max Brewer Causeway, aka, the NASA Causeway, 6 miles from the action on the launch pad.
  3. @SVPTweetup: Another informal gathering of those that tweeted from Space View Park in Titusville, FL, 15 miles from launch site. People could register at http://svptweetup.eventbrite.com/.

Editorial Opinion

I do have to say that while the Space Shuttle cannot fly to the moon, nothing is comparable to the capabilities of the Space Shuttle to haul stuff up to low Earth orbit and also bring stuff back home. I find it sad that the Space Shuttle program is retired. I understand the reasons: after Challenger and Columbia, it was too cost prohibitive to recertify the Space Shuttle for flight. Constellation was underfunded from the get-go and became over-budget and behind schedule because of lack of adequate funding. Still, I am overjoyed that I will finally check off THE TOP ITEM on my bucket list! I saw the last launch of Apollo, the US half of the Apollo/Soyuz launch, July 15, 1975. I saw, I heard, I felt! The thunder from the Saturn vibrated my chest! I am so anxious to compare the two launch experiences.

New Version 1.4.134.3 required for STS-134 (Endeavour)

Version 1.4.134.3 fixed a problem detecting the end of Endeavour’s crew sleep period and is the recommended version for STS-134. A new version for Endeavour’s final mission, STS-134, has been published to CodePlex.

NASA Space Shuttle TV Schedule Release v1.4.134.2 is required for STS-134 mission schedules. There are three different sleep periods during the STS-134 mission, the Endeavour’s crew, the International Space Station crew, and Expedition 27/28 crew member, Ron Garan. Prior versions could accomodate Space Shuttle and ISS crew sleep schedules, but not three. This version now handles STS-134 mission schedule files published in Excel format.

Version numbering scheme: the third number reflects the mission number. Newer versions are backward compatible with prior missions.

STS-134. Endeavour landed June 1, 2011 at 2:35 AM EDT for her final mission. Endeavour launched on her final mission at 08:56:24 AM EDT, May 16, 2011. STS-134 is a 17 day mission for the 36th station flight (ULF6) to deliver EXPRESS Logistics Carrier 3 (ELC3), Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS). Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS) is a cool tool! You don’t want to miss this mission! This mission will be unique because ISS Expedition 27 crew will undock from their Soyuz and return to Earth. Changes to the AMS to switch out the helium cooled magnet for another magnet to extend the life of the AMS forced the delay of the mission. Below is the launch window for Endeavour. The April 29, 2011 launch was scrubbed due to a problem with an Auxiliary Power Unit thermostat.

STS-134 Related Notes Revision A of the schedule that NASA published does not have a revision date in the schedule. Open up the spreadsheet and put 5/16/11 in where REV A is and save the spreadsheet.

STS-114 Launch and Landing Photographs

Download this application before the Space Shuttle is retired! You didn’t? Well, that’s okay because I uploaded my collection of NASA’s Space Shuttle mission schedules to the Downloads.

Announcement

Do you answer yes to any of the following questions?

  1. Does the thunder and blaze of a launch still thrill you?
  2. Are you still interested in manned spaceflight?
  3. Do you still follow NASA’s Space Shuttle missions?

If you answered yes to any of the questions, then this program is for you! The NASA Space Shuttle TV Schedule Transfer to Outlook Calendar program reads the Excel spreadsheet for the Space Shuttle mission TV schedules provided by NASA on their web site, www.nasa.gov/, and can transfer the schedule into your Outlook Calendar. By “syncing” your PDA with Outlook, you can have the NASA Space Shuttle schedules in the palm of your hand. All you have to do is download the Excel spreadsheet from NASA to your local hard drive and then run the program and tell the program to open the Excel spreadsheet that you just downloaded.

Instructions for use:

  1. Create a category for the program to add to the schedule. I use “NASA TV Schedule - STS” and the program uses “NASA TV Schedule - STS” as the default. You want to assign a category to the mission schedule because the program will delete appointments by that category to revise the schedule.
  2. Download the Excel spreadsheet from NASA (http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/mission_schedule.html).
  3. Start the application and tell it to open the Excel file that you just downloaded.
  4. Select the events in the top half that you want to track in your Outlook calendar.
  5. Tell the program to transfer the selected events from the NASA schedule to your Outlook calendar.

There are several other buttons that make it easy as pushing a button to update your calendar, such as Select All, Remove Selected Events.

The Smart Select button looks at the date and time range of the NASA schedule file and selects those events in your Outlook calendar that is within the NASA schedule. This makes it easy to remove events and add rescheduled events.

The “New Schedule Update” button makes it easy for you to open the revised schedule and have the program automagically update your schedule.

NASA Links

  • NASA - Space Shuttle
  • NASA - Shuttle Mission TV Schedule
  • NASA - International Space Station

Program Requirements:

  • Excel
  • Outlook

Microsoft Primary Interop Assembly (pick one of the below)

  • Office 2003 Update: Redistributable Primary Interop Assemblies
  • 2007 Microsoft Office System Update: Redistributable Primary Interop Assemblies

Programming Article

The technical article, NASA Space Shuttle TV Schedule Transfer to Outlook Calendar, published on CodeProject describes the programming aspects and development of the program, as well as the reasons for creating the program and problems encountered during the development process.

Technologies Used:

  • C#
  • Microsoft Excel
  • Microsoft Outlook
  • Microsoft Visual Studio 2005
  • Microsoft Visual Studio Tools for Office

Reason for Development

I wanted an easier way to keep track of the television schedule for Space Shuttle missions. Prior to my seeing a need for this application, I manually entered key events, such as launch and landing, and the flight day highlights into my calendar in Outlook.

NASA publishes the television schedules for Space Shuttle missions as a PDF file and as an Excel spreadsheet. In addition, NASA makes frequent revisions to the schedule during a mission. NASA broadcasts the Space Shuttle missions on satellite, and their programming is available on streaming video from their website and affiliates, direct broadcast satellite, such as Direct TV or DISH Network, and on many cable systems. During a Space Shuttle mission, NASA frequently revises their television schedule. There can be fifteen to twenty revisions for a mission, and each mission can have as many as two hundred events. That clearly demands a solution to automate.

Since Microsoft published the Visual Studio Tools for Office, I saw this as a perfect opportunity to create a program that reads the television schedules in Excel format and adds the schedule to my Calendar in Outlook as appointments.

  1. Support of SpaceShuttleMissionSchedule ended with wheelstop of Space Shuttle Atlantis on July 21, 2011 with the end of the Space Shuttle fleet. ↩