Stephen Gerard Bowen is a United States Navy submariner and a NASA astronaut; he was the second submariner to travel into space. Bowen has been on three spaceflights, all of which were Space Shuttle missions to the International Space Station. His first mission, STS-126, took place in November 2008, and his second was STS-132 in May 2010. In March 2011, Bowen completed his third spaceflight as a Mission Specialist on STS-133, which was Space Shuttle Discovery's final planned flight. Having flown on both STS-132 and STS-133, Bowen became the first and only astronaut to fly on consecutive shuttle missions. Originally Tim Kopra was scheduled to fly on STS-133, but Kopra had a bicycle injury shortly before the mission, and so he was replaced by Bowen.
STS-126 was a Space Shuttle mission to the International Space Station (ISS) flown by Space Shuttle Endeavour. The purpose of the mission, referred to as ULF2 by the ISS program, was to deliver equipment and supplies to the station, to service the Solar Alpha Rotary Joints (SARJ), and repair the problem in the starboard SARJ that had limited its use since STS-120.
Low Earth OrbitSTS-132 was the second to last flight of Atlantis and an ISS assembly flight with the primary payload being the Russian Rassvet Mini-Research Module. The flight also carried the Integrated Cargo Carrier-Vertical Light Deployable (ICC-VLD). The mission began on May 14th 2010 at 1820 UTC launching Commander Kenneth Ham, Pilot Domonic A. Antonelli, Mission Specialist 1 Garrett Reisman, Mission Specialist 2 Michael T. Good, Mission Specialist 3 Stephen G. Bowen & Mission Specialist 4 Piers Sellers to orbit. They docked with the ISS 2 days after launch. During the mission 3 spacewalks were conducted to install a spare space to ground Ku band antenna and to conduct general maintenence on the ISS. The mission concluded after 11 days & 18 hours on May 26th 2010 at 1249:18 UTC.
Low Earth OrbitSTS-133 was an ISS assembly flight. Payload included the Permanent Multipurpose Module Leonardo, which was left permanently docked to one of the station's ports. The shuttle also carried the third of four ExPRESS Logistics Carriers to the ISS, as well as a humanoid robot called Robonaut.
Low Earth OrbitThe National Aeronautics and Space Administration is an independent agency of the executive branch of the United States federal government responsible for the civilian space program, as well as aeronautics and aerospace research. NASA have many launch facilities but most are inactive. The most commonly used pad will be LC-39B at Kennedy Space Center in Florida.