NCESSE was informed by NanoRacks and ITA this morning that NASA has revised the launch of STS-134 to No Earlier Than (NET) May 16, which is now a more than 2 week delay relative to the original April 29 launch date. The timeline for payload prep and handover to NASA must now drive against a May 16 launch.
Here is the NEW revised schedule (defined in concert with both NanoRacks and ITA):
New experiment samples must arrive no later than Friday morning, May 13 (FedEx arrival by 10:30-11:00 am is fine)
Reload of experiment samples into the mini-lab will begin Friday evening, May 13
Mini-lab reloading will be complete by midnight Saturday, May 14
payload is turned over to NASA (at likely 5:00 am) Sunday, May 15
launch on Monday, May 16
Recommendation to flight experiment teams sending perishable samples: for samples to arrive Friday morning, May 13, you would likely consider a Thursday (May 12) drop-off of samples at your local FedEx site. That is 6 days from now. In the intervening time, NASA may again delay the launch, so we now have a few days to wait and see if the launch plan changes yet again.
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