NASA 'nauts wrap last spacewalk of shuttle era

When Atlantis launched Friday, it had one primary mission: resupply the International Space Station. And when it returns to Earth, another spaceship is ready to take on that mission — for a profit.

A California firm has both a rocket and a $1.6 billion NASA contract that could have it supplying the ISS by the end of the year. Within the next six months, SpaceX plans to make its first test dock with the orbiting lab and deliver supplies, a major step in NASA’s strategy to remain in space without a spaceship of its own.

“We see Dragon and Falcon 9 as inheriting the Shuttle’s legacy,’’ SpaceX spokesman Bobby Block said of the company’s capsule and rocket, both built using nearly $300 million in NASA seed money.

The shift from NASA-owned ships to essentially rented vessels has sparked a wave of worry over the future of space travel in general. Perhaps nowhere is the anxiety more pronounced than in Brevard County, the heart of Florida’s fabled Space Coast.

Through attrition, layoffs and canceled contracts in a process that began in 2008, the retirement of the shuttle program is expected to cost the region $2.8 billion in economic activity, and about 13,000 jobs. United Space Alliance, a consortium of private contractors responsible for many of the shuttle operations, told Florida regulators they plan to eliminate more than 1,900 jobs within the next six weeks alone.

During today's 6 hour, 31 minute EVA, Fossum and Garan also installed the Robotic Refueling Mission (RRM) experiment onto a platform on the Special Purpose Dexterous Manipulator, aka Dextre.

NASA explains: "In the future, the RRM will demonstrate robotic refueling technology and techniques using Dextre, four unique RRM tools and an RRM enclosure filled with refueling components and activity boards.

"The tests will demonstrate that remote-controlled robots can perform refueling tasks in orbit, using commands sent from controllers on Earth. RRM is expected to reduce costs and risks, and lay the foundation for future robotic servicing missions."

To wrap their excursion's major tasks, the pair installed the Optical Reflector Materials Experiment, part of the Materials on International Space Station Experiment - 8 (MISSE-8), which is designed as "a test bed for materials and computing elements" which are "evaluated for the effects of atomic oxygen, ultraviolet, direct sunlight, radiation, and extremes of heat and cold.