Despite NASA declining to confirm that Space Shuttle Discovery’s mission STS-133 will leave the Italian designed and built Multi-Purpose Logistics Module Raffaello at the station and the latest mission information echoing comments made to Hyperbola by the space agency’s ISS programme manager, the Space Shuttle programme manifest below shows that STS-133’s payload is being referred to as PLM, the acronym for the Permanent Logistics Module project. This involves modifying Raffaello for its permanent attachment to the space station
The manifest also shows that Shuttle’s last mission, STS-133, occuring in September but during NASA administrator Charles Bolden’s interview with this blogger on Monday 12 October at the International Astronautical Congress in Deajeon, Korea he said that Shuttle would retire in 2011. Bolden is a former Shuttle astronaut and like many close to the programme probably expects slippage in the busy 2010 launch schedule
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